Summary

• The Resurrection Stone did not bring Harry back to life because it cannot fully restore the dead to life, as shown in "The Tale of the Three Brothers."
• Voldemort being a Horcrux for Harry is unlikely because creating a Horcrux requires splitting one's soul through murder.
• Harry survived the second killing curse because a piece of Voldemort's soul lived inside him, and when Voldemort cast the curse, it only killed the piece of his soul inside Harry. Harry's connection with Voldemort helped him time and time again, including surviving the killing curse for the second time.

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It's been years since the main Harry Potter series concluded, but the nostalgia of the saga still spawns theories about some of its most important moments. As every fan knows, Harry survived the killing curse as a baby because his mother's love protected him. However, after Voldemort returned using Harry's blood to regain his full body, he was allowed to touch Harry without suffering negative consequences. This raises the question of how Harry survived the killing curse a second time in Deathly Hallows.

Being able to touch Harry would, theoretically, mean Voldemort could kill him, which meant something else was at play. Amid a few online misconceptions, two of the main theories can be discussed and refuted to really understand how it happened. The first is that the Resurrection Stone brought Harry back after Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra. The second is that when Voldemort restored his body using Harry's blood in The Goblet of Fire, he became a Horcrux of Harry. However, these theories are easy to refute and the true explanation is much more simple and straightforward.

Updated on December 26, 2023, by Andrea Sandoval: While the Harry Potter films are a terrific adaptation of the Wizarding World, a lot of the time they don't have enough time to explain the many magical intricacies that appear in the books. Many Harry Potter fans wonder how Harry came back to life after Voldemort struck him with the Killing Curse. There are many theories about this, and we updated this article to enrich this thrilling discussion.

Harry Came Back to Life After Being Stroked By Voldemort's Killing Curse (For a Second Time)

When Harry discovers he's one of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes through Severus Snape's memories, he understands that he needs to die for his peers to be able to kill the Dark Lord once and for all. Since Voldemort was waiting for Harry to turn himself in, the Boy Who Lived decided to allow the villain to finally kill him. Voldemort, predictably, uses the Avada Kedavra on Harry for a second time, and thinking him dead, makes Hagrid take his body to Hogwarts to celebrate his victory.

However, after a brief interaction in his head with Albus Dumbledore in King's Cross Station, Harry returns to life, to the surprise not only of his friends but of Lord Voldemort himself. This moment, which isn't as widely explained in the film as it is in the books, confuses a lot of fans, who don't fully understand how Harry managed to come back from the curse. But the explanation has to do with the logistics of Horcruxes, which not even Dumbledore, one of the brightest wizards to ever be born, fully understood, as he wasn't sure Harry would survive the killing curse for a second time. But he did.

Harry's Survival Had Nothing to Do with the Resurrection Stone

Many Harry Potter fans have speculated that the Resurrection Stone's power was able to help Harry survive the killing curse and return to living status. Except, that's not how the Resurrection Stone works. While it can "recall loved ones from the grave," the Stone cannot fully restore someone to life. As told in "The Tale of the Three Brothers," the Resurrection Stone brought the second brother's loved one back to the living world, but because she didn't belong there, she soon turned cold and sad.

The theory about Harry's survival was connected to his use of the Stone near his encounter with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Recovering the Stone from the Golden Snitch, Harry recalled his mother and the Marauders for emotional support and then dropped it to the ground. As shown, he could see and hear his dead loved ones, but they remained incorporeal, and no one else could perceive them. Thus, bringing Harry back to life doesn't appear to be within the Stone's power.

Why Voldemort Wasn't a Horcrux for Harry

Nobody knows exactly how Horcruxes are made in Harry Potter, as that information has never been divulged. While Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full body with dark magic, he could have become a Horcrux, of sorts. But the theory has some holes. To begin with, a Horcrux is connected to someone's soul, not their blood. Furthermore, in order to create a Horcrux, one has to first split one's soul by murdering someone.

Murder is the worst act a wizard can inflict on another, and Voldemort creates Horcruxes by killing and storing pieces of his soul in objects and other living beings. Harry did not kill anyone, thus, he could not have made a Horcrux out of Voldemort. Taking Harry's blood allowed Voldemort to negate the effects of Lily's protection over Harry and strengthened their connection, but unless a person's soul is in their blood, this would not make Voldemort a Horcrux.

Furthermore, if Voldemort had been Harry's Horcrux, Harry still wouldn't have come back to life in his original body, but his soul would have been wandering around until he had found a way to create a body of his own. When everyone thought Voldemort had died after the Avada Kedavra bounced back to him, he spent several years living as a sort of spirit and had to become a parasite in Quirinus Quirrell's body for a while.

How Did Harry Potter Survive the Second Killing Curse?

The matter of surviving a killing curse is a full-circle moment for Harry Potter. By trying to kill him the first time, Voldemort actually bonds himself to Harry forever, with a small piece of his soul living inside him and marked by the scar. It explained why Harry was able to speak Parseltongue. Dumbledore was one of the few to realize this when he and Harry discovered that Voldemort had been using Horcruxes to cheat death in The Half-Blood Prince. Therefore, being one of the Horcruxes and a piece of his soul, Harry had to die to defeat evil -- and as the unwitting creator, Voldemort himself would have to do it.

But Harry didn't die, and the reason is rather simple: when Voldemort cast the killing curse, it only killed the piece of his soul within Harry, not Harry himself. Harry then saw Dumbledore in a version of King's Cross station, something that Dumbledore said was probably happening in his head. He also said that Harry could probably board a train if he wanted to, which presumably would've taken him to the afterlife. It seems like this second near-death experience brought Harry to a sort of limbo, but ultimately, Harry survived the curse. Harry decided to return to life to stop Voldemort. As such, perhaps Harry could've died at this moment, but he chose to come back to life.

Ironically, this isn't the first time in which Voldemort's connection with Harry gave Harry the tools to avoid Voldemort's attacks. In this case, Harry survived Voldemort's curse because Voldemort had implanted a piece of his soul inside Harry, a Horcrux. However, this Horcrux also helped Harry during his second year at Hogwarts, when he was able to speak Parseltongue and get to the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny Weasley. What's more, this connection allowed Harry to see things inside Voldemort's head and save Arthur Weasley's life. Inadvertently, by making Harry a Horcrux, Voldemort helped him time and time again, including Harry surviving the Killing Curse for the second time.

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