Survival of AK

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 113748

SSSusan back again:
Actually, Kneasy, when you say this -- 

> 1. There's this ancient magic stuff whereby under certain conditions
> (as yet unknown) a sacrifice can provide protection to another 
> person.
> 2. DD hints that he placed it, that it was his idea. 
> 3. Lily's sacrifice activated it, flicked the safety catch, if you 
> like.
> 4. An attack by the designated enemy then triggers the automatic 
> defence.

-- I don't think it's so different from what I was saying with *this* 
before --

> > 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.


When you objected thusly --

> A combination of counter-curse and sacrifice - I don't know. 
> Seems a bit complicated.
> I wonder how anyone would be able to discover that trick - be an 
> awful lot of dead bodies before they found out it'd work.

-- I'm not sure that it's really so different.  "Ancient magic" 
PLACED by DD, you wrote in #2.  Could be what I'm talking about but 
had thought perhaps *Lily* had done at DD's suggestion.  Either way, 
when Lily died, she activated it.  I think it's the fact that I keep 
throwing in that word "countercurse" that's causing the trouble.  But 
that's really for a lack of proper vocabularly on my part.  "Ancient 
magic"..."countercurse"...whatever the heck it is--we likely are 
referring to the same thing.  Something old & extraordinary that only 
someone wise & old like DD would have known about; something which 
has to be activated by a sacrifice.  DD or Lily sets it up, Lily bows 
out, which activates said already-in-place, 
ancientmagiccountercursewhateveryoucallit, and when Voldy's 
spell/possession/whatever it is--hits... BAM!!  The "automatic 
defence" [note I kept UK spelling :-)] takes place.

The way I'm reading this, it really doesn't matter whether 
Voldy was using an AK or some kind of "possession activity."  
*Whatever* it was, DD & Lily's plan foiled it.  At least most of it. 

Your spelling things out in sequence like this--

>5. It's my contention that the protection was against Voldy the 
> person because:
> 6. There's that puzzling blank. What blank? you ask - the blank 
> during the replay of Voldy's spells in the graveyard, of course. No 
> sign of an AK or any spell that resulted in the destruction of 
> Voldys' body. But if he'd gone for a mind intrusion then there 
> wouldn't be a spell to replay. QED.
> 7. If the protection guarded against evil spells then one would 
> expect them to bounce straight off - no scar, no bits left in the 
> targets mind.
> 8. Voldy, even when possessing another body cannot *touch* Harry 
> without disasterous consequences. 
> 9. But when possessing another body he can cast spells at Harry 
> that work. (Rope binding and possibly Imperio! in PS/SS.)
> 10. We only get Voldy intrusions into Harrys' mind *after* the 
> protection has been nullified.  
> Conclusion: the protection is against Voldy, not spells.

-- helps show the possibility of its being a possession attempt 
rather than an AK. So, again, whatever it was, Harry was just lucky 
that DD & Lily were able to concoct this protection against it/Voldy.


Kneasy:
> Whether or no there is a counter to an AK becomes largely irrelevent
> in this instance because my bet is that one wasn't used and Harry
> wasn't protected against AKs anyway.

SSSusan:
Precisely.  I agree with this.  Whether you're right about possession 
or (dare I say) most others are right about AK & claiming that C!M 
was just wrong about there being no counter, it wouldn't matter for 
purposes of the argument.  It will only matter how the two variations 
would play out for JKR.


Kneasy:
> I'll wait until the hypothesis above has been shot down in flames, 
> forcing me to look at other alternatives.

SSSusan:
I'll be curious to see who can shoot it down.  

Siriusly Snapey Susan, who's annoyed by her own run-on style in this 
post, but couldn't seem to figure a better way to work it.