What saved Harry?

[zehms at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 142735


MercuryBlue:
Lily was not a threat. Lily was a minor nuisance. Very minor. Like an 
ant on your picnic blanket. You might squash it if you felt like it, 
but you're just as likely to flick it back into the grass. Or else 
Voldemort just wanted to torment her by killing her son in front of her.


Zehms:
Actually I think Lily was very significant, and much more than a minor 
nuisance.

JKR is telling fans to ask the question, 'why was Lily given the choice that 
no previous wizard has been given?' I think her choice is a profitable line of 
inquiry and I think the reason she was given a choice is a vital piece of the 
plot-were the answer to that question unimportant JKR would not have told 
Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldren that it was significant.

Here is the direct quote from Leaky Cauldren:


ES: This is one of my burning questions since the third book - why did 
Voldemort offer Lily so many chances to live? Would he actually have let her live?
JKR: Mmhm.
ES: Why?
JKR: [silence] Can't tell you. But he did offer, you're absolutely right. 
Don't you want to ask me why James's death didn't protect Lily and Harry? There’s 
your answer, you've just answered your own question, because she could have 
lived and chose to die. James was going to be killed anyway. Do you see what I 
mean? I’m not saying James wasn't ready to; he died trying to protect his 
family but he was going to be murdered anyway. He had no - he wasn't given a 
choice, so he rushed into it in a kind of animal way, I think there are 
distinctions in courage. James was immensely brave. But the caliber of Lily's bravery 
was, I think in this instance, higher because she could have saved herself. Now 
any mother, any normal mother would have done what Lily did. So in that sense 
her courage too was of an animal quality but she was given time to choose. 
James wasn't. It's like an intruder entering your house, isn't it? You would 
instinctively rush them. But if in cold blood you were told, "Get out of the way," 
you know, what would you do? I mean, I don't think any mother would stand 
aside from their child. But does that answer it? She did very consciously lay down 
her life. She had a clear choice -
ES: And James didn't.
JKR: Did he clearly die to try and protect Harry specifically given a clear 
choice? No. It's a subtle distinction and there's slightly more to it than that 
but that's most of the answer.
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.
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. 

Zehms.