Lily's Protection: Is it still there?

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 158183

A question I have been pondering. Is the protection (love/ancient 
magic) Lily gave to Harry still in place? We don't know anything 
about this protection. Was it a spell? Did she trick Voldemort into 
a magical contract? All speculation at this point.

In PS/SS Dumbledore told Harry it is in his "very skin" and in the 
preceding sentence said that Lily's love for Harry "will give [him] 
some protection forever". (p.299, US) I don't recall Dumbledore ever 
modifying or qualifying that inference. Dumbledore does explain 
about the "charm" that Petunia sealed when she took Harry in, how 
that derived from Lily's/Petunia's blood and will expire on Harry's 
seventeenth birthday. But that was in addition to Lily's protection, 
not in place of it.

The only person I recall who claims Harry won't have his mother 
around to protect him was Voldemort. Quite frankly, I'm not prepared 
to take the word of the wizard who already underestimated this 
protection and doesn't understand the power of love at all. He 
admitted earlier that he "miscalculated", that his curse was 
deflected by Lily's "foolish sacrifice". BTW, Diary!Tom called 
Lily's sacrifice a "powerful counter-charm". Doesn't sound like 
this "old magic" (LV's words) is a spell or incantation, sounds more 
like a binding magical contract, doesn't it?

My question is: What has changed? DD says Harry will have "some" 
protection forever and if Lily did invoke old magic in the form of a 
magical contract, well, who released Voldemort from the contract? If 
the form of magic is something different, I still don't see why it 
wouldn't remain active especially after what Dumbledore said.

Does anyone remember if JKR referenced this protection in any of her 
interviews? Did she say anything about it no longer being active? My 
curiousity was aroused when I noticed that JKR had LV twice fire AKs 
at Harry but both times it was blocked, once with Priori the other 
time by a statue. Now, of course she wasn't going to have Harry get 
killed, but I thought there might be some foreshadowing in how the 
*unblockable* curse was indeed blocked, not misfired.