DD's very effective blood protection WAS Re: Sirius, Sirus, and more Sirius

[Diana]

No: HPFGUIDX 158737

Dumbledore's plan to protect Harry using Lily's blood protection 
*did* work and it worked quite well for a long time.  IMO, 
Voldemort's comment "Not even I can touch him there." is being taken 
too literally.  Even Dumbledore also relates the blood protection 
too literally when he says in OotP:

    "While you can still call home the place where your mother's 
blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort.  
Her blood became your refuge.  You need return there only once a 
year, but as long as you can still call it home, whilst you are 
there he cannot hurt you.  Your aunt knows this.  I explained what I 
had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep.  She knows 
that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the 
past fifteen years."

If Lily's blood protection was only effective while Harry was 
*literally* within the confines of Privet Drive, then Quirrelmort 
would have not have been badly burned by touching Harry's skin with 
his bare hands while Harry was at Hogwarts.  Both LV and DD seem to 
speak of the protection quite literally, but is obvious that Harry's 
blood protection against LV's personal attacks is in effect as long 
as Harry can call Privet Drive (Petunia's home) his home.  
Technically, Harry spends more time living at Hogwarts each year 
than at Privet Drive, but Hogwarts is where he attends school and is 
not actually his 'home', no matter how Harry personally feels about 
it.  Therefore, I'd say that as long as Privet Drive (or wherever 
Petunia called home) is his home at least part of the year, then the 
blood protection is in place, whether Harry's at Hogwarts, Mrs. 
Figg's, school, the zoo or at the store.  

We know that Dumbledore cast some sort of charm upon Harry before 
placing him on that doorstep - a charm that was sealed when Petunia 
(no matter how grudgingly) accepted him and took him inside her 
house.  Dumbledore says in OotP:

   "But I knew, too, where Voldemort was weak.  And so I made my 
decision.  You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he 
knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, 
underestimated - to his cost.  I am speaking of course, of the fact 
that your mother died to save you.  She gave you a lingering 
protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins 
to this day.  I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood.  I 
delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."
   "She doesn't love me," said Harry at once.  "She doesn't give a 
damn-"
   "Bust she took you," Dumbledore cut across him, "She may have 
taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still 
she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon 
you.  Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest 
shield I could give you."  

I'm speculating here, but I gather from what DD said that the charm 
that Petunia sealed had intensified and/or enforced the blood 
protection Lily had given Harry by sacrificing her life.  

Granted, Vapormort was in no condition to hunt down Harry and attack 
him, but DD had no idea quite where LV was at that time.  Once DD 
found out LV was bodiless vapor drifting around the Black Forest, DD 
knew that LV would still come back, so Harry remained within the 
shield of his aunt's and Lily's blood protection.  It's also more 
than possible that DD was beginning to speculate about the true 
reason LV didn't die (LV's hidden Horcruxes) at that time and that 
info combined with DD's knowledge of the prophecy meant that DD knew 
LV would be back to attack Harry at some point in time. 

It is not directly addressed in the books how effective LV's DE's 
would have been in attacking and killing Harry if they'd have 
stormed Privet Drive sometime right after LV disappeared up until 
Harry will leave Privet Drive forever in book 7.  I suppose Harry's 
protection from the wrath of the DEs came about because the DEs had 
no idea exactly what had happened to LV.  Look at the DEs who 
escaped Azkaban, all of them were concerned about keeping their own 
power and money intact.  Lucius Malfoy, for example, would not have 
gone out on a limb trying to kill Harry when the all-powerful master 
he'd been serving suddenly disappeared because Lucius would have 
lost everything with no master to reward him for it.  As for the 
other DEs, well, we know that the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. 
tortured the Longbottoms for the whereabouts of LV, but us readers 
have yet to be told exactly why those DEs tried to get that info out 
of the Longbottoms.  We don't know if LV didn't bother to tell them 
that he was specifically going to go kill Harry that night, and the 
DEs just picked the wrong family to torture for info when LV didn't 
come back or what.  The remaining DEs might also have been afraid to 
attack Harry when they had no idea how Harry had defeated the most 
powerful, fearsome wizard they have ever seen.
Remember also that LV does not know that the Dursleys hate Harry and 
vice versa, nor does LV know that Vernon would probably hand him 
right over to LV in heartbeat to be murdered (yes, I do think Vernon 
is capable of that).  Therefore LV would not attempt to murder the 
Dursleys to try to cancel the blood protection because for all he 
knows Harry and the Dursleys would die for each other and LV would 
be knocked out of own body again by his own AK.

To wind back to my point, Dumbledore's choice to use Lily's sister 
as a blood protection shield against LV and his followers worked, 
well, like a charm!

Diana L.
The Plaid Toad






> > > a_svirn:
> > > It's not like Dumbledore's solution was any better. If Harry 
is 
> > > still alive it's not thanks to Dumbledore's carefully laid 
> plans. 
> > > 
> > Pippin:
> > Isn't it? <snip> 
> > Or why Voldemort said, "Not even I can touch him there."?
> > -GoF ch 33
> > 
> 
> a_svirn:
> So? He could touch him elsewhere. And before Harry attended 
Hogwarts 
> he attended a muggle school, visited Mrs. Figg etc. 
>