Lily's death

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 93872

This message bounced for some reason (it timed out??), so I'm
reposting it. Sorry it's no longer part of the thread!

<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> I don't think Voldemort's intentions matter. Certainly 
    *if he had killed Harry [first] and then killed Lily, her death 
     would not have been a sacrifice*, 
regardless of his intentions. 
    *It would only have been a second murder.* 
But IMO it's Lily's intentions that matter. 
     *It's her death that saves her son and her deliberate giving
     of her life that makes her death a sacrifice.*
> 

greatelderone:
> I diagree here. A sacrifice entails that you give up something 
> inexchange for something of greater, equal or less value . Her 
> getting scrapped next by Voldemort wouldn't have qualified her act
as a sacrifice. 
> 
Carol:
Yes. That's what I said, too. She gave up her life for Harry's, so she
*is* giving up something of equal value, and "getting scrapped next"
would *not* have been sacrifice but murder.

Note the sentences marked by italics in my original post. Lily's death
*before* Harry's is a sacrifice which saves his life (because of the
"ancient magic," which I'll get to in a minute). Her death *after* his
would have been merely a second murder because *he would also have
died.* Also, Lily *chose* to die. ("Kill me! Not Harry! Kill me
instead!") I'm saying that *she had to die first to save him.* Maybe
my original wording was unclear, but I don't see any disagreement
here. As far as I can see, you're just repeating my point in different
words.

greatelderone:
> Besides if we take this to the logical conclusion and assume that 
> most mothers are as willing to die for their children, that AV is 
> used frequently for murders and that wizard wars like what Voldemort 
> waged were like every 50 year events then wouldn't it be common 
> enough for Voldemort to have kept this charm in mind?

Carol:
Again, I don't think you quite understand me. The self-sacrifice is
necessary to *activate* the charm (or "ancient magic"), but it isn't
the charm (or "ancient magic") itself. I completely agree that if all
that was involved was for the mother to die before the child (or a
husband before a wife, or whatever), a lot more lives would have been
saved and Avada Kedavra would not be such a dreaded spell. (That's
what you mean by AV, right?) But, IMO, not many witches or wizards are
familiar with the "ancient magic" that Lily used, which involved
something *beyond* the self-sacrifice.

That's why I think that Lily put a protective charm or spell on Harry
before LV arrived on the scene, knowing that she had to die to save
his life. She couldn't have stepped aside even if she had wanted to
because she had to be killed to activate the spell (or whatever the
"ancient magic" was) that saved his life. Had she not died first, the
Avada Kedavra would have killed Harry and her own death would have
been pointless--a second murder, as I said before.

So, as far as I can tell, we agree that

1) she had to die first for her death to be a sacrifice 
   and
2) self-sacrifice alone was not enough to save Harry.

In other words, there's more to the "ancient magic" LV refers to than
JUST self-sacrifice.

You may not agree about the protective charm, but I think we do agree
otherwise.

Carol, who is only trying to clear up points of misunderstanding in
this post, not present arguments for the protective charm, which is a
slightly different topic