The Scar. Was: Choices - or not

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 89842

> > Carol wrote:
> > However, it's possible that Lily placed a protective charm on him 
> > that caused the scar to appear when Voldemort tried to AK Harry. I 
> > don't think it was merely her love that protected him. (After all, 
> > Barty Crouch's mother also died for her son, but she didn't save 
> > him from evil influences--or dementors.) 
>  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 
> 
> 
> Whizbang here:
> Barty Crouch Jr.'s mother died of an illness.  Good planning got 
> junior out of Azkaban and substitued Mrs Crouch, but it's not quite 
> the same thing.
> 
> Beyond that, Harry is the one with the power to vanquish the Dark 
> Lord.  To compare him to any other mother's son in this situation is 
> again, apples and oranges.  And while I concede that our information 
> concerning the lack of a countercurse for the AK came from fake 
> Moody, ie Crouch Jr, still if there was a countercurse, I'm sure 
> everyone would know it.  Molly would be practicing it on a shooting 
> range.  If there is a countercurse, it seems odd that Lily would be 
> the only one who knew it.
> 
> It seems like Harry's being "the one with the power" is what 
> backfired Voldemort's AK.
>
We're not talking about a countercurse like Protego that would deflect
a Cruciatus curse. We're talking about a protective charm placed on
Harry before he was attacked that would only be effective if Lily
herslef died--a very powerful charm that involves a lot more than the
love of a mother who died protecting her son. (I'm not saying that it
did happen, only that it's possible given the evidence already presented.)

I originally thought as you do that the power was in Harry himself,
but JKR kept presenting new evidence that contradicted that
theory--first the Parseltongue that Harry acquired from LV when some
of LV's powers were passed to him, so that clearly there was more
involved than a deflected spell that rebounded on LV; then the idea
that Lily's love protected him (surely, as you seem to agree, a
mother's love alone is not going to save her child from Avada
Kedavra). We keep learning more about the scar and its powers and how
Harry acquired it as we progress through the series. Clearly it's not
as simple as it appears in the early books and we haven't learned
everything there is to know about it.

When Mandy first suggested that Lily had put a charm on Harry that
protected him from LV's curse, I was skeptical, too. (I think that's a
natural reaction to something we haven't thought of ourselves. :-) )
But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, and I put
together the canon evidence that seemed to support her theory, from
Lily's wand to the Eihwaz rune. Again, no theory can be proven or it
wouldn't be a theory, but this one is interesting and there's enough
canonical evidence to support the possibility that Lily cast a
protective charm on Harry.

Also, you might consider that we don't know what powers Harry had as a
baby before LV "marked" him. He seems to have inherited James's skill
at flying and he may have inherited some skill at charms and
transfiguration from his parents (though we haven't seen much of it
because he only applies himself when he sees the need, as when he
learns to conjure a Patronus or masters the summoning charm to save
himself from a dragon). It seems to me that Harry would have just been
an ordinary wizard boy, good at quidditch like Charlie Weasley but no
match for Voldemort, if it hadn't been for LV transferring some of his
powers to him. I don't think he could have saved himself, at the age
of fifteen months, from the spell that killed both his parents. (His
accidental magic, for example making his hair grow back or dissolving
the glass in the python cage, occurs *after* the transfer of powers.)
I realize that this explanation doesn't in itself support the charm
theory; I'm only explaining here why I no longer think that the power
to deflect the AK was in baby Harry to begin with.

<snip>

> Carol wrote:
> > The runes that have been discussed here lately are probably
> > important, too--not because of the appearance of Harry's scar in 
> > the films or the illustrations in the books, but because of 
> > Hermione's (and Luna's) interest in runes. One of them is bound to 
> > notice that Harry's lightning-shaped scar resembles the Eihwas 
> > rune, which Hermione confused with Ehwaz on her O.W.L.s: "I 
> > mistranslated 'ehwaz'," said Hermione furiously. It means 
> > 'partnership,' not 'defense.' I mixed it up with 'eihwaz.'" (OoP 
> > 715, Am. ed.). So if eihwaz (defense or protection is indeed 
> > lightning-shaped, the scar could be a form of protection for Harry-
> > -as well as the mark that Voldemort placed on him ("marked him as 
> > his equal").

> Whizbang here:
> Well explained.  We used the movie and book covers in an attempt to 
> identify the rune that scars Harry's forehead.  It's a matter of 
> interpretation, especially as there isn't really any consistency in 
> illustrations, but as near as we could figure, we thought it looked 
> like the sowelo.  That said .......... ?

Carol:
I don't think we can use the book covers or the movie as canonical
evidence. We need to look at the text itself. First, we have the
lightning-bolt shape of the scar (mentioned in every book). Then we
have the reference to the Eihwaz rune. Please correct me if I'm wrong,
but I don't think there's a reference to the Sowelo rune in the books
so far.

The scene with Hermione's O.W.L.s looks (to me) like one of those
*apparently* insignificant moments that JKR likes to drop in (that
Hermione! Worrying about one wrong answer!) but which will turn out to
be significant. And as I said, it's Eihwaz, not Sowelo, that's mentioned.

Carol, who also thinks that Snape's references to the bezoar will be
significant