Cats/Sword/

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186775

-> Carol earlier:
> 
> << -it's not going to provide Harry with any sort of love protection (impossible, anyway, because they don't share the same blood) >>

Catlady responded: 
> I don't recall that the 'love protection' had anything to do with shared blood -- isn't there an argument that Harry's temporary death put love protection on all the Hogwarts defenders? Where the blood comes in is that DD cast a spell that Lily's love protection on Harry would last as long as he lived with her 'blood' (meaning Petunia and Dudley, not a precious sealed test tube drawn for a Muggle blood test but never used). <snip>

Carol again:

Remember the infamous gleam in Dumbledore's eye? He knew that LV's taking Harry's blood would (or at least might!) keep Harry from dying rather than, as LV hoped and intended, extend the love protection to him. (I'm aware that DD used Lily's love protection to protect Harry at the Dursleys, but that's a separate matter from what happened after Voldemort used Harry's blood to help himself create a new body. "Blood" at that point becomes literal as well as figurative.)

Yes, Harry's self-sacrifice protects the Hogwarts defenders as his mother's self-sacrifice protected him, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what kept him from dying when the Horcrux was destroyed. If it hadn't been for the shared drop of blood, he would have "gone on" with no chance of returning.

Here's the canon to show that the shared blood did indeed save Harry's life the first time. Dumbledore is talking to Harry in King's Cross about Voldemort's failure to understand the power of love and innocence:

"He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's last hope for himself" (DH Am. ed. 710).

Later, DD says, "Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form. A part of his soul was still attached to yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother's sacrifice into himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice, he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch your blood" (710-11).

Exactly what all this means is, of course, subject to interpretation, but I think it follows logically from the gleam in DD's eye. It's the drop of blood, which links Harry to LV and therefore to LV's remaining Horcrux, that prevents Harry from dying when he's hit by the AK. Instead, he goes to "King's Cross" with the option of "going on" or returning.

Voldemort, of course, has not actually been hit by an AK when DD speaks to Harry, and yet his soul, too, ends up in King's Cross in the form of the flayed child. Like Harry, he is not dead but unconscious. It appears that the blood link to Harry, not the no-longer-operative scar link, causes Voldemort to fall unconscious. The soul bit, we know, is utterly destroyed, and the scar link ceases to exist the moment the AK strikes. With the scar link gone, the only link that could cause him to fall unconscious along with Harry is the shared drop of blood. The double bond that DD speaks of in a part of the quotation that I snipped is now reduced to a single bond created whn LV took Harry's blood into himself.

To return to Dumbledore's words, "while that enchantment survives, so do you" must mean that once Voldemort has taken that drop of blood from Harry, Harry can't die (at least not by Voldemort's hand) because "Voldemort's body keeps [Lily's[ sacrifice alive." His immortality extends to Harry, at least in terms of "neither can live while the other survives." Once Voldemort's last Horcrux, Nagini, is destroyed, he becomes mortal--and so does Harry. The blood protection can no longer give him the protection of Voldemort's Horcruxes since the Horcruxes no longer exist. If Harry is hit by an AK this time, he's dead.

As for "Voldemort's last hope for himself," I take that to mean not the Horcruxes, which are the antithesis of Lily's love protection and not a true hope at all, but the chance for repentance, the chance to feel remorse that he could not otherwise have felt because he has that bit of "love" within himself. Otherwise, he'll spend eternity under that bench, beyond any possible help.

I could be mistaken, of course, but IMO the whole point of the graveyard scene is to double the link between Harry and Voldemort and give Harry a chance to survive his own self-sacrifice--as Dumbledore knew from the moment he heard about it. (The second encounter, of course, doesn't depend on love since the love protection that Harry's intended self-sacrifice has given to others doesn't extend to him and the shared drop of blood has ceased to operate. It depends on the Elder Wand.)

Carol, not at all sure that she's presented her view of the matter clearly