Harry's protection

[macfotuk at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 112087

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "niekycrins" <n.crins at p...> 
wrote:
> This may be a very stupid question, but if Harry is still 
protected 
> by his mother's sacrifice then why does LV try to AK him again in 
> GOF and OOTP? What if it bounces back again?
> 
> Nieky

Haven't heard from Kneasy in a while, but I'm sure he would agree 
that this simply shows that LV never learns and has more weaknesses 
than he should have as an archetypically ESE character. That is, 
though JKR says he's the baddest - he's actually a completely 
bungling baddie. He's *still* convinced that little HP is a mere 
upstart who fluked it first time. Despite knowing half the prophecy 
he still feels he can snuff (swat) this pesky little Potter (he is, 
after all, the darkest, mst powerful wizard ever!). Fans of 
Divination surely will have spotted LV's boast in GoF graveyard 
scene to his assembled DE's 

" ... 'You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy 
could ever have been stronger than me' said Voldemort. 'but I want 
there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter escaped me by 
a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, 
here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to 
help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. 
He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which 
of us is stronger. ..."

Setting oneself up to fail? hmmmmm JKR loves to show how dumb LV 
(ESE defined) can be and how HP (we the reader see as good) will 
prevail - though she may not protect him in book 7 by which time he 
is as expendable as any other character). It has always struck me 
that yes, the developments of this scene (Harry's survival despite 
LV's intent to make an example of him) show that in fact HP is the 
stronger, for he escapes, against all odds and, notice, without DD's 
or Lily's obvious protection (excepting that Lily is there during 
the priori incantatem spell and perhaps DD might be argued to be 
too, through the pheonix song and the wand cores involved). This 
scene reemphasises that LV constantly under-estimates whatever it is 
about Harry that makes him a formidable adversary - a theme returned 
to in OotP (DD saying HP has powers LV knows little of and/or 
underestimates - which we all take to mean love and selflessness). 
LV still hasn't learned this by the end of book 5 (nor I suspect the 
denoument in book 7).