Hey everyone,

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be discussing Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, and the very dangerous lie told by Narcissa Malfoy.

There seems to be a trend in the Harry Potter books and films with mothers protecting their children. Lily with Harry and her sacrificial protection, Molly with Ginny and her impressive defeat over Bellatrix, and even Narcissa Malfoy-who lied to lord VOLDEMORT.

After Voldemort believes that Harry has been killed, Narcissa goes to check on him:

Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry’s face, pulled back an eyelid, crept beneath his shirt, down to his chest and felt his heart. He could hear the woman’s fast breathing, her long hair tickled his face. He knew that she could feel the steady pounding of life against his ribs.


‘Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?’


The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers.


‘Yes,’ he breathed back.


He felt the hand on his chest contract; her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn. She had sat up.


‘He is dead!’ Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.


And now they shouted, now they yelled in triumph and stamped their feet, and through his eyelids Harry saw bursts of red and silver light shoot into the air in celebration.
Still feigning death on the ground, he understood. Narcissa knew that the only way she would be permitted to enter Hogwarts, and find her son, was as part of the conquering army. She no longer cared whether Voldemort won.

So clearly, from what we’ve just read, we can see Narcissa lying to Voldemort and the rest of the death eaters. While they are all of the impression that Harry is deceased, Narcissa is the only one that actually knows that he is alive. But, why? Why would she risk lying to one of the darkest wizards of all time? How did she even expect to be successful?


Legilimency is the art of accessing people’s minds and reading their thoughts, and Voldemort is one of the most impressive Legilimens in the world. He mastered it during his time at school, and was actively determined to become more skilled at it than any other witch or wizard. With legilimency, Voldemort could almost always tell who was lying to him, and knew what you were thinking before you uttered a word. Narcissa Malfoy was one of only two people who were able to lie to Voldemort successfully, the other being Severus Snape who has a highly accomplished occlumens.

So, why would she lie? Why take such a risk? Well, once again it comes down to motherly love.
She knew that lying to Voldemort would be the only way she would be able to return to the castle to search for Draco. She lied, in order to compel Voldemort back to the castle, because she knew he wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity to flaunt his success. Though Narcissa was a devoted servant of the dark lord, her love for her family would always come first, and lying to Voldemort was a risk that she was willing to take to protect her son.

Draco had been used and abused by Voldemort- and was given a nearly suicidal role in the war as a way of mocking the Malfoys, particularly Lucius, who had let him down. It’s likely that Narcissa resented Voldemort for that, and when she found out that Harry was still alive she realized that there was a very good chance that the good guys would prevail. Her confidence in good prevailing over evil had increased, and she knew that lying was the best chance that she would have to see her son before he was potentially killed for his affiliation with the dark lord.

JK Rowling herself has actually commented on this segment, explaining that this moment was designed to emphasize the power of maternal love. Love is so central to the Harry Potter story, and keeps returning throughout the series.

Voldemort of course can’t feel love because of the way that he was conceived. Because his mother and father didn’t genuinely love each other, and because his father was under the influence of a love potion, he was born with an incapability of feeling it. While Voldemort was left at an orphanage, with no real connection to his biological mother, it’s interesting that he should be constantly bested by these maternal connections.

Voldemort biggest flaw as a person was his inability to feel love, and time and time again it resulted in his downfall.

YER A WIZARD ARRY


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