Lily's protection for Harry

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 151763

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Cassy Ferris <cassy_ferris at ...>
wrote:
>
> Alla quoted Melissa Anelli & JKR: 
> <snip>
>    
> >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."
> <snip>
> 
> Cassy:   
> I'm sorry if this issue was already discussed, I'm new here, but
> that is the point I always wondered about: why it never happened 
> before? LV killed so many families, surely some mother would 
> stand in front of her child in effort to protect him/her? We 
> can't assume that Lily's love was of some "higher quality," so 
> it worked better. Or was it that LV gave Lily a choice wether to
> die or not? But why exactly did he do it, wasted his time trying
> to convince a defenseless woman to stand aside? 
>    
> Cassy
>

bboyminn:

I think you need to look at the very precise and specific circumstance
of the events. James like any parent die trying to protect his family,
why didn't his love and defense save Harry? Because his actions were
general to the events at hand. Lily on the other hand was right there
in the room with the option to 'step aside' and live. She chose to
literally stand between Voldemort and Harry refusing to give Harry up. 

The general circumstances of James defending his family has probably
played out many times, but the specific circumstances of Lily standing
between the child and Voldemort was probably very rare. The Death
Eaters were probably very indiscriminant in their killing. When they
attacked a family they didn't really care who was killed or when. They
likely killed the adult first, and once opposition was eliminated,
they killed the children. Or perhaps, they overcame and captured the
adults, killed the kids in front of them, then killed the adults.
Either way, it doesn't allow for the precise circumstances that
occurred with Lily. 

As to why Voldemort gave Lily a chance to live, I have always
speculated that once he stepped into the bedroom, he had his objective
in sight (Harry), and that's all he cared about. Lily at that point
was an incidental annoyance. He could care less one way or the other
about her. She only became a problem when she got between Voldemort
and his objective. At that point, in Voldemort's mind, Lily was not a
mother defending her child, she was merely an annoying obstical to be
gotten rid of; a gross miscalculation on his part. 

So, in most Death Eater attacks, there is only a general objective;
eliminate this family which represents an obstical between me and what
I want. When Harry's family was attacked it was with the very specific
objective of killing Harry, everything else was simply a roadblock to
accomplishing that task. This created the circumstances in which an
unarmed Lily was able to stand between Voldemort and Harry. 

So, it is not the general circumstance of a parent defending a child
which most certainly has happened before, but the very precise set of
circumstance surrounding Lily's death that invoked the magic that
protected Harry. 

Just a thought.

Steve/bboyminn