Harry's protection

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 112991

> SSSusan again:

> "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept 
locked 
> at all times.  It contains a force that is at once more wonderful 
> and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces 
> of nature.  It is also, perhaps the most mysterious of the many 
> subjects for study that reside there.  It is the power held within 
> that room that you possess in such quantitites and which Voldemort 
> has not at all.  That power took you to save Sirius tonight.  That 
> power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he 
could 
> not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests.  In 
> the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind.  It 
was 
> your heart that saved you."  [US hardback, pp. 843-844]
> 
> 
> I would argue that, while sacrificial love certainly isn't the 
ONLY 
> thing which would fit this bill, it *is* a good match for it.  
> 
> The references here to both to something "more wonderful *and* 
more 
> terrible than death" and to Harry's *heart* having saved him make 
me 
> believe this, because in those words are references to love and to 
> death, that is, the two things which combined could definitely 
equal 
> Sacrificial Love.


Neri:
Yes, I agree that Sacrificial Love fits the bill more than most 
other similar possibilities. I'm not sure why I don't like it 
(except that it's "fluffy"). 

I also don't like Heart, Humanity, Life, Hope and all that kind of 
stuff. I think JKR is not a symbolist. She writes an adventure 
story, not an allegory. 

For example, in the death chamber in the DoM you don't find Death. 
You find a magical arch that is some kind of a portal to the world 
of the dead. In the "intelligence" room you don't find Intelligence, 
you find leaving brains. In the time room you don't find Time. You 
find time-turners and the bell that makes things younger and older.

Therefore, IMO the power-behind-the-locked-door will turn out to be 
some magical power that JKR invented. She might give it a name with 
a mystic sound like "ancient magic" or "Avada Kedavra", or she'll 
keep it so mysterious that it won't have even a name, but I think it 
will still be a magical power or device, which can be used in 
certain magical ways and under certain magical rules. It will of 
course be also a metaphor for Love, Sacrifice, Morality and things 
like that, but in the plot level in will be device, in the same way 
that the Mirror of Erised wasn't Desire. It was a magical device 
that symbolized Desire. 

Neri