Life Debts in Harry Potter: Summary and Speculations

“When one wizard saves another wizard’s life, it creates a certain bond between them … and I’m much mistaken if Voldemort wants his servant in the debt of Harry Potter.”
“I don’t want a bond with Pettigrew!” said Harry. “He betrayed my parents!”
“This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust me … the time may come when you will be very glad you saved Pettigrew’s life.” (Prisoner of Azkaban)

If this isn’t a set-up for something big happening with Pettigrew and Harry in Book 7, I’ll eat the Sorting Hat. There are, in fact, more than this when it comes to these “life debts” in the Harry Potter series. Jeremy Abel has recently compiled a list of them:

1. Harry saved Pettigrew
2. Harry saved Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets
3. Harry saved Arthur when Arthur was attacked by Nagini in the Ministry of Magic
4. Harry saved Ron when he accidentally drank the poison intended for Dumbledore
5. Harry saved Sirius and Hermione from the Dementors
6. James saved Snape from Lupin as a werewolf
7. Snape saved Harry from the curse placed on him by Professor Quirrell during the Quidditch match
8. Snape saved Dumbledore from the curse on Slytherin’s ring
9. Dumbledore saved Harry during his fall from his broom when the Dementors came onto the Quidditch pitch
10. Lilly saved Harry because of her sacrifice which repelled Voldemort’s curse

To this almost complete list, I would add that Snape saved Draco from failing in his mission and the resulting certain death at the hands of Voldemort. One could also say that Dumbledore saved Draco as well, if one believes in Good!Snape (which I do). So those would be #11 (Draco-Snape) and #12 (Draco-Dumbledore). Though not chronological, we’ll use this set of numbers as our point of reference throughout the essay.

Life Debt?

Before examining the specific life debts, we need to ask the question, ”What are we talking about here, in the first place?”  Because the word “debt” really makes this sound awful.  If saving someone’s life results in their being indebted to you in some way that they have to “pay it back,” then it could easily destroy altruism (as one reader at HP Essays put it) and make saving lives a tool to manipulate people.  “Hey, don’t jinx me, man!  Don’t you rememeber you have a life debt to me?”I don’t think it’s best to think of this in that kind of economic way, however.  ”Magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable” is such a manipulative device, and it doesn’t work as an exact cause-and-effect relationship.  I believe that if one really, really wants to, one can ignore the life debt; anything else would be to make love compulsory and ruin the key theme of “choice” in the novels.  In short, a severely calloused person could indeed scoff at someone’s saving their life. 

But the actual magic involved in the saving of a life and creating of the debt seems to me to be the magical opposite of Avada Kedavra, or any other method of killing a person.  When the Killing Curse is thrown or a person is murdered, the murderer’s soul is torn.  It’s the greatest act of evil, and gives way to the potential of horcrux creation, most evil of magic practices. 

On the other hand, the saving of a life (rather than the taking of it), being the exact opposite, is an expression of love and mercy, and hence creates the kind of bond that exists when one person loves another.  It is a practical magical application, so to speak, of Dumbledore’s assertion that love is the most powerful form of magic.  Therefore, we should not think of life debts as the mechanical creation of an almost economic debt, but the bond of love created between the saver and the saved. 

If the saved person was an enemy to begin with, I’d guess that would make the magic both more powerful and more complex, because, as I tried to demonstrate in the essay, “Dumbledore’s Mercy,” evil intentions falter in the face of response of love. 

Which Debts are Plot-Significant?

Now, obviously not all of these are going to be significant, so let’s sort through the list and focus on the ones that will have some kind of significance for Book 7. Numbers 2-5, while significant to the plots of their respective books, will likely have no significance for Book 7, simply because Hermione, the Weasleys, and Harry are all so loyal to each other already that saving each other’s lives is just part of what they do. The “life debt” created only increases the strong bond that already existed between them. Same goes for #9 - Harry is already loyal to Dumbledore. Number 10, Lily’s sacrifice for Harry, has already been exceedingly significant, and I’m assuming will continue to be so, but we already know how, and once again, a positive mother-son bond would have already existed.

That leaves us with Harry’s saving Pettigrew (#1), James’ saving Snape (#6), Snape’s saving Harry (#7), Dumbledore (#8), and Draco (#11), and Dumbledore’s saving Draco (#12). For my own purposes, being on the “Good Snape” side, Snape saving Draco and Dumbledore saving Draco amount to about the same thing, but let’s quickly consider a Draco-Dumbledore debt if Snape is evil before moving on.

The Draco-Dumbledore Debt (#12)
Even if Snape turns out to be evil, I think it can be argued that Dumbledore had every intention of saving Draco Malfoy, and that his actions and words on the night of his death put Draco in his debt. (See my essay, “Dumbledore’s Mercy“). Now the question will be asked, “What does it matter if you are in the debt of a dead man?” A fair question. But loyalty to Dumbledore has a lot of power, doesn’t it? Dumbledore’s belief that he will only truly be gone when no one who is left is loyal to him has proved true. It’s actually part of the whole point of Half-Blood Prince that Rowling establish Harry’s undying loyalty to Dumbledore. A Draco Malfoy with a life debt to Dumbledore in the service of Lord Voldemort is another strike against the Dark Lord any way you cut it. What would be so significant about this particular debt is that, unlike the Wormtail-Harry debt, Voldemort would not actually know about the Draco-Dumbledore debt. Dumbledore told Draco that he “expects” Draco to die in the attempt on Dumbledore’s life. In short, Voldemort is foolish enough (this is his greatest weakeness!) to believe that Dumbledore, faced with the prospect of his own death, would take the life of his would-be killer (even though it’s his own student) than to submit to death. And no one ever need know about Draco’s conversation with Dumbledore or his hesitancy to kill him.

Would Evil!Snape tell Voldemort that Draco faultered so badly? I doubt it. Even if Snape is evil, we see some sort of bond between him and Narcissa, and the Unbreakable Vow (UV) was put in place to protect Draco from Voldemort’s wrath. I doubt even an Evil!Snape would run back to Voldemort and say, “Even though the task is completed, you should kill Draco because he faltered.”

But the point is moot, because Snape is good, and here’s why.

The Snape Debts (#6, 7, 8, 11)
Snape saves three people in the course of the series, so we’ll take them one by one.

The Dumbledore-Snape Debt (#8)
While Dumbledore is no longer in the debt of Snape, being dead now, the creation of the debt is quite significant. Jeremy observes and asks in the post I quoted above:

The Snape-Dumbledore saving relationship is interesting, though I’m not sure of its significance. Does it bear on the good, bad, or conflicted Snape question?

Indeed, it does. In the first place, one has to wonder why, if Snape is evil, he would have saved Dumbledore’s life after the Ringcrux caper. Perhaps we could posit a situation in which Dumbledore would have had the capacity to blow Snape’s spy cover if Snape refused to heal him. But let’s think about the situation. Dumbledore makes it back from destroying the Ringcrux, barely alive. Surely Albus doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s been or what he’s been doing, so he goes to Snape, and Snape alone. This is the perfect opportunity for Evil!Snape to do away with the Dark Lord’s greatest enemy without anyone knowing about it. Why not take it? He wouldn’t blow his cover at Hogwarts by allowing Dumbledore to die and creating an easily believable story that Dumbledore showed up on his doorstep and died just as he crossed it. Even if the Ringrux was destroyed at some point after the Narcissa-Snape UV was made, Snape could only see this as the perfect opportunity to save Draco by bypassing the whole scheme and allowing Dumbledore to die in his presence. It would have been the perfect murder. There would be no disadvantages, as far as I can see, if ending the problem of Dumbledore right then and there.

This doesn’t entirely eliminate the Conflicted!Snape theory, which posits a Snape who waffled back and forth, especially after the Dark Lord’s return, and chose the Dark Side on the Astronomy Tower, but it makes the theory more unlikely. If Snape were loyal enough to Dumbledore over the summer to save his life when he was on death’s doorstep, what could possibly have changed over the course of the schoolyear to cause such a drastic shift in Severus as to make him to to exact opposite of saving Dumbledore’s life? A year teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts? No way. If spending regular time in the presence of Voldemort doesn’t sway one to the Dark Side, teaching a bunch of teenagers how to cast nonverbal spells isn’t going to do it.

The Snape-Dumbledore debt is definitely a point in favor of Good!Snape.

The Harry-Snape Debt (#7)

Harry’s hatred for Snape is perhaps even greater than his hatred for Voldemort at the end of HBP. One can hardly imagine Harry running into Snape two days after the close fo HBP and not mustering up all the hatred he can for his first attempt at a Killing Curse.

But it’s interesting to consider that it was just after the revelation of Pettigrew’s being responsible for his parents’ death that he chose to have mercy on him. If ever there were a time that Harry would be raging mad and make a rash decision, that would have been it. At this point a couple of things need to be considered.

Snape most definitely and deliberately saved Harry’s life in Philosopher’s Stone when Quirrell was trying to curse him. Whether Snape’s explanation to Bellatrix at Spinner’s End was a lie or not, the fact remains: Harry would be dead if not for Snape. Hence, the creation of that Life Debt. The Life Debt is “magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable.” If this is really the case, and we have no reason to doubt Dumbledore’s wisdom on this, then Harry may just find it much more difficult than he imagined to conjure up enough reason to attempt to kill Snape. The bond created when Snape saved Harry might be the trick to stay Harry’s wand long enough for Snape to get his full story explained.

Of course, if Snape really is evil, then Harry’s being indebted to him might make it all the more difficult for Harry to fight Snape, should the chance arise again (could it have even been why he was unable to be effective against Snape at the end of HBP?).

The Snape-James Debt (#6)
The Snape-James debt must be taken into account simultaneously with the Harry-Snape debt. A few points are important, and a few questions must be asked. First, in what way does the James-Snape debt affect Snape’s relationship with Harry? Emotionally, Snape obviously hated James and so hates Harry. He attempts to cover up this debt by raging at Harry about how James saved him from Sirius’s cruel joke in the first place, so it wasn’t much of a “saving.” The fact remains, of course, that Snape was in James’s debt.

Here’s a question to which we do not have a clear answer, as far as I know: Can the debt be repaid, so that one is no longer in the other’s debt? To apply it specifically, when Snape saved Harry’s life, did that fulfill his debt to James, so that the debt is now cancelled? We don’t know for sure. Snape continues to hate Harry in either case, but if the debt is ongoing, will it affect Snape’s loyalties? Does it inform how we should think about Snape’s loyalties at the present? Since we can’t know the long-term nature of a life debt, we really can’t speculate too far about these things.
But here’s where this debt becomes significant for Book 7. Besides Dumbledore, who’s the one person Harry wants to be most like? His dad. When it comes right down to it, it was because he wanted to be like his dad that he spared Pettigrew.

And his dad saved Snape. This might be additional incentive for Harry to reconsider Snape in Book 7 - or at least, as with the Harry-Snape debt above, cause Harry to pause from attempting to kill him just long enough to hear Snape out.

Let’s take a brief break from canonical facts to speculate about how this might play out. Here comes some guesswork.

Imagine a confrontation between Harry and Snape, maybe similar to the one with Sirius at the end of PoA.* Harry has Snape where he wants him, perhaps with the help of Ron and Hermione, and the time has finally come for him to avenge Dumbledore’s death. Snape is trapped and disarmed. But something is holding Harry back. Two things simultaneously, in fact: (1) Snape saved his life in his first year at Hogwarts, and even if Harry can’t place this exactly in his mind, it’s keeping him from being able to pull the trigger; and (2) Harry remembers that his dad saved Snape. With Snape at wandpoint and unable to move, Harry decides to let Snape have his say. Severus explains all about his loyalty to Dumbledore, why he turned from being a Death Eater, what his connection was to Harry’s parents, and what really happened on the Astronomy Tower (un-stoppering Dumbledore’s death).

Then just for fun, consider that Harry doesn’t believe Snape. The only two people in the world who can be rightfully called “Dumbledore’s man through and through” face each other, battling each other over the same point: loyalty to Dumbledore. As Harry loses his temper and finally decides to kill Snape, the powerful loyalty being expressed by each side calls to the scene the only remaining character who can resolve this tension: Fawkes the Phoenix. In the same way the Fawkes came to Harry’s rescue in the Chamber, he comes to Snape’s rescue, hovering in between Harry and Snape, or even landing on the fallen Snape, ready to swallow anything Harry throws at Snape. And Harry finally believes.**

Possible? Perhaps. I think it’s a fairly good guess based on the Life Debts as they stand.

A final note on the James-Snape debt. We’ve been given what is considered by most fans an insufficient explanation from Dumbledore concerning the reason for Snape’s repentance:

‘Professor Snape made a terrible mistake. He was still in Lord Voldemort’s employ on the night he heard the first half of Professor Trelawney’s prophecy. Naturally, he hastened to tell his master what he had heard, for it concerned his master most deeply. But he did not know - he had no possible way of knowing - which boy Voldemort would hunt from then onwards, or that the parents he would destroy in his murderous quest were people that Professor Snape knew, that they were your mother and father -’

Harry let out a yell of mirthless laughter.

‘He hated my dad like he hated Sirius! Haven’t you noticed, Professor, how the people Snape hates tend to end up dead?’

‘You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realized how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. I believe it to be the greatest regret of his life and the reason that he returned -’

‘But he’s a very good Occlumens, isn’t he, sir?’ said Harry, whose voice was shaking with the effort of keeping it steady. ‘And isn’t Voldemort convinced that Snape’s on his side, even now? Professor … how can you be sure Snape’s on our side?’

Dumbledore did not speak for a moment; he looked as though he was trying to make up his mind about something. At last he said, ‘I am sure. I trust Severus Snape completely.’ (HBP-25)

I agree the explanation is not sufficient, primarily because of the “moment” in which Dumbledore was considering whether to explain more to Harry. But quite frankly, we’ve no idea what was going on in Dumbledore’s mind and whether or not it had anything to do with what was just said about the Potters. For all we know, the answer to why Dumbledore trusts Snape so much might lie in some Snape-Dumbledore connection we don’t know about. Some have speculated that Snape harbored a secret, unrequited love for Lily Evans (which might explain even better Snape’s revulsion of James).

But what Dumbledore has given us may not be as weak an answer as most people think. Again, let’s observe that Dumbledore describes the Life Debt magic as “magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable.” We’re talking about magic every bit as powerful as Lily’s sacrifice that saved Harry. If this is really the case, is it that difficult to believe that young Snape, in the debt of James Potter, fell apart and came to his senses when he became responsible for the murder of the one who, just a few years prior, had saved his life? I don’t think Dumbledore is exaggerating when he speaks of Snape’s “remorse” and it being his “greatest regret.”

The Draco-Snape Debt (#11)

Assuming once again a Good!Snape, nothing could be better for Draco Malfoy than to be (a) in Snape’s debt and (b) under Snape’s care and protection as HBP ends. For more on this, see my recent essay, “Dumbledore’s Mercy.” The rest of the implications for the Draco-Snape debt fit in nicely with the Wormtail-Harry debt, so let’s think about that one now.

The Wormtail-Harry Debt (#1)

Finally, we have what is about to be the key life debt of the series, because it’s been clearly mentioned as significant by Dumbledore. How so? Again, we enter the realm of wild guesswork. [I don't think it's a "guess" that Wormtail will turn on Voldemort in favor of Harry before the end of Book 7. But how it will happen is where we don't have much to go on.] We could speculate all sorts of dramatic scenarios in which Wormtail turns on Lord Voldemort, much to his surprise.

But I don’t know if Voldemort would be so surprised at a Wormtail turnaround. He already distrusts Wormtail, and is suspicious at the beginning of GoF that Wormtail is trying to protect Harry (”not use the boy” GoF-1). What is really interesting is the Snape/Wormtail pairing at Spinner’s End. I think it’s best to assume that Voldemort, to some extent, distrusts both Snape and Wormtail. He distrusts everybody in the first place, but with Snape under the employ of that “muggle-lover” Dumbledore for all those years, and Wormtail in Harry’s debt, Voldemort would be quite keen to make sure neither of them turn on him. So he’s created an atmosphere of suspicion and spying at Spinner’s End.

Now Snape has fled, having fulfilled the Unbreakable Vow, un-stoppering Dumbledore’s death according to plan, and taken Draco with him. It’s a likely possibility that he’ll take Draco with him back to Spinner’s End before anywhere else; it might even be possible that Draco will stay there with him for a while. And maybe Narcissa as well? After all, Narcissa is afraid of the Dark Lord’s anger, and Snape has already protected her family once by taking and fulfilling the vow.

In any case, assuming Good!Snape theories are correct, consider the three people who are now under the employ of Lord Voldemort, who are in various ways vitally connected to each other and to Harry:

1. Wormtail, living with Snape and owing a Life Debt to Harry
2. Snape, ultimately loyal to Dumbledore and continuing his job on his orders
3. Draco, indebted now to Snape and Dumbledore, afraid of Voldemort and having just been offered sanctuary by Dumbledore

They don’t have to all be living at Spinner’s End - placing the Malfoys there would just be a matter of convenience. Now consider: There is simply no way Dumbledore put his plan into motion without charging Snape to do everything he could to save Draco. It may have even been part of their communication by legilimency on the Tower that night. So we should assume that Snape, when the time is right, will extend Dumbledore’s offer of mercy to Draco once again. That means, there are at least three “Death Eaters” (assuming Malfoy either was one already or will become one) who could potentially turn on Voldemort from within. Any way you look at it, that’s problematic for Lord Voldemort, especially if all three of them agree to team up before it’s over (unlikely, but possible).

Wild guesswork aside, now, Wormtail’s Life Debt to Harry will bring out a couple of interesting things.

• Why in the world did cowardly Wormtail get placed in Gryffindor? We should expect an act of bravery worthy of a Gryffindor before the end, and his “Life Debt” is going to be the key. I would not at all be surprised by a Wormtail sacrificial death (though, if I were forced to guess which character got the “reprieve” Rowling referred to, I’d guess Pettigrew).
• Redemption is a key theme in the book, and the redemption of the one who betrayed Harry’s parents would be a dramatic and poignant plot turn.

Conclusion

The regular caveats about my “wild guesswork” in place, I think it’s fair to say that Life Debts will play a very significant role in Book 7. It’s unlikely that the actual “life debt” magic will be referenced in every case (we’ll probably hear about it again only in Wormtail’s case), but expect Rowling to be working that magic behind the scenes throughout the course of the novel.

Endnotes
*This is a situation I read Joyce Odell [Red Hen] posit to set up her big “Dumbledore is alive” reveal, before JKR smashed that theory to bits.
**I do not know who first came up with the idea of Fawkes being the one who settles this conflict. I’ve read the idea in several places now.