deathtocapslock | Lily's Protection

Entry tags:

Lily's Protection

When Lily Potter died, the magic of her sacrifice gave her son protection against Lord Voldemort. When Voldemort tried to kill Harry with an Avada Kedavra, a spell for which there is no known magical shield, Lily's protection caused the spell to rebound and hit Voldemort instead. More than ten years later, when Prof. Quirrell, possessed by Voldemort, tried to touch Harry, Lily's protection caused his skin to burn. Clearly, then, Lily's protection was both powerful and enduring.

I have a couple questions, though, about Lily's protection....

1. If Lily's protection made it impossible for Quirrellmort to even touch Harry, then why didn't it prevent a fragment of Voldemort's soul from latching onto Harry?

2. Likewise, why didn't Lily's protection appear to have any effect upon the diary horcrux, even though Harry touched it and entered its pensieved memories?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IIRC, Lily's protection explicitly lives in Harry's blood, implying a physical aspect to its power, which may explain the lack of Horcrux-immunity. No idea about the diary though.

My answer is the other extreme of sharaz'a: Harry voluntarily (eagerly, even) interacted with the Diary and invited its' effects. The protection that would otherwise have inhered was overridden by Harry's consent.

In Harry's encounter with Quirrell, first Quirrell touched him, but in the end Harry touched Quirrell of his own will. Yet the outcome was the same - burns to Quirrell.

You're right.

But here it is.

The Diary is a duly-made, deliberate Horcrux. Tom, as recommended, had put his most powerful spells of protection on it. Only something 'so destructive that the Horcrux can't repair itself' would damage it. (Fiendfyre and Basilisk venom, in canon--and how much do you want to bet that Tom could have imbued his Horcruxes with phoenix tears to protect against the venom, if it had entered his imagination that someone could possibly ever use his own pet Basilisk against him?) Whereas the Lily-protection burned Quirrell with what are originally apparently second-degree burns--it's only Harry holding on that burns Q. bad enough eventually to kill him. (Just as if a piece of burning wood falls on me, I'll be burned but not killed--if I'm trapped under a pile of burning wood, it will kill me.)

So the diary WAS being burned by contact with Harry--but it repaired itself as fast as the damage was incurred. And note that diary Tom did not try to come to grips with Harry--he used a Basilisk to attack from a distance.

That work better?

That sounds... complicated. :)

I had a thought just now. What if Lily's protection only activated in response to Voldemort's specific intent to kill Harry? It didn't protect Harry against any other physical or magical contact with Voldemort as long as Voldemort wasn't trying to kill Harry in that moment. So Quirrellmort could have shaken hands with Harry, crucioed Harry, used legilimency on Harry, etc. He just couldn't kill Harry.

In fact... that might mean that Voldemort could have been wrong that Lily's protection had been nullified in the graveyard. The reason that he could touch Harry was because he wasn't trying to kill Harry at that very moment....

That, in turn, would mean that any protection on 4PD could still be active.

But actually, think what happened when Ginny tried to destroy the Diary. She tried to drown it (which would both kill a human and cause a normal book to disintegrate into pulp)--no effect. Kreacher tried "everything, everything he knew" to destroy the Locket, "but nothing, nothing would work"--and House Elf magic can do things human magic can't....

A properly-protected Horcrux ia almost invulnerable--only agents of destruction that are impossible (or almost impossible) to counter can touch them, if the Horcrux-maker has done the job right.

So this just means that Lily's sacrificial magic doesn't cause instantaneous, incurable lethal damage to Tom (or Tom-fragment) at the slightest physical touch to Harry. Pain, yes, instantly. Damage, probably. Lethal and incurable damage at the slightest touch? That's not what Quirrell's death looked like--he didn't go up like a torch or start disintegrating, flaking away, from the moment he lay hands on Harry. Rather, he suffered pain and injury, enough to make him reluctant to repeat the experiment. But I had no expectation that if they'd been separated after that first contact, Quirrell would have (quite quickly) died of those burns.

And anything less than that, a properly constructed and protected Horcrux is supposed to be able to ignore.

So this just means that Lily's sacrificial magic doesn't cause instantaneous, incurable lethal damage to Tom (or Tom-fragment) at the slightest physical touch to Harry. Pain, yes, instantly. Damage, probably. Lethal and incurable damage at the slightest touch? That's not what Quirrell's death looked like

OK, that does make some sense, at least in regards to the diary.

I'm still stuck on why Lily's sacrifice didn't protect Harry himself from becoming a horcrux, though.

Maybe because the soul-shard itself doesn't have evil intent toward him (it doesn't seem aware like Tom's magical object Horcruxes, anyway - maybe because he didn't have time to set things up properly) and doesn't seem to cause any harm directly? When Tom Prime is around and using the Horcrux in Harry's head, it's dangerous, but otherwise it seems more like a benign tumor or something. Except that it gives him at least one extra power (Parselmouth), and for all we know strengthens Harry's magic in other ways, so Lily's protection might register it as additional protection rather than a threat so long as it just sits there.

God, I want to get Harry under some proper diagnostic charms!

Preferably administered by an un-Befuddled Snape.

Possibly... but Harry presumably didn't give his consent in becoming a horcrux himself.

I've had a different theory about how the diary works for a long time. I think the diary was enchanted to do all those things, interact with and influence a reader, show the entries as pensieve memories, before it was made a Horcrux. Harry can handle the diary as he can handle the locket, the cup or any other object (as opposed to living body) which contains a piece of Voldemort's soul.
The soul piece makes the diary stronger and more eager to act, but all the things the diary does it could have done without the soul fragment. It was written and enchanted to ensnare and seduce an innocent reader open the Chamber of Secrets long before Tom Riddle found out how to make Horcruxes.

The OP asks specifically about the diary rather than the other Horcruxes because Harry handled the diary before Tom used his blood for regaining a body. After GOF obviously Harry can handle bits of Tom, since he can be touched by Tom himself. This does not explain why earlier he could touch the diary.

Yes, I've understood that. The main difference between Quirrelmort and any other fragment of his soul, including Harry himself, is that Quirrel is possessed by the core soul, the active Voldemort while all others are just fragments.

So the soul fragments are somehow fundamentally different Voldemort himself?

It might be a question of degree of separation: after all, spells cast by Voldie could still hurt/be dangerous to Harry, it was only physical contact that was impossible. On the other hand, since the protection inheres in Harry's *blood,* maybe it is almost entirely physical in nature, and any protection from magic is a weaker side effect.

Edited 2012-02-09 17:58 (UTC)

after all, spells cast by Voldie could still hurt/be dangerous to Harry

After the AK rebounded on him, I don't think Voldemort ever cast any magic directly at Harry again until he had regained his body.

Except implied Legilimency, when he realises that Harry's hidden the Stone in his pocket.

oh, that's a good point

On the other hand, I'm not sure if Voldemort really needed to use Legilimency to figure out that Harry had the stone. It may have been obvious from Harry's body language and the bulge in his pocket.

They are just pieces of Voldemort's soul, not Voldemort himself. The core personality is the one which lost it's body at GH. The diarycrux is a bit confusing, because it seems to act on its own and can learn, but that is IMHO mainly the magic of the diary under the influence of the soul piece.

1) JKR hasn't given this any thought, why are you?

2) The Horcrux was separated from Voldemort before Voldemort attacked Harry.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lily's Protection

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject