[HPforGrownups] Lily's Last Labor of Love/ Gleam revisited/ Gred and Forge Are At It Again

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 45127

Petra Pan writes:

> Since I view the oft-mentioned "mother's love" as
> more the motivation than the mechanism, I am
> still puzzling over the means by which Harry
> became the Boy Who Lived...surely Lily is not the
> only person to love someone facing the wrong end
> of Voldemort's wand as much as she did.
>
> So, what are the currently prevailing thoughts on
> this matter?

Ah, well, since you asked. :)  First of all, I think it has happened before.
Or else Dumbledore wouldn't have been able to explain it so well to Harry.
BUT I think it is very rare.  Very very rare.  Maybe so rare as to have only
happened once before, that anyone knew about.  Or at least that Dumbledore
knew about.  For it to "work" I think the circumstances have to be exactly
right.  You have to love someone completely and totally selflessly.  No
restraint, no hesitation, no second thoughts.  The purest of love.  Second,
you must not be a direct target of the "bad guy" in the situation.  Lily was
given multiple opportunites to save herself, to "stand aside."  If she had
been a target, her death wouldn't have been a sacrifice.

One more point here, I still think it was a sacrifice of love as Dumbledore
described it, that kept Voldemort from being able to touch Harry.  I think
Voldemort's description of it as "ancient magic" is a cop out on his part
because he can't comprehend love.  He's never been loved, never had anyone
to love.  I also think something else was/is protecting Harry, possibly the
Elixir experimentation or something along those lines.  It could even be
that it wasn't Lily's sacrifice that saved Harry from the AK.  That kept
Voldemort from physically touching Harry, as evidenced by Quirrelmort.
Quirrellmort was trying to get at his wand to curse Harry and be rid of him
that way, but Harry had the good sense to hang on.  We, of course, never
actually see Harry being directly hit with an AK, as that would give it all
away!  But if he were, I think it would bounce again.

Grey Wolf writes:

>  vapour!Voldemort is inmortal, human!Voldemort is not. And to kill
> him  and be rid of him once and for all, you need him to be mortal.
> It gets a little more complicated (part of the gleam includes the
> fact that he used Harry's blood, which flaws the potion, according to
> MAGIC DISHWASHER, which was also part of Dumbledore's plan), but the
> general idea is that, finally, his main plan has advanced (after 14
> years) and finally Voldemort is in a position were he *can* be killed.

I also think the gleam stems from Dumbledore having previously suspected but
not known something about Harry.  Like the previously mentioned possibility
of elixir experimentation. Obviously he couldn't try to kill Harry to see if
he would die, yet he is still alive, sitting before him, having just
explained that Voldemort was able to touch him.  Touch him, yes. Hurt him,
yes. Torture him, yes.  Kill him?  No.

Ali wonders:-

> I've always wondered if some of the significance of using Harry's
> blood is that he is "Pure of Heart". This is demonstrated by the
> courage that the Phoenix music instilled in him in the graveyard - we
> are told in FB&WTFT that Phoenix song is reputed to increase the
> courage in the pure of heart.

Good point, since we have the proof that Harry is pure of heart. And I
believe the unicorn is the only thing specifically referred to as pure,
right?  Which means another strike against Voldemort!  This also ties in
with Harry's stepping over Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the train at the end
of GoF.  He hates them, true, but in his pure of heart manner, takes care to
not step on them.

Nicole writes:

> I am now waving my FAT CHANCE AT BALL flag
> enthusiastically.  When I first read this scene, I
> laughed heartily but I didn't think too much about it.
>  However, when Lilac proposed this theory to me, it
> really got me thinking and I've concluded, as she has,
> that Gred and Forge were likely behind this prank.

Are we so sure it was the twins?  What about Draco?  He's the one who
brought Ginny into it to begin with.  Plus, at Flourish & Blotts he says
"Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!"  Then after Harry
"Expelliarmused" the diary away from Draco, and Percy finished fussing, he
yelled after Ginny "I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!"  Could
be he was just coming to that conclusion and saw a convenient way to
embarrass Ginny, or otherwise he planned it.

Richelle

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"May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out."
---- Lady Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring
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