I've been thinking about something for a while that hasn't exactly made much sense to me. Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of PoA that since he spared Peter Pettigrew's life, that Peter was indebted to Harry, and in DH he showed a moment of mercy to Harry at Malfoy Manor. Dumbledore also stated that when a wizard saves another wizard's life, the act itself evokes a bond between them: "This is magic at it's deepest, it's most impenetrable". If this is true, then wasn't Snape indebted to James in the very same way since James saved his life when they were students at Hogwarts?

Is it stated anywhere in canon, or eluded to, for example, how Snape paid James back for saving his life? And if Snape couldn't return the favor to James, since James died so young and so quickly at the hands of Voldemort, is it possible for this kind of life debt to be carried over to offspring; in this case Harry?

Do any other characters in HP have life debts to each other; and if so, when/how was this magic evoked? How is this "bond" realized, and can this deep magical bond be broken somehow?

You know, I never really understood that part in PoA, as far as how it affects the following books. The only thing Pettigrew ever does to benefit Harry at all is apparently deciding not to kill him in the DH chapter, Malfoy Manor. But this only happened after Harry says something to the effect of, "I saved your life!" (which may not be exactly what he said, but that's generally what he meant at that moment) He isn't forced to do anything in this moment that wasn't by his own volition. Maybe he was just saying that Pettigrew would eventually have some sympathy because Pettigrew does seem to have some humanity despite his evil (as do several DEs we see, such as Lucius).

So I don't think this is necessarily true, because there would be twenty billion bonds like this to have occurred during the HP series. Such as Ginny to Harry, Ron to Harry, Harry to Dumbledore, Harry to Snape, and so on. A lot of people saved one another's lives in this series. Or maybe this only comes into effect because Pettigrew was a traitor who deserved death, instead of a random person? If so, I don't think Snape would have a life-debt to James, because he had not yet become a traitor, murderor, other unredeemable evil, etc.

I don't know, it isn't really expounded on in the books at all, unfortunately.

I like your question---there's a lot to think about here---so indulge me while I run with this a bit. I think that, based upon how Snape and others deal with this, decisions concerning payment are left up to the person who was saved. To me this makes sense because 1) you may be the only one who can properly assess the value of your own life and 2) it goes along with the "choice versus destiny" theme in the books. Given this, I think Snape tried to pay back the debt by doing two things: informing DD about the plot to kill the Potters and doing what he could to protect Harry. Granted, Snape really only wanted to save Lily (which James would have wanted as well) and he begrudingly helped Harry (constantly complaining and doing whatever he could to make sure Harry didn't find out what he was really up to), but that was just his selfish/emotionally-inept manner, I suppose. Now that I think of it though, I'm not sure if James realized there actually was a debt to be paid (I don't recall him throwing the incident back in Snape's face, for example, but it has been awhile since I read these passages). The werewolf caper was a prank and it seems to me that James was not entirely altruistic in his intentions. Given his previous machinations, I can imagine him calculating how he could use the incident to gain Lily's affections, even in the heat of the moment. So, my question is: if the savior doesn't recognize the debt, is there actually a debt? Yes, it's kind of a "tree in the forest" question, but it's worth pondering.



This kind of goes with what I said above. Wormtail (unlike Snape) is never described as being particularly bright or self-directed, so he would likely have to have someone remind him of his life-debt. My question is this: if someone tells you how to pay back the debt, does that make the payment any less genuine? I'm not just considering Peter here. In the case of Snape, DD tells him what he needs to do. Does this mean that Severus never really repaid the debt (assuming there was one)? Also, considering both Snape and Wormtail, if the debt payment (directly or indirectly) results in one's death, then does that cancel out the debt automatically?

QUOTE(lirene @ Jun 15 2009, 10:48 PM)

QUOTE(The Crimson Artist @ Jun 18 2009, 05:15 PM)

Do any other characters in HP have life debts to each other; and if so, when/how was this magic evoked? How is this "bond" realized, and can this deep magical bond be broken somehow?

So I don't think this is necessarily true, because there would be twenty billion bonds like this to have occurred during the HP series. Such as Ginny to Harry, Ron to Harry, Harry to Dumbledore, Harry to Snape, and so on. A lot of people saved one another's lives in this series. Or maybe this only comes into effect because Pettigrew was a traitor who deserved death, instead of a random person?

I agree, there are countless life-debts, assuming you incur one upon saving someone's life in wartime (how crazy would that be to have to figure out, particularly if someone was saved by someone you saved---eek!). The one I'm most interested in though is the possibility that Draco owed one to Snape, considering that Snape entered into the unbreakable vow to protect Draco and ended up dying because of it (unwittingly or not---Based upon my reading, it doesn't seem that Snape figured out that Draco was the master of the elder wand though he seemed to be about to protest something important when he died. Leave it up to Voldy to interrupt someone like that!). Even so, following Harry's let's-take-a-break-from-fighting exposition scene, we are never told if Draco was remorseful over Snape's death, so I have to wonder if Draco ever made a payment.

No, but I'm just wondering how someone's personal choice to pay someone back or not has anything to do with some deep magic when they could have just as easily decided not to re-pay them. Draco Malfoy has been saved by Harry and others several times, but has never seen fit to not backstab them. To me, it seems to concern personal emotion/decision than it does magic. Lily's protection of Harry also results in some "deep magic," except this instance actually has a magical effect in that it protects Harry from Voldemort while in the presence of Lily's blood. I don't see any magic at work in Pettigrew's inclination to spare Harry's life.

Hmm, yes magic did have a lot to do with the rats death. When a life debt is about to be broken the hold of the life debt kicks in an woo to those that think they can beat it. Wormtail was stupid enougth to challange it.

To the unbreakable bond lets say draco is at Hogwarts and falls to his death from a tower. If Snape was teaching a class he would head down under.

They seem to be spells that once created can not be cheated on.

horas1

I disagree. The only magic involved in Wormtail's death was Voldemort's--Voldemort clearly did not like sympathy in his followers, and that's why the silver hand he gave Wormtail strangled him to death. It didn't have anything to do with some magical bond with Harry at all.

Interesting topic!

My immediate thought was that Snape redeemed himself in Deathly Hallows and all Harry's time at Hogwarts by saving Harry eg, the episode on the broomstick in his first year.

As far as 'life bonds' goes, yes there are many people who Harry saved. Hermione always said Harry had a 'saving people thing'. I would not have thought all of those people were indebt to Harry. Afterall, Harry thought he was doing them a favour: he would not expect them to repay him for that.

How do people see the Dudley situation fitting into this? Harry really did save Dudley's life by casting a Patronus at the Dementor, and Dudley felt obliged from then on to be nice to Harry. Was that paying Harry back, or simply due to what he saw during the attack? If Harry got back into contact with Dudley after the war once everything had calmed down, how would they have seen the situation then?

Yeah, this is a bit confusing. Without Dumbledore's statement of "This is magic at it's deepest, it's most impenetrable..." then it seems simple enough. It would seem to be a case of honour. If somebody saves your life, then you feel indebted to them. I think this is quite important in some cultures, where the person who is rescued believe they really owe their rescuer. They're not happy til they've returned the favour somehow. This would fit in with what Dumbledore says about Snape in PS, that he couldn't bear being in James' debt, and he protected Harry during his first year so that he and James would be even. And even with Pettigrew, Harry reminding him that he owed Harry his life made Pettigrew release his grip on Harry's throat. Harry risking his life to save his friends may have had a role in inspiring them to follow him. It may not just have been love, or a morality making them fight evil, maybe they felt a little bit that they owed Harry.

Dumbledore's statement that it's a form of magic complicates all this though. But then Dumbledore said that love was a magical force, one that was studied in the department of mysteries, that Harry had it in such abundance as to make it important in defeating Voldemort. The only time we see love have a genuine magical effect is with Lily's sacrifice protecting Harry. I don't really remember Harry's love having any magical effect though, so I've never really understood what Dumbledore was talking about wrt love either.
Maybe Dumbledore was just a bit crazy. Cos from what we actually see, and ignoring that thing that Dumbledore said but which we don't really see evidence of, it seems a straightforward matter of wizards having a strong sense of honour when it comes to repaying a life debt.

"This is magic at it's deepest, it's most impenetrable..."

Perhaps this line was less to do with an actual magical bond that can happen in the wizarding world and more a line Jo put in to simply hint at the Harry/Pettigrew situation in DH. To explain why Wormtails hand did what it did, so to speak.

I have considered that possibly the invocation of the life debt has something to do with how much one is actually saved from certain death. James surely prevented Snape from encountering a situation that had the potential to kill him, but Snape was not facing certain death; he could just as likely have been injured by werewolf Lupin but not killed, or he could have even escaped before Lupin could get to him. Indeed Lupin says that Snape glimpsed him before James pulled him back, so both James and Snape made it to the end of the tunnel and saw the werewolf and still escaped. Maybe just saving someone from something that has deadly potential isn't enough to invoke the life debt. Similarly, Harry didn't so much save Dudley's life, he saved him from the Dementor who would have sucked out his soul, which wouldn't have killed him. In contrast, Lupin and Sirius had their wands raised and were seconds away from killing Peter when Harry intervened, so I think Peter was facing certain death and Harry saved him. Having said all that, I agree with The Crimson Artist that there are probably many situations throughout HP where one character saves another's life, even from certain death. In the case of the trio, they probably ended up repaying these debts to each other throughout the course of the series, but like SeveraSphyrna said, imagine all of the instances of comrades saving each others lives throughout wartime! Who knows if all of those debts are repaid....



I had thought that the comment from Dumbledore about Snape repaying James by saving Harry from falling off his broomstick was just a cover for the truth: that Snape had pledged to protect Harry in order to honor Lily's life. Dumbledore promised Snape that he would never tell Harry this, so I figured that he used this story about paying James back to satisfy Harry's curiosity.

I had been waiting throughout the series for when this whole life thing debt was going to come back into play, based upon how much importance Dumbledore seemed to give it in SS/PS, and was a bit let down at how it played out. I was expecting some more obvious "magic" to prevent Peter from doing harm to Harry. By the time we see the graveyard scene in GoF, that idea went out the window. I wondered if somehow JKR had just dropped the whole thing.


I think you've hit upon something here, Wendall. Dumbledore's statement of "This is magic at it's deepest, it's most impenetrable..."(PoA p.311 UK paperback) sounds reminiscent of the way Dumbledore speaks of the power of love; I think it is possible that this is what Dumbledore was referring to in this statement. When Harry chose to save Pettigrew's life, it was an act of love; he chose love instead of hate. He thought of his father and his father's love for his friends, and that James would not have wanted his friends to become killers. His love for his father won out over his hatred of Pettigrew. Even if he saved him for love of his father and not for love of Pettigrew, it was still an act of love. Dumbledore says, "When one wizard saves another wizard's life, it creates a certain bond between them..."(PoA p.311). Perhaps mercy creates a bond borne of love. Voldemort, an enemy of this power, cursed Peter's hand to destroy its owner if it detected any such mercy within. It is not a quality that he would want in a Death Eater.

"To the unbreakable bond lets say draco is at Hogwarts and falls to his death from a tower. If Snape was teaching a class he would head down under"

I don't think this would necessarily be the case. As I understood it, the Unbreakable Vow meant that Snape had to do everything in his power to protect Draco from harm - surely that didn't include accidents and misadventure?


paint it Black, I agree with what you said about mercy. I think that in terms of wartime comrades saving each other's lives, the life debt comes back to a question of ethics and conscience. I would think that people like Neville and Ginny and Harry would barely consider others indebted to them because they all get along and recognise that they were all fighting for the same thing. What made Snape so anxious not to be indebted to James, IMO, was the fact that he couldn't stand the man.

"The only time we see love have a genuine magical effect is with Lily's sacrifice protecting Harry. I don't really remember Harry's love having any magical effect though, so I've never really understood what Dumbledore was talking about wrt love either."

I think what DD meant wrt to its magical properties is that it is a force unlike any other in the human spectrum of emotions. In terms of what it meant for Harry's magical abilities, it was love that led Harry to walk into the woods to meet Voldemort, unarmed, in order to save his mates. It's what made him so easily to manipulate by both Voldemort and the imposter-Moody, but his capacity to love is what eventually gave him the upper hand on Voldemort, whose soul had been destroyed with hate and misery.

What was so interesting about the final book was the way the reader could see how love almost led to DD's undoing wrt Grindewald. But that's a bit off topic...

Okay, now I understand where you're going. I totally agree. I don't think any sort of magic is invoked---I think it is about choice, unless we're talking about karma (i.e. whatever you do, good or bad, will come back to you eventually, and not necessarily in a direct way).
In my estimation, JKR seems to be a big fan of bad karma (most of the bad guys get what they deserve eventually), but I'm not sure if she's a fan of good karma (particularly in the case of Snape, though there are plenty of other examples, i.e. the unnecessary deaths, etc.). True, there is only one instance of Draco's behavior in which he does stop himself from backstabbing the Trio (it was a pathetic attempt to boot): when he is reluctant to immediately identify the Trio at Malfoy Manor. But, unless my memory is failing, the Trio hadn't yet saved his life at that point in the story (and I imagine he was probably still angry about the sectum sempra episode from the previous year).


I think you're onto something here. If there is some sort of magic, and I don't think there is, then I would imagine it would only be triggered by an actual act, not something that may or may not have happened. I think it is reasonable to assume, for example, that had Harry not intervened, Wormtail would have been killed.


Me too! But I'm starting to think that she didn't drop it. I think the idea of karma fits here---maybe she decided that the impenetrable magic was karma. Karma is 'created' by things we think, say, do (even under others' instructions), and conscious actions carry more weight than unconscious ones (i.e. accidents). So, maybe the impenetrable magic is that all individuals are part of a single system that is affected by our thoughts, words, and actions. In the case of misdeeds, this would mean that it's not so much an eye for an eye, but that you will eventually get your butt kicked by whatever evil you throw into the system. As I'm thinking/writing this, I'm considering one of the resolutions that disappointed me in DH. I waited for two whole books to read about a final confrontation between Neville and Bellatrix...and Molly, not Neville, was the instrument of revenge. There were probably many reasons that JKR decided not to have Neville kill Bellatrix, but I'm wondering if she was advancing the idea that it really didn't matter, since she still ended up reaping what she sowed (though it would have been more painful for her had she been tortured or had witnessed Voldy die before she was AK'd). This would also help explain how life-debts would not have to be paid in wartime---if you're all part of the same system, fighting for the same cause, then it's a zero-sum game.



A-ha! I like this idea too. And it's totally in the karma vein. Harry didn't demonstrate his love directly (towards Wormtail), but recognized and acted on James' love for his best friends---nice! Any thoughts on this karma idea???

But Dumbledore says there's a room full of love contained in the department of mysteries, and that it's studied by the ministry. This suggests that it's an actual magical entity.

I thought of this too, in connection with a life-debt. It seems to me that Harry was never able to make good on the life-debt he owed his own mother. By willingly going to his death, maybe he transferred that act onto the school. I like this idea, particularly since, until just now, I couldn't reconcile how Harry's love could protect hundreds (including people he probably didn't love), while Lily's love was only able to protect one person.