How will Harry defeat Voldemort without becoming a murderer? Harry will have to vanquish Voldemort in one way or another, but I think he will not be using Avada Kedavra to do this.

Harry and Murder

I strongly feel that Harry will not commit murder!

As Dumbledore explains, Harry has the ability “the Dark Lord knows not” -- that is, the ability to love. If Harry were to use the Killing Curse, which requires pure hatred, this is forgetting his advantage.

Love has already saved his life three times (at Godric’s Hollow, while facing Quirrell, and in the Department of Mysteries) and it will likely come into play once more. For Harry to push this love from within in an effort to murder is an unwise decision.

Harry’s heart will prevent him from performing the Killing Curse, “the supreme act of evil.” Harry is pure of heart, as he has always been and will remain so. Harry may choose not to murder, feeling this is not morally right.

He has a choice in how to destroy Voldemort and I don’t think this is how we will do this. I can’t imagine Harry lowering himself to Voldemort’s rank, to the point where one is cruel enough to take another’s life.

If Harry chose murder, it would split his soul. If Harry murdered Voldemort, this means his “whole and untarnished” soul would be no more, as Slughorn tells a young Tom Riddle that killing rips the soul apart.

Harry definitely wants Voldemort vanquished, but he may come to a point at which he realizes he does not want to kill Voldemort, but destroy him through other means. He may search for a different approach.

I personally wouldn’t want Harry to lower himself to the point where he would kill another, not even one as evil as Voldemort. I do not want Harry to be a murderer! If Harry committed murder, it would not be a happy ending.

There must be other ways.

The Mysterious Spell

If not by Avada Kedavra, how will Harry kill Voldemort?

As Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog wizard card states in Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore “defeated” Grindelwald in 1945. How exactly did he “defeat” Grindelwald? There’s no indication that he murdered this Dark wizard.

Is there a spell that can defeat a person without killing? Actually, there is a mysterious spell mentioned in Order of the Phoenix:

Dumbledore flicked his own wand. The force of the spell that emanated from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his stone guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed, and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gonglike note reverberated from it, an oddly chilling sound...
“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”
“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly.
(pp. 813-814, OotP, American hardcover edition)

This is what we know: There is a spell that destroys a person without killing. It seems there is no way of deflecting it (much like Avada Kedavra) without a magical shield of some sort. Yet it left no physical damage.

We know to cast an Unforgivable Curse, one needs to concentrate their hatred. Maybe this spell is similar, in that one must concentrate their love to cast it. As love is the one power Harry has that Voldemort does not, I think that using love as a force in this way against Voldemort is a plausible idea.

Harry has to discover how to use this spell on his own. I’m sure he is not going to find the spell to this one in a textbook. We know Dumbledore and Voldemort are both familiar with this spell, so reviewing Dumbledore’s battle with Grindelwald will be of help, especially if this is the same spell. I’m pretty sure it is.

Whatever the effects of this spell (and we can only guess at this point), I think this is exactly what Harry needs to defeat Voldemort!

10/2/06

Posted by: Sara