The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Harry Potter, Descendant of Godric Gryffindor?

June 25th, 2007

Check out Alan Jacobs’s speculations about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first few are fairly common consensus: R.A.B. is Regulus Black, Snape will die a noble death, Dumbledore used Legilimency to tell Snape to kill him. There are thoughtful observations here, but the argument gets really interesting on the issue of Harry as Horcrux. Here’s Jacobs’s theory:

“Among Potter fans, an idea which has gained in popularity over the last two years is this: When Voldemort tried unsuccessfully to kill the infant Harry, he made Harry himself, or perhaps the scar which the boy received at that moment, a Horcrux. There are two problems with this theory. First, we are told that when a Horcrux is made the soul is placed in “an object outside the body,” but it is not clear how that “object” could be someone else’s body, since there would already be a soul located there. Second, the theory assumes either that Voldemort didn’t try to kill Harry at all—which contradicts Voldemort himself, who says that he tried to kill Harry—or that a Horcrux can be made accidentally.

I do not think it possible that a Horcrux could be made without intent and care; but the idea that despite what he has said Voldemort did not mean to kill Harry at all, but rather to make him (or his scar) into a Horcrux, is intriguing. I have been extremely skeptical of the whole scar-as-a-Horcrux idea until one thought came to my mind. It concerns Godric Gryffindor. Bear with me for a moment, please, as I descend into the bottomless cavern of sheer speculation.

1. Dumbledore believes that Voldemort wanted four of his Horcruxes to be associated with the four founders of Hogwarts: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Voldemort’s own ancestor Salazar Slytherin.
2. But one problem with this scheme, if indeed it is Voldemort’s scheme, is that the only known relic of Godric Gryffindor, a great sword, rests safely in the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
3. When Harry fought against the great basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, he pulled that very sword out of the Sorting Hat, and Dumbledore told him that “only a true Gryffindor” could have done that.
4. Harry takes the Headmaster to mean simply that the Sorting Hat did the right thing when it placed Harry in Gryffindor House—but what if there’s more to it than that? So far, we have learned nothing at all about Harry’s father’s family, though that is his wizardly side (his mother came from Muggle stock); in fact, Rowling has been curiously silent about that half of Harry’s ancestry. We do know one interesting fact, though: that Harry’s parents lived in a village called Godric’s Hollow—and the only Godric we have met in the six books so far is the great Gryffindor. Could it be that, just as Voldemort is the only known descendent of Salazar Slytherin, Harry is a (or the) descendent of Godric Gryffindor?
5. If so, that would make him, from one point of view, a “relic” of Gryffindor, and therefore a potentially fit location for a Horcrux. It is at least possible that when Voldemort came to the infant Harry’s house that fateful night he had something other than Harry’s murder on his mind. In any case, I feel sure that we will learn much more about Harry’s ancestry in the seventh book, and that it will illuminate the nature of the bond between him and Voldemort. We may even discover that there is a reason why—this is something Voldemort’s ghostly image notes when he meets Harry in the Chamber of Secrets—why they even look alike.”

I like it. What do y’all think?

I have to admit, I’m not entirely looking forward to Book 7, because Rowling does humor so much better than she does anything dealing with good and evil (or anything of mythic proportions, really, except Snape–and I am eagerly anticipating Snape’s death, because it will no doubt be redemptive). I will enjoy the general cultural flurry surrounding the book’s release, and if my loving husband and I can share the book nicely, we’ll no doubt have it finished within 48 hours.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized