Harry saved from AK by his mother

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 42028

Grace Saalsaa wrote:
> But!  Sure, Voldy tells the DE this - but he heard it from Harry when
> he was Tom Riddle, down in the Chamber of Secrets.
> And Harry heard it from Dumbledore after his encounter with the
> stone.  In PS/SS,  where McGonagall sat waiting for Hagrid to bring
> Harry to Privet Drive, she asks Dumbledore how, after killing all
> these people, Voldemort is stopped by a little boy.  Dumbledore says 
> something like: we can only guess.And this amazing protection from a
> mother's love is his guess - which strikes me as a weak and hokey
> answer. There's got to be a more plausible answer.
> 
> Grace

Voldemort could not have heard it from Harry down in the Chamber of 
Secrets: he was not there; don't confuse Diary!Riddle with 
Voldemort!Riddle. They're two different beings, and the first was 
destroyed at the end of book 2, while the second one was licking his 
wounds in an albanian forest. Even if the 17 year-old boy that created 
the diary is still around, there is no canon (or any reason) to believe 
that what one hears the other hears as well, or else the diary!Riddle 
would've already known about the way Voldemort!Riddle had been 
vanquised.

You also find the answer "magic" inplausible (which I would normally 
grant as such, but this is a fantasy series about magic, after all). I 
hope you don't find any easier that a 1 year-old boy could've stoped 
with it's forehead a curse no-one else had been able to survive before. 
Anyway, until you find a reason of your own, I have to point out that 
there have been at least 3 independent references to this "ancient" 
magic. Two of them are Dumbledore's and Voldemort's identification of 
Harry's survival as an ancient love shield spell, and the third is 
Voldemort's identification of Harry's protection at the Dursley's as 
ancient:
"[Harry] has been better protected than he himself imagines, protected 
by ways thought by Dumbledore a long time ago, when he ocupied of the 
child's future. Dumbledore invoked a very ancient magic to asure that 
the boy didn't come to any harm while he was in the care of his 
relatives"

Even if you don't believe in the power of the ancient magic, the two 
most powerful wizards in the books do, and that's as plausible as it's 
going to get.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf