Lily's sacrifice (was RE: Witchcraft and Wizardry: What do they teach at Hogwarts????)

[Susan Atherton]

No: HPFGUIDX 50227

First of all, sorry if this is a bit late, but I'm catching up on a bunch of digests :)

SophineClaire:
>> What was so special about Lily's so-called-save-my-baby
>> charm that only she could do?? Why not James or Sirius or Remus or
>> Peter?. Is it because she is his mother? she's a female? I believe
>> this points to something. Maybe you can call it Sex Ed, but maybe
>> Witches have the upper hand to men when it comes to magic.

Scott Northrup:
>Personally. I think you hit the true answer dead on with "Is it because she
>is his mother?".  Mind you, I am a 20 year old male, but it seems to me that
>there is a universal acceptance that a mother's love is love in it's purest
>form.  I know your mother and father should love you about the  same, but
>there's just more connection between mother and child than father and child.
>That's why Lily was able to use the magic that anyone else would have
>probably failed at.

Now me:
I've heard several people refer to Lily's sacrifice as conscious magic. (I could be wrong, but that's the way I've read many posts, and it's finally annoying me enough to say something!) There was one thread a few weeks back (couldn't find it,sorry) that referenced "Dumbledore's corny speech about love" or something like. People seem to think Lily Potter worked a spell to protect Harry, and, muttering "Loveus foreverus protecto" or similar, stepped in front of Voldy's AK - the one intended for Harry - knowing that like adding the bats wings to a potion, that sacrificing her life for her son would then protect him should the Voldster then attack him. 

Now this might just be me going quietly mad, but I've always read it as this...

Halloween, 1981: Godric's Hollow (canon in quotation marks, from PoA ch 9 and 12 and GoF in the graveyard)

Lily and James Potter were enjoying a quiet moment together having just put their son Harry to bed (H in bed - from the movie - JKR's scene - therefore canon ~sticking tongue out at all and ducking the movie-contamination flames~), when all of a sudden there was a ferocious noise outside, followed by a high, cold laugh. Naturally, having been on the run from LV for some time, L&J realised who and what it was. They run into the hall (I imagine them being in the living room for some reason) and Lily pounds up the stairs, as James' last words echo in her ears - "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-". Downstairs, James breaks off as LV busts open the door, cackling his nutty little head off, and AK's his ass. James is now dead, having died to give his wife time to get upstairs (sadly he barely bought her a few seconds, but never mind, he was trying). LV presumably steps over James and calmly walks upstairs, still laughing like a drain (you won't be laughing in a sec, mate) and heads into the nursery, where I assume Lily is standing there panicking because she can't Apparate with a toddler. Lily turns as she hears him, and stands in front of Harry's crib, shielding him, and then starts begging for her son's life. LV pauses for a second for another good chuckle (I know I'm running this one into the ground, but every single time we hear him it's that bloody high cold laugh again!) and then settles down into the business of wiping out the last of the Potters (and, in my view, the last Gryffindor). He's not really that arsed about killing Lily, and might have even promised her to Snape, if you follow TEW EWWW, and so, with victory so close to his grasp (typical Bond villain or what?) has a magnanimous moment, so as Lily is crying "Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I'll do anything-" he interrupts and tells her "Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now..." and rolls up his sleeves for a good bit of AKing. Lily is still screaming at him "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead, have mercy", and is spoiling his nice little "my-victory-is-now-ensured" moment, so he AK's her too (an AK meant solely for Lily, NOT Harry). With poor Lil now dead on the floor, he steps towards the crib, has one last Ever So Evil cackle, and then says the words he's been waiting to say to James and Harry Potter for a long time - Avada Kedavra. Sadly for old Voldy, he wasn't paying attention to what Lily was saying (too much cackling, if you ask me) and hasn't realised that in telling her to stand aside, he didn't just randomly kill her, he made her sacrifice her life unecessarily. So when he says those happy words, isn't he the victim of a rather unpleasant surprise? Young Harry gets a rather interesting cut on the forehead, and just as Voldy is noticing he looks awfully alive for a cadaver, he is "ripped from his body" etc. Isn't that sad? ~cheesy grin~

Short story over, I will return to my actual post again ;) I believe that Lily Potter, like all young mothers, is idealistic and happy, and loves Harry more than anything in the world, including both James and herself. She thinks nothing of asking for Harry's life in exchange for her own, she would happily give it up if she thought LV would spare Harry. However, either Lily doesn't know or has forgotten that Harry is the one he's come to kill (fair play, she is in a blind panic) and doesn't realise she's offering her life in vain. She doesn't stand in the way of the AK meant for Harry, she just covers Harry with her own body and refuses to move, so rather than go to the trouble of pushing her aside, LV just thinks "screw it" and AK's her. 

BIG mistake. ~eg~

I think that a lot of people over the years (or at least ONE - how selfish are these wizardly folk?!) must have tried to hustle their loved ones out of the back door while they themselves were being AK'd, but I think LV (or any DE's doing his dirty work) had never told anyone to move before, so they didn't sacrifice themselves needlessly, they just died. But in his short-sightedness (something which is gonna bite him in the ass again, I'd put Galleons on it) he tells Lily to move. This is the key: Voldemort TELLS her to move. (Silly boy.) I think if he'd told James (who tried to protect Lily) to stand aside (not that he would, because if the Gryffindor thing is true, he was out for James too) then AK'ing Lily would have broken his power, and little Harry would have only lost his dad. As it is, he only says it to Lily, who refuses, and so when she dies, her sacrifice and soul gives Harry sort of the best Shield Charm ever (part of the "old magic" invoked by Dumbledore to protect Harry, I'd warrant, and now also unconsciously invoked by Lily). I haven't actually read LOTR, but one of my friends assures me that the reason Gandalf became White rather than remaining Grey (or, you know, dead) was due to his self-sacrifice for the Fellowship. Bit of an Obi-Wan thing too, sacrificing himself for Luke and co to escape. (God, isn't it sad I can only think of those two examples of fantasy stuff!!) Same sort of thing - in sacrificing herself, Lily gets an express ticket to Heaven (hopefully!), and Harry is protected by her very spirit and essence of her complete and unconditional love in death as much as he was protected by her physically in her last moments of her life.

(Hmmmm, just occurred to me - might Harry have had trouble killing Sirius in the Shrieking Shack not because he didn't know the curse, as was discussed in another thread, but instead because Crookshanks protecting Sirius from death at Harry's hands subconciously reminds him of his mother protecting him from death at Voldemort's? We know he does have flashes of the green light and the laughing, so there might be more he can't consciously remember...)

Anyway, my basic point is this: the way I read it, Lily Potter was scared to death, and panicking her pretty little head off. When you are fretting for the lives of your loved ones, particularly the life of your baby boy, you can't start making conscious self-sacrifice decisions. Lily just did what any good mother would have done (and a high percentage of bad ones) and stepped in front of the bullet. 

When I was younger and in the front seat of the car with my mum, if she had to brake suddenly, she always instinctively threw out one arm to protect me (actually, the arm that should have been down-gearing and therefore stopping the car, now that I think about it!). She wasn't doing it in a thinking "must protect Susan" way, she was instinctively protecting her young. It was a reflex action. I believe Lily was doing the same thing - she probably wasn't even listening to LV's words, or even thinking about what she was saying, she was just trying to protect Harry instinctively.

Gawd, I sound so mushy. Roll on June, I need clarification! ~jumps off Power Of A Mother's Love soap box rather ungracefully and runs onto the HPfGU dancefloor to happy dance with everyone else~

Susan
(who is very worried she will not be able to get used to the idea in OotP of Evil!Draco, Evil!Narcissa and R/H shipping after OD'ing on Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy)
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Despite constant warnings, you never meet anyone who's had their arm broken by a swan.
Men are very like slinkys; a bit pointless but fun to watch fall down stairs.


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