Lily's protective charm (Was: His mother's eyes)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 122537


Carol earlier:
> > I've also been arguing for a protective charm placed on
Baby!Harry, but your version gives me shivers. Also, we have
indications that Lily was good with Charms but nothing has been said
about her and potions.
> > Still, a potion combined with an incantation does sound like a
form of "ancient magic" so I'm certainly not ruling it out.
> > 
> > Here's my version, combining my theories and yours and attempting
to answer the question about Voldemort:
> > 
> > Lily places an elaborate Protego (shield charm) on Baby Harry, 
perhaps involving an incantation like the one kemper hypothesized (as 
opposed to the mere name of the spell), and, using her finger, marks
Harry's forehead with an (defense) eihwaz rune, like a priest marking
a baby's forehead with a cross in a baptismal service. The incantation
specifies that the charm will be activated by her self-sacrifice.
> > Shortly afterwards, she is murdered, sacrificing herself for Harry
and activating the charm. Voldemort tries to kill Harry, and the 
powerful Protego erupts through Harry's forehead, leaving an
eihwaz-shaped opening that later turns into a scar. The Protego
deflects the AK onto Voldemort, who is not killed because of the
protections he put on himself <snip> The force of the Protego explodes
not only Voldemort but everything around him, and the house crashes on
dead Lily and Baby!Harry. (Dead James is somewhere outside the house
where he died duelling with Voldemort.) While the wound is open, some
of Voldemort's powers and possibly some of his anger enters into
Harry. (I don't think, as explained elsewhere, that he permanently
lost those powers, but he can't use them until he regains a body, and
meanwhile, Harry, marked as Voldemort's equal by the very scar that
symbolizes his protection, now possesses some of the same powers in
latent form.)
><snip> I think an explanation like this allows the scar to be caused
by a cut when the AK hit (AKs normally don't leave any mark) and at
the same time allows the scar to be a symbol of his mother's
protection, the eihwaz (defense) rune. <snip>
>
> 
> Claire responds:
> I'm delurking after a very long time because this theory utterly 
> intrigues me (Carol, it gave me goosebumps too--nice going, Kemper).  
> Especially since, after reading several of the entries, I remembered 
> a couple of things:
> 1.  Reading not long ago the fact that Lily's wand was good for
charm work was going to be important.  Which correlates nicely with 
> Kemper's theory.
> 2.  Along the rune lines, could Hermione's mistranslation during her 
> Ancient Rune's OWL have a bearing here?

Carol responds:
Exactly. Ollivander's remark about Lily's first wand being "a nice
wand for Charm work" surely foreshadows some important charm that she
performed, just as James's wand, which was "excellent for
Transfiguration," foreshadowed his ability to become an Animagus. And
the eihwaz/ehwaz rune confusion, in no way important to the plot at
the point it's inserted, is the type of throwaway line that JKR uses
for planting clues.

So you've hit on the two key pieces of evidence on which the
Lily's-ancient-magic-involves-more-than-self-sacrifice theory is
based. And no, it doesn't have an acronym: LAMIMTSS is not exactly a
word. But if you feel like braving Yahoomort to find old posts on the
topic, you'll find that I've mentioned both of these items before as
support for the theory--not, however, with reference to an incantation
like the one kemper suggested!

Carol