Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In today’s brief video, we’re
going to be taking a look at Harry Potter’s first encounter with the afterlife. More specifically,
we’re going to be discussing Harry’s experience with, well..death, and explaining what he
saw and took in during the brief period that he spent in limbo. In case you had forgotten,
Harry of course dies after travelling to the Forbidden Forest to meet Voldemort:
“Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he
could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear— He saw the mouth
move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.”
The next thing we know, Harry is beginning to regain consciousness- from here he quickly
realizes that he’s no longer in the Forbidden Forest. In fact, entirely disoriented, he
didn’t know WHERE he was, all he knew was that it was unlike any other place that he
had been before.
"He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before.
His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapour; rather the cloudy vapour had not yet
formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor
cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be."
His environment was completely surreal, and Harry had lost all of his bearings. In fact,
he had no idea if what he was experiencing was real, or just a figment of his imagination.
This is reflected in his exchange with Dumbledore before returning to life.
"Tell me one last thing. Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
To Which Dumbledore replies:
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that
it is not real?"
However, before leaving the afterlife and sharing a lengthy, enlightening discussion
with Dumbledore, Harry notices something:
“Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small
soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise,
yet also slightly indecent. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was eavesdropping on something
furtive, shameful.”
“Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before
his eyes. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small,
naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay
shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling
for breath”
“He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want
to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment.
Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt
like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.”
"You cannot help."
He spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and upright, wearing
sweeping robes of midnight blue.
And the ‘thing’ that Harry had witnessed on the floor whimpered throughout his conversation
with Dumbledore- wriggling around pathetically. So what, you may ask, was the ‘small, naked
child’ on the floor of Harry’s own ethereal version of Kings Cross?
Many fans believe that the ‘child’ on the floor of Kings Cross was in fact the part
of Voldemort’s soul that previously resided within Harry. We know that Harry carried a
piece of Voldemort with him for his entire life, and so it seems to make sense that-
with Harry dying and this soul shard now destroyed- it would follow him to the afterlife. However,
though this is CLOSE to the answer, it’s actually wrong.
According to JK Rowling the being stuck in limbo with Harry wasn't the horcrux within
himself, but rather the current state of Voldemort's soul.
“What exactly was the mutilated baby-like creature Harry saw at King's Cross in chapter
35 of 'Hallows'?”
“I’ve been asked this a LOT. It is the last piece of soul Voldemort possesses. When
Voldemort attacks Harry, they both fall temporarily unconscious, and both their souls - Harry's
undamaged and healthy, Voldemort’s stunted and maimed - appear in the limbo where Harry
meets Dumbledore.”
In essence, it’s a representation of Voldemort’s maimed soul- rather than the piece of destroyed
soul that resided within Harry- the most common interpretation of Harry’s run-in with this
odd creature. Voldemort lived a cursed life where he would routinely rip his own soul
apart in pursuit of immortality, and such acts come at a great cost. The pathetic, wriggling
child squirming along the floor, was all that was left of Voldemort’s soul.
And that’s it for this video! Did you know the answer to this already? Did you know the
most commonly-thought answer or the actual answer? Let me know in the comment section
below.
Until next time
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that
it is not real?"