It's About Motive / Lily and AK

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 135182

> G M Cat quoted:
> MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in 
> front of Harry?
> 
> JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it  
>never happened before. No 
> one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could 
>happen.
> 
from the JKR interview.  This has definitely *not* cleared it up for 
me, and I have been puzzling for ages about this, since way before 
HBP came out.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the 
special thing about Harry was that he had *survived* an AK curse.  
However, if Lily stood in front of Harry when LV cast the curse then 
it seems to me that Harry never actually got AKed.  So even after 
this JKR interview, I am still confused about it.  

Below are some cannon points to explain my reasoning:

1. Evidence from Voldemort's wand in the graveyard scene suggests 
that there was no extra AK curse, cast either before or after Lily's 
death. Immediately before Lily emerges, Bertha Jorkins comes out. 
After Lily has emerged, James follows immediately. (UK ed GoF p578/9)
I have always interpreted this to mean that the curse that killed 
Lily was the only curse cast at Harry and that was the one which 
backfired and robbed Voldemort of his body.

2 Now for evidence from OotP ch36 p717 The MOM battle scene.  
Voldemort sprays AKs around like he's watering the lawn in this 
scene, and none of them hit the target. The first one is destined 
for Harry, but DD animates the Centaur which gets in front of Harry 
and takes the hit.  He then lobs another three unsuccessful ones at 
DD, then finally comes the one which is swallowed by Fawkes.  Would 
we say that Harry has survived one, and DD has survived 4 AK curses 
at this point.  No, not in my opinion.  Either an inanimate object 
saved him, or in the case of Fawkes, a living being, took the curse 
and died for him.  They have only survived in the context of being 
threatened by an AK curse, but not actually getting hit by it.  
Whatever the curse hit first, took the hit and the intended target 
*was left unscathed*.

So what puzzles me is the inference that Lily stood in front of 
Harry and sacrificed her life by taking the AK meant for Harry and 
that was somehow unique.  If this is all that is meant, I can't see 
that Harry can be considered as having *survived* an AK curse.  The 
curse did not reach him, so how can he have survived it.  Isn't this 
just the same as DD being saved by Fawkes?  

In the interview, Melissa continues after the bit quoted above:
MA: So no one - Voldemort or anyone using Avada Kedavra - ever gave 
someone a choice and then they took that option [to die] -
JKR: They may have been given a choice, but not in that particular 
way

So it seems to me that there has got to be more to this than Lily 
simply putting herself between Harry and Voldemort and taking the 
hit.  Obviously, JKR admits that other people have chosen to die for 
others, yet she is almost implying by that, that the intended target 
died as well, i.e they didn't survive like Harry did – which doesn't 
seem to make any sense either.  

But anyway – what was the unique choice that Lily faced, and what 
was the particular way it was given.

One option which I really think should be born in mind as a 
possibility has already been posted:

I wrote in a previous post:
> DD says to Harry (UK Ed
> p473, ch23) "I am sure that he was intending to make his final
> Horcrux with your death. As we know, he failed." Which implies to
> me that the curse which he used to try and kill Harry was somehow
> more than a straightforward AK curse, it also had something else
> bound into it that was designed to create the Horcrux.

Valky then wrote a fantastic post suggesting – horror of horrors – 
Voldemort wanted to make Lily a Horcrux.  I would recommend reading 
this one, it's post 134566.

Valky wrote:
>Two spells at once appear to be possible. So could Voldemort have
>tried to do double magic at Godrics Hollow?
>
>He points an Avada Kedavra at Baby Harry, a finisher. And at Lily he
>points the little Horcrux experiment he had in mind..
>equal-connected-horcrux.
>
>Lily jumps in front of the Avada Kedavra and she dies.
>
>Sometime after this happens Voldemort's body is dead, Harry is 
scarred
>and has collected some of Voldemorts powers in the process.
>
>So the final Hypothesis.
>
>The transfer of powers and the mark of equality were a result
>deliberate efforts by Voldemort to secure himself a final Living
>Horcrux, an ultimate demonstration of his unmatched power. How Harry
>ended up with them is anybody's guess. Why Harrys Muggleborn Mother,
>who knows? Voldies Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Just a last thought to muddy the waters even further.  Who actually 
knows what happened at Godric's Hollow?  We suspect that there was 
someone else there, and JKR hinted as much in the Mugglenet 
interview. But my guess is that they are keeping quiet about it.  DD 
doesn't seem to know.  So if no-one really knows what happened, how 
do they know that Harry *survived* an AK?

Saraquel