Once again, life has gotten in the way of posting.

I realized the other day that I missed the birthday of J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter (July 31, for the uninformed). Last year, I posted on their birthday as a way to show my appreciation. I hadn’t actually planned a post for this year, since I posted about Harry Potter in February, but when I realized that I hadn’t even noticed the day passing, I felt bad (I think it’s a nerd thing). As a personal way to make up for it, I am now planning to make a post every year on July 31^st. Obviously, this one is late, but I will endeavor to not be late again.

Also, I apologize for two Harry Potter posts in a row. Other posts have been planned and either abandoned or are chugging along slowly a sentence or paragraph at a time but are still not ready to be posted. Hopefully, I will have another finished and ready to post soon.

So, for my 2^nd annual Harry Potter post (discounting the one I made in February), I want to talk about theories I have read about or seen on the internet. There are a lot of theories out there, so for this post, I will discuss my top five favorite theories. Favorite not necessarily because I believe them, but because I think they are well thought out. Rowling has either confirmed or denied many theories over the year, but not the following, as far as I know.

Note: As always, SPOILERS are a given.

5. Ginny dosed Harry with a love potion sometime during Half Blood Prince. (original reddit post)

Evidence

• One of the motifs of this particular book is potions, with an emphasis on love potions.
  • At Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, Fred and George’s joke shop, Fred shows Hermione and Ginny their line of love potions, and Ginny asks if they actually work.
  • A huge focus on Potions class, including a discussion of the potion Amortentia, which Slughorn says is probably the most danger potion in his room at the time; it causes powerful infatuation or obsession. The original poster says that this potion’s effects mirror Harry’s feelings for Ginny through the book.
  • Harry learns that Merope Gaunt dosed Tom Riddle Sr. (Voldemort’s father).
  • Romilda Vane tries to dose Harry with candy; Ron finds them and gets dosed instead.
• Up until this book, Harry shows no particular interest in Ginny other than that of a friend or even a brother, but Ginny has been infatuated with him since the beginning. Harry’s feelings for Ginny (almost) seem to come out of nowhere.

My Thoughts

Okay so other than the fact that Rowling has stated that Harry did love Ginny (she didn’t actually deny the involvement of a potion, I don’t think), I have a few big problems with this theory.

The poster says that the effects of Amortentia (powerful infatuation or obsession) mirror Harry’s feelings toward Ginny, but I disagree. Harry is jealous of Dean and maybe he obsesses a bit, but it’s not unlike most teenaged love. Harry doesn’t act anything like Ron when he accidentally ingests Romilda’s love potion. Slughorn says that Amortentia is powerful and dangerous. Hermione even calls it the most powerful love potion in the world. If Ginny dosed Harry it would need to be a powerful potion, stronger that any Romilda could get her hands on, so why doesn’t Harry act like Ron?

This theory hinges on the fact that before Half Blood Prince, Harry doesn’t treat Ginny as anything more than a friend, and this is true. However, the big question I have for this is when is Ginny supposed to have dosed Harry? Potions are fast acting, so if we go by Harry’s first big moment of showing feelings for Ginny (in the books, of course), it happens when he and Ron catch Ginny and Dean making out in a deserted hallway. Harry has a big flare of jealousy and then spends time after that fantasizing about her. Now, this happens in Chapter 14 before they win their first quidditch match. There doesn’t seem to be a time when she could have slipped him a drink. If she did it earlier, why did it take so long for the effects to manifest, especially since, as I said before, it would need to be a powerful potion?

Through the series, a big motif is real love, and how it’s more powerful than various forms other “love.” For example, Harry’s mother died for him, creating a powerful love charm in his blood. Another, Voldemort can’t possess Harry because of the love he feels for others, because Voldemort has never known real love; he’s only knows envy and power. As a responder to the original post says, this theory messes up everything Rowling worked for.

I do not believe Ginny dosed Harry with a love potion. For anyone who reads the book carefully, you can see that Harry’s feelings build slowly (he’s upset when he realizes she’s not going to sit with him on the train and then annoyed when they don’t run into her during their first Hogsmead visit). He acts more like a boy who never really thought about the girl before and starts to realize she’s pretty awesome. He enjoys her company and misses her when she’s gone. It is only when he actually sees her kissing Dean that the feelings become apparent as something more. A jolt in his own mind that he cares about her as more than just a friend.

4. The Dursleys are awful to Harry because he is a Horcrux. (Not sure who originally posted this theory.)

Evidence

The effects of long-term exposure to a Horcrux are established in both Chamber of Secrets and Deathly Hallows, by way of young Riddle’s diary and the locket, respectively. In Chamber, we don’t know that the diary was a Horcrux; we find this out in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore starts explaining Horcruxes to Harry. Then after reading about the locket’s effect on Ron in Hallows, a rereading of Chamber will show that Ginny displayed similar symptoms. Not the anger, but she is mentally and physically effected by the diary.

So, what does this have to do with the Dursleys? As we learn near the end of Hallows, Harry has been a Horcrux since that fateful night. The Dursleys took him in (grudgingly) which means for nearly ten years before he went to Hogwarts they had constant exposure to a Horcrux.

My Thoughts

I think this is a good theory, but it has major flaws, the first being that Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and by extension Dudley, are horrible people before Harry comes to live with them. In the Prologue of Sorcerer’s Stone, Vernon is the POV character for the majority, and he is not portrayed as anything other than what we see of him for the rest of the books. In the same chapter, McGonagall can’t believe Dumbledore intends to leave Harry with the Dursleys because of what she witnessed from them all day. Later, we learn Petunia desperately wished to be special like Lily and resented her sister ever since she went to Hogwarts. And although I don’t think Rowling has specifically stated that this theory is false, she posted a story on Pottermore that says pretty much the same thing.

Second, no one else exposed to Harry treats him badly, with a few exceptions that can be easily explained. This is particularly important when you consider Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean all shared a dorm room with Harry for six years. The only time there are any real big disagreements between the boys are when Ron gets jealous of Harry being a Triwizard Champion and when Seamus almost didn’t return to school fifth year because of what The Daily Prophet was saying about Dumbledore and Harry. Neither of these incidents is extreme, nor do they take that long to resolve.

Of course, this brings up the question, if this theory is false, how can people be around Harry without being affected? The answer is pretty simple actually: Harry. Everything that makes up who Harry is counteracts the effects of being a Horcrux. (Remember how Voldemort can’t possess him because of his love for others?) Another possibility is that Harry is a living being. The only other example of a living Horcrux is Nagini, but there isn’t enough evidence to say whether she affects people or not.

So, while I think it’s a good theory, I also think it is false.

3. Neville was never inept at magic; he just had the wrong wand. (Not sure who came up with this one.)

Evidence

In Deathly Hallows, Ollivander explains a bit about wandlore, particularly about how a wand’s allegiance might be won. We also see Harry use Hermione’s wand with okay effects after his own is broken by a rebounding curse and then use an unfamiliar Hawthorne wand with not-so-okay effects. The climax of the book boils down to the fact that wands have minds of their own (basically) and decide for themselves who their masters are. The first time Harry met Ollivander, the wand maker said the wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.

Poor Neville, though, must not have known this as a young wizard going to Hogwarts for the first time. He chose to use his father’s wand. If you are unfortunate enough to be a movie only Potter fan (how dare you!) then you don’t really know the entire story of Neville’s upbringing. Oh, you know that his parents were tortured into madness by a group of Death Eaters sometime after Voldemort disappeared. You know that his formidable grandmother raised him, and that he is almost as afraid of her as he is of Snape (thank you, Prisoner of Azkaban). But what you don’t know, is that said grandmother is fiercely proud of her son, Frank, of the wizard he was before he was tortured and of the sacrifice he made. Neville is forced to live up to the memory his parents left behind. And no matter what he does, he seems to fail at living up to that memory, especially in his grandmother’s eyes.

During the attack on the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, Frank Longbottom’s wand is broken by a curse, and Neville has to get a new wand. In fact, the purchase of the wand is one of the first things Neville tells Harry when they meet on the train to Hogwarts in Half Blood Prince. From this point on, Neville’s luck seems to improve, and he even becomes to foremost dissenter of the new Hogwarts regime in Deathly Hallows, a protector of the weak even when all hope seems lost, living up to the memory of his parents and making his grandmother proud.

My Thoughts

I find this theory not only interesting but also surprisingly hard to deny. The wandlore is there from the moment Harry walks into Ollivander’s shop: the wand chooses the wizard. Neville was using the wrong wand. However, I do have a quibble about the idea that the wand was the only reason Neville was inept at magic, but I don’t know if my evidence is enough. Hear me out.

The wand breaks at the end of Order of the Phoenix, but what else happens? Neville, along with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all go to the Ministry of Magic and fight a battle with Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. This is of course how the wand breaks.

I want you to imagine you’re Neville Longbottom. Your parents aren’t dead, but they don’t really recognize you either. They live in St. Mungo’s in the Long-Term Care ward, and you visit them often. You love them, even though you know they can’t return that affection, and you’re proud of them for what they withstood. You live with your grandmother, a woman who spends years singing the praises of your parents. She loves you, but every little thing you do wrong (you’re a child, so you do things wrong all the time) brings a “when Frank was your age” to her lips. Before you even get your letter to Hogwarts, you KNOW you will never be as good as your father, no matter what you do. You try, but it will never be good enough.

Would it even matter if you had the right wand?

Neville slowly gains confidence during the DA meetings, and when he and the others go to the Ministry is when the biggest change happens. Because after that, he KNOWS that even if he isn’t the most talented wizard, he still has to stand up and protect the people he cares about and do everything in his power to stop Voldemort.

Since these two things (Neville’s possible realization and the breaking of his wand) happen at the same time, it is almost impossible to say which one had the most effect on Neville. I guess I will leave it for you to decide.

2. You have to ask the Sorting Hat to be in Gryffindor. (Maybe not the original theorist, but I’m not sure who is.)

Evidence

Aside from the obvious (Harry tells the Sorting Hat he doesn’t want to be in Slytherin and also tells his son Albus that the Hat takes the students’ wishes into account), there are a few other clues leading to this conclusion.

Let’s start with the Golden Trio. As already established, the Hat thought Harry would be suited to Slytherin. We don’t need to expound on that. Ron, while certainly brave at times, seems more suited for Hufflepuff, the biggest example being his loyalty. Hermione, on the other hand, seems better suited for Ravenclaw and is even asked why she isn’t in Ravenclaw later on, by a Ravenclaw (I can’t remember which one off the top of my head—maybe Padma, Pravati’s sister). Of course, it is possible that Rowling specifically wanted the main three to represent the other houses, so this isn’t necessarily proof.

However, what about some other Gryffindors? Percy Weasley, with his constant studying, seems more like a Ravenclaw. The twins actually show signs of both Ravenclaw (their talent for creating new things) and Slytherin (their ambition to open a joke shop). Lupin, with his brilliance at Defense Against the Dark Arts (and in one of Snape’s memories, he’s seen studying/reading while James and Sirius get up to mischief), also seems more suited to Ravenclaw. Hagrid, with his fierce loyalty to Dumbledore and Harry, seems more suited to Hufflepuff. I could go on, but you get the idea.

And what about those from the other houses who show the traits of a Lion? Luna Lovegood, although she’d say it was because they were her friends, goes to the Ministry of Magic without question. Cedric Diggory at the end of the third task in the tournament, when he and Harry save each other from an enormous spider (in the book only, unfortunately), could have taken the cup after Harry distracted the spider but instead he chose to fight with Harry. All of the students of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw who stay behind to fight against the Death Eaters during the Battle of Hogwarts. Regulus Black when he went against Voldemort to take the Horcrux locket. And Severus Snape (even though he is an awful human being) who, perhaps grudgingly, returned to the Death Eaters as a double agent knowing it would probably mean his own death.

As you can see, there are examples everywhere in the books of people showing the traits of the other houses.

My Thoughts

I don’t have much more to add to this. I think the theory is solid, even if you only look at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Why wouldn’t Ron, who as the sixth son is always trying to prove himself, prefer to be in the same house as his brothers even if he were more suited to Hufflepuff. He wouldn’t want to disappoint his family. And Hermione says before they are sorted that she heard Gryffindor was the best house, and knowing Hermione, she would want the best even if it meant not going into Ravenclaw which is more suited to her.

I also think it comes down to what Dumbledore says, that he thinks they sort too young. Perhaps the point is everyone can show bravery, loyalty, cleverness, and cunning. Whether you have to ask the Hat to be in Gryffindor or not doesn’t really matter.

1. Harry is now immortal. (Not sure where this one came from either.)

Evidence

The evidence is in the prophecy (Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 37):

“THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES…BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES…AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT…AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HANDS OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES…THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES…”

As you can see, the prophecy has very specific wording: “either MUST die at the hands of the other.” Does anything more need to be said? Harry killed Voldemort, and Harry is still alive. If they MUST die at each other’s hands, how is Harry supposed to die?

My Thoughts

Okay, so my thoughts on this are a little bit on both sides, and I’ll explain why.

I can’t deny the wording of the prophecy. Just bringing this to my attention is enough to make me go, “hmm.” It is a seriously strong theory without a lot of explanation.

However, here’s my question: if part of the prophecy is fulfilled, does it still apply? See, Harry dies…at the hand of Voldemort. So, if he already died at the hand of Voldemort, doesn’t that mean that part of the prophecy is fulfilled? Does he still have to die at the hand of Voldemort if he already did? The prophecy doesn’t say he can only die at the hand of Voldemort, just that he must.

Now, if my thoughts are wrong, and Harry is now immortal, that sucks so bad. Because Harry had a choice. He chose to return to his life in order to stand up for his friends and defeat Voldemort. In doing so, he gave up his chance for death and eternal rest with his family, but the sacrifice he made in the forest imbued everyone in Hogwarts with the same protection charm that Lily gave to him. So, he not only died for everyone; he gave up his afterlife. How freaking awful.

So, what are your thoughts? Are these interesting theories? Is there one you like better? Are my thoughts just totally wrong? Let me know what you think.

Image: www.pexels.com