Survival of AK

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 113733

Eloise wrote:
> >  Dumbledore says that, "Your mother died to save you. If there is 
> > one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't 
> > realize 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 forever."
 
 
Kneasy:
> The protection is interesting. I've been brooding on that and I've 
> come up with a slightly different slant on what's been going on.
> 
> From what we've been told Lily's death emplaced the protection and 
> if the protection was specifically anti-Voldy, which is what we 
> believe, then there must be something identifiably Voldy to trigger 
> the protection, Quirrell!Mort's laying on of hands in PS/SS for 
> example. So how does the protection 'know' that a spell comes from 
> Voldy? An AK is an AK, and in PS/SS there is the 'binding ropes' 
> spell and possibly an Imperio! that Quirrell!Mort uses against 
> Harry. And Harry is not protected against them. It is only when 
> something identifiably Voldy (a possessed Quirrell)actually touches 
> Harry that the protection works. Maybe the scene in the graveyard 
> where Voldy proves that he can actually *touch* Harry is more
> significant than we suspect. 
> 
> Perhaps it's not spells that matter, it's anything of Voldy's 
> *persona*, body or spirit, that Harry is protected against. If so, 
> then if what attacked Harry at GH contained essence of Voldy, his 
> mind say, then that would automatically activate the protection 
> when it touched him. And if it went straight into Harrys' mind the 
> Voldy fraction would be evicted, leaving behind the powers 
> associated with it. 
> 
> In which case Harry has always been vulnerable to spells, it's just 
> that Voldy never threw any at him.
> 
> Hmm. Seems nicely logical.
> Can anyone see any obvious holes in the reasoning?


SSSusan:
I've been following this exchange with interest, as you & Eloise have 
been batting about these puzzling bits of AK or not AK at GH.  I 
don't see any holes in this, no, but I do have a question/issue 
later....  In fact, I think mine is a similar idea to 
your "automatically activating" scenario, only based upon a different 
substance than Essence of Voldy.


 
Eloise:
> > OTOH, this doesn't really tie up with Voldemort saying in the 
> > graveyard that he should have remembered the old magic which gave 
> > Harry protection, implying that he *did* know there was a way of 
> > blocking whatever spell it was, but just like the Phoenix tears 
> > he forgot it at the crucial moment in true Evil Overlord manner. 
> > He didn't remember it when he told Quirrell to seize Harry, 
> > either. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
 
Kneasy:
> True. I've had a whinge before, lamenting at the incompetence of 
> Voldy. Impressive he's not. Played four, lost four in his matches 
> against Harry. Poor show. Must do better. He'll never get to rule 
> the world at this rate.

SSSusan:
You've got lots of company in this area.  See my post #113692, 
responding to Colin's assessment of Voldy's snafus so far.
But I think Eloise raises a possibility here that I would like to 
address in a bit--that there really MAY actually be a countercurse to 
or protection against AK.


Eloise:
> > Which might meant not that he's wrong in saying it was an AK, but 
> > wrong in saying there's no blocking it. I guess if you need 
> > someone else to sacrifice themselves for you then essentially, 
> > there *is* no blocking it. I mean, there you are on a dark night, 
> > a DE jumps out and shouts "Avada Kedavra!" at you and you'd be 
> > darned lucky to have a willing victim to hand.

Kneasy:
> This whole 'sacrifice' thing needs to be cleared up. Are you 
> listening Jo?  There are loose ends flapping around all over the 
> place - DD hints that he was responsible for the whole idea 
> (logical - how much ancient magic would Lily know?); different fans 
> have different ideas of what constitutes sacrifice in this 
> instance - does eventually being killed after a tooth and nail 
> struggle constitute a sacrifice within the conditions of the spell 
> (in which case it's likely Voldy has come across it before) or is 
> it a willing "'tis a far, far better thing I do.." sort of passive 
> acceptance of death - a sort of offering? I tend to lean towards 
> the latter myself, otherwise James counts as a sacrifice too, but 
> he doesn't get a mention as such in canon.


SSSusan:
YES, Jo, are you listening??  Please tell us you're listening.  

Two issues in this section.  First, I think we DEFINITELY have a 
difficult time with this because we don't know exactly how the 
sacrifice worked, what made it a sacrifice, and what is required for 
a sacrifice to provide this kind of protection in JKR's world.  (And 
it's complicated further by the possibility, at least, that it wasn't 
an AK at all that Voldy cast, eh?)  

I agree with Kneasy about his latter description of sacrifice being 
most likely, because of the James thing.  In fact, I've been annoyed 
by the way people seem to see James' death as sort of, "Yeah, well, 
he died," whereas Lily's death is seen as this Ultimate Thing.  They 
BOTH died to save Harry, so James deserves some credit!  But I think 
the reason Lily's "counted" more is that, allegedly, she didn't 
*have* to die *and yet* she knew that she did have to die in order to 
set up the protection in Harry.

Now this leads to the second issue.  That darn protection.  I know a 
lot of people think the mere sacrifice, the very action of dying for 
Harry, is what set up the protection.  DD says "your mother died to 
save you... and [this action] will give us some protection forever."  
BUT there's also that reference to "ancient magic" and I just CAN'T 
believe that Lily's the only person who willingly died for another.  
It seems there must have been something MORE, some other aspect to 
it, which made this so very extraordinary.  (So extraordinary that we 
can believe Voldy would've forgotten about its possibility.)

This is where I'm with Eloise.  Kneasy, you seem to be saying that 
because there's no protection against an AK, then it must not have 
been an AK.  That is, you seem unwilling to consider that Crouch!
Moody just might be wrong about there being no countercurse or 
protection.  Yet C!M also said that it *was* an AK that was cast that 
night.  So it seems to me that one way or another, C!M has to be 
wrong about SOMETHING.  Either C!M is wrong about its having been an 
AK, or he's wrong about there being no countercurse, that it can't be 
blocked.  How do we know which one he's wrong about?

If the issue Crouch!Moody is mistaken about is there being no 
protection/countercurse/block, then I would return to my argument 
that the protection for Harry came about not JUST from Lily's 
sacrifice, but that the sacrifice is what **activated** the "ancient 
magic" that she had "applied" in anticipation of this Voldy attack.  

Does that make sense?  Kind of like the potential 
countercurse/protection is like an Easter egg dye tablet just sitting 
in a bowl.  It doesn't DO anything--it isn't effective--until the 
vinegar is added.  Perhaps Lily's sacrifice was the vinegar that 
activated the dye tablet that protected Harry from the AK.  :-)

I recognize, of course, that you may be on the right track in your 
assumption that the curse WASN'T an AK at all [absence of a 2nd green 
flash].  In fact, I rather like the idea that Voldy was trying to 
possess Harry and ended up putting something of himself into him.  
But I think it's at least as possible that C!M was simply wrong about 
there being no way to defend against an AK.  Perhaps there IS a way--
by combination of BOTH a countercurse AND a life sacrifice--and it's 
just that it's so rarely used, because it requires such an 
extraordinary action to activate, that most wizards forget about it.

Siriusly Snapey Susan