Lily's love (was Re: My predictions in April 2003)

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 127182


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Grey Wolf" <grey.wolf.c at g...>
wrote:
> I have thought for a while that James
> and Lily were investigating ancient magics to help DUmbledore in the
> Voldemort War, and that Lily's focus in particular might have been in
> the power of love, or maybe family, as a way to protect people. IIRC,
> my theory went that a sacrifice was required, in particular a willing
> sacrifice of someone who loved the recipient.
> 
> Essentially, that would turn Lily's Love Shield into a much harder to
> reproduce situation -  acombination of love, knowledge of ancient
> magics and the unlikely situation of a sacrifice.
> 
> Hope that helps,
> 
> Grey Wolf


Valky:
Thanks Grey Wolf, for up til now I wholly agreed with that. But for
some reason looking at it now from this distance I can understand how
a planned Love charm can appear to "cheapen" it all, if you can in any
way cheapen a sacrifice (bad choice of words I suppose but I am stuck
for alternatives here).

What I mean is that in comparing the the *other* symbolic sacrifices
in the books it just seems to be missing an element. 
I suppose I am really kind of fond of viewing Lily's sacrifice as an
*absolute* act of hope, which would mean it couldn't very well have
been an outrightly planned move.  

So I think that Lily had been studying the ancient magics, and was
particularly interested in Love, but she didn't intellectually choose
a loving sacrifice to save her child. Instead she in one amazing
moment gave everything she had for one small miracle. That may be a
mothers love, in many atypical ways, but I think that it is more
transcendental than that. 
Though a mother's love is the closest analogy to it.