What saved Harry?

[zehms at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 142783

In a message dated 11/9/2005 9:20:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
MercuryBlue144 at aol.com writes:

> Oh, I know she has great significance to the backstory and future
> plot. Did Voldemort know she had any significance whatsoever?
> Unlikely. Did he care? Rather less likely. She was about as 
> important to him as that ant is to you.


szehms:
BUt if she is as insignificant as an "ant" why out of the possible hundreds of wizard death VOldemort had been resposible for, did he give one witch "lily" a choice to live?

In the interview quotes I provided, JKR says a choice like the one given to Lily is the one and only time LV allowed a witch or wizard the opportunity to choose to live when faced the possibity of death.  
LV told Harry that "your mother (LIly) needn't have died..." (SS pp. 294) and in POA HArry hears LV tell Lily to step aside I believe 3 times.

WHy not just kill her outright as he did James?

Had he killed her as he did James, Harry would not be "the boy who lived" but by giving Lily the choice she was able to invoke ancient magic sealing an invisible magical contract of "my life for Harry's".

WHy the choice?  If Lily is insignificant to LV then why give her the 
'choice' that ultimately destroyed his corpreal body that night? 

Were the 'choice' without meaning or consequence JKR would not continually refuse to answer this question.

The mystery of the choice I do believe signifies that Lily's life, for some reason, had a degree of meaning to LV, not very much importance as her life was not worth allowing Harry to live, but 'some' importance, the question I ponder is 'why'?  This is a question JKR cannot answer as it is too vital a clue to the end of the series.

szehms