Re: What might Lilly have known that DD didn’t?

[Lyn J. Mangiameli]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2" 
<carolynwhite2 at ...> wrote:
>
> But just to respond to one of the points above - what if Lily got 
her 
> knowledge from Slughorn? She was a favourite student, and he is 
the 
> only person who we have canon evidence of passing on the Hx secret 
to 
> students. He even says to Tom "It's natural to feel some curiosity 
> about these things.. wizards of a certain calibre have always been 
> drawn to that aspect of magic." 
> 
> If Lily, James & Sirius had heard about Hxs, and suddenly 
suspected 
> that was what was in store for their son, it would have been 
> simplicity for Lily to have got it out of Sluggie. 
>
Lyn now:
I find that to fit in quite nicely. If there is any merit to my 
initial speculation, then Slughorn would be the perfect conduit for 
the information.

To go on a bit with what I wrote earlier: JKR has repeatedly been 
coy, yet insistent that the sacrifice Lily made (or at least 
offered) was somehow greater and deeper than the sacrifice made by 
James (which she considers more defensive combat, I believe she even 
uses the word "animalistic"). It has never quite made sense to me 
that Jame's desire to protect his family was less than Lily's desire 
to protect Harry alone (you know, she could have chosen to fight 
side by side with James in the protection of both her husband and 
her son). Afterall, wasn't it conceivable that both had a choice to 
step aside and leave Harry to LV. If there had been no resistance, 
might LV have spared both their lives.

However, Rowling's unelaborated distinction begins to make more 
sense in the context of Hx's. If the Potter's knew of LV's Hx plans, 
then they may well have recognized James (a Griffy heir) would be 
the desired death to create the tear. Thus Jame's battle with LV was 
not merely to protect his wife and son, but was indeed essential for 
his own life. As James was to be given no opportunity to live, there 
was no sacrifice, there was only defense (of both him and his 
family). 

But let's take this one step beyond. Jame's death was only a death, 
as clean as a combat death can be. He's dead, but his "soul" is left 
to do what soul's normally do after death in Rowling's world. 
However, they same might not apply to Lily's offered sacrifice and 
to Harry's intended fate. If using a human host for a Hx requires 
overwriting of the host's soul, as I suspect it does, then the 
host's death is not clean. There is no intact "soul" of the original 
to pass on to the WW's afterlife. This would be a fate worse than 
death alone.

If this be the case, then Lily's offer to take Harry's place 
involves a much deeper, more self/soul destroying sacrifice, than 
was ever available for James to make. When Lily is pleading for 
mercy, she is requesting something much more than a sparing of 
Harry's life, she is pleading for a sparing of his "soul." 

LV had no interest in killing Lily as it held no utility for him, 
except to remove a nuisance (which finally, he did). So the AK was 
addressed to Lily only (and appears that way in the graveyard 
scene). For Harry, LV's plan was to take over (possess) the 
soul/self/body of Harry, and then overwrite Harry's soul with his 
own, much more powerful, soul fragment. How elegant and ironic, this 
would have been! Keep in mind the Prophecy says that neither can 
live will the other survives. The default interpretation is that to 
not survive means to be killed, to no longer have one's body. But a 
deeper interpretation of "survive" is that the "soul"/self no longer 
continues (the premise forshadowed, or perhaps echoed, by 
BCjrs "soul" being sucked by the dementor--can anyone say that 
BCjr "survived" or "lived" after that). 

Had LV overwritten the "soul" of his prophesied adversary, would 
that not have been a more complete and thorough "killing" of his 
adversary than any simple AK that would yet leave behind a possible 
ghost or after-life spirit. I also suspect that the challenge of 
thoroughly overwriting an existing soul in order to substitute your 
own soul fragment is likely the most difficult and dangerous of all 
magic, perhaps magic that had never been done before (or at least 
not since SS). What a crowning glory this would have been for LV. To 
complete his final Hx, a number more than had ever been acheived 
before, doing so in a means that had never been done before, and 
best of all, doing it by the elimination of the prophesied means for 
his overthrow(but not by physical death-indeed rather, by retaining 
a trophy). For LV, it would be irresistable--a crushing achievement 
and declaration of his unassailable power.

What we presently have in Harry is a failed overwrite. As the twin 
columns of smoke revealed in DD office, likely LV did manage to 
first possess, and then transfer his soul fragment to Harry, but the 
attempt to overwrite Harry's soul was catastrophically rejected. The 
result being Harry's scar, the destruction of LV's body, the 
devastation of GH, and within Harry's body, two souls in essence 
divided.

So Lily's sacrifice was significant in that she was offering her 
soul as well as her mortal life. The above would also mean that her 
charm was made in an unsure attempt to prevent the loss or overwrite 
of Harry's soul. This is what LV really didn't anticipate. He was 
likely prepared for all sorts of defenses against mortal death, but 
didn't anticipate defenses in protection of the soul. Some might 
suggest that the greatest strengthening of the soul is associated 
with love—I'll leave it to others to pursue this aspect if they 
wish. So not only might Lilly have gained her knowledge of Hx's from 
Slughorn, but one wonders if she went to another for her knowledge 
of how to create a charm for the protection of the soul. If the 
latter be true, I'm betting that it wasn't DD, but someone else 
(maybe even Ollivander). 

As always, more likely the above is all rubbish than 
JKR's "reality," but I would suggest it holds some explanatory power 
and potential for amusement.

Have fun