Re: Mommy can’t protect you forever

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 99432

Annemehr:
Actually, I quite agree with Reed. I don't know about how "smart" it
is; it's just how the magic works: Lily died defending Harry against
Voldemort, and Harry is protected from Voldemort's touch.

Remember in PS/SS that Quirrell, with LV residing inside him, could
not even withstand mere skin contact with Harry without getting
blistering burns, not even when *Harry* touched *him.* Yet, Dudley
has always been able to punch Harry with no ill effects (and wasn't it
Piers who was normally the one to *hold* the victim's arms while
Dudley beat him up?), and he did it for years before Harry ever met
Quirrell. So, yes, I'm sure the skin contact protection applied only
to Voldemort, and furthermore that it was triggered by contact alone
and not just when Harry was being attacked.

Neri:
DD words in SS/PS:
"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot 
understand, it is love. He didn't realise that love as powerful as 
your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible 
sign 
 to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved 
us is gone, will give us some protection for ever. It is in your very 
skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul 
with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to 
touch a person marked by something so good."

This can be interpreted as if only LV or someone sharing his soul 
with him would trigger the protection, but also as if any extremely 
bad person could do it. Dudley wouldn't have fit the bill, but 
Wormtail could have.  

Voldy in the graveyard scene says:
"I wanted Harry Potters blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had 
stripped me of power thirteen years ago
for the lingering protection 
his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too.
"

If the protection is specifically anti-LV, I'd say the last thing 
Voldy would want to do is get it into his body. It is much easier to 
explain why he did it if we assume that the protection protects the 
carrier from any great threat. It is of course possible and even 
likely that Voldy himself got it wrong, but there is still the 
question, how could LV get Lily's anti-LV protection into his own 
blood without suffering.

Annemehr:
Here, I agree. The power that saved Harry in the MoM came from his
own heart. I hadn't noticed that anyone thought it was part of Lily's
protection before, but it had never even occured to me that Lily had
anything to do with it. The power of Lily's love saved Harry in
Godric's Hollow, but Harry has his own powers and goodness himself.

Neri:
Is it indeed obvious to anybody? I'd be glad for some feedback on 
this.

Annemehr:
It might be useful to try and sort out all these protections, if only
because I myself find them all confusing and tend to forget which
applies where. Please tell me if I'm not making sense!

1)Lily's Sacrificial Death

-1a)Caused AK rebound. Was it limited to that *one* AK, or was LV then
generally unable to AK Harry, if only he could hold a wand? As for
other wizards, I believe that they could still AK Harry if they tried.
In any case, LV is quite unafraid to attempt AK on Harry since his
reembodiment, and DD felt compelled to block the one aimed at Harry in
the MoM with a statue.

-1b)Touch Protection. IMO, LV, and LV alone, could no longer stand
skin-to-skin contact with Harry; extended to those LV possesses.
Overcome by LV by using Harry's blood in reembodiment potion.

Neri:
See above why I think the protection was not specific to LV. One 
might say that this question doesn't have any importance now, if we 
agree that Lily's protection doesn't work anymore anyway. However, 
there is one scenario in which this question can be very important: 
if LV believes he bought himself protection from anybody with Harry's 
blood, but it actually doesn't work, LV might take a hit when he 
least expects to.

Annemehr:
2)Privet Drive Protection. DD used Lily's sacrificial death to
arrange protection for Harry at the home of Lily's blood relative as
long she takes him in and Harry can call it "home." Unclear to me
exactly who this applies to and what the boundaries are. As DD sent
Harry back there after LV's overcoming of 1), it's implied that it is
still in effect independently of the sacrifice which made it possible,
which is why I listed it separately as 2) rather than 1c).

3)Resistance to Possession by LV. As I said, IMO this is a power of
Harry himself. Here, I will agree that Jo is playing games with us,
though. DD is so cagey about explaining it to Harry, telling him Harry
knows what that power is as if it's obvious, yet he takes pains not to
name it.

I assume that Harry's resistance to LV's possession is very important
to how Harry will defeat him, which is probably why Jo doesn't want to
define it too closely. Though we've toyed with various ideas on this
list, I always come back to "love" being the most fitting explanation.
The key to the whole thing may be the particular form or
manifestation of love that will come into play, which she's still
keeping secret.

Neri:
"Love" was the word DD used when explaining Lily's ancient magic in 
SS/PS, but now you agree that the-power-behind-the-locked-door is 
something else than Lily's protection. So is it a different kind of 
love?

One key for finding the identity of this power might be asking: How 
did Harry get it? Lily's protection took no less than sacrificing her 
life. This suggests that Harry must have done some very powerful 
things to acquire his new power. What did he do that can fit this 
bill? Here are some things that Harry had done:

1. He put his life on the line to prevent LV coming to power in SS/PS.
2. He saved Ginny's life in CoS, again risking his life and 
preventing LV's rise to power.
3. He let Wormtail live in PoA
4. He took Cedric's body home in GoF, again risking his life for it.
5. He went to rescue Sirius in OotP

The last one is also given as an effect: "that power took you to save 
Sirius tonight", but it does not mean that it couldn't be also a 
cause. It means, however, that Harry had at least some of his power 
before the DoM battle.

And things that other people had done for Harry:

6. Ron sacrificed himself on the chess board in SS/PS for Harry
7. Sirius gave his life to save Harry in OotP

2, 5, 6, and 7 can be ascribed to Love. The others cannot. Therefore 
I think it is not exactly love.  

Neri