MovieChat Forums > Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) Discussion > Was Lily Evans Potter the only one who e...

Was Lily Evans Potter the only one who ever died to save someone from Vo

posted 8 years ago by otter
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Voldemort had been killing a lot of people for a long time, surely there was someone else who had stepped in front of their spouse/child/mother/fellow Order member and said "No you will not kill him/her!!!".

How, in all the wars against Voldemort, Grindlewald, and previous Terrible Dark Wizards, did this not happen before? Why was the effect of self-sacrifice for love not common knowledge?

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

[–] A_Bob 8 years ago

I have also asked this question. In all the millennia of wizardry, no one has ever performed an act of self-sacrifice? Yet somehow Dumbledore knew that Harry didn't die because of his mother's self-sacrifice.

Bob

[–] otter 8 years ago

Apparently Dumbledore knew about the effect of self-sacrifice, and referred to it as a very ancient form of magic, but nobody else did.

Same for Harry being protected as long as Harry lived with blood relatives. I guess it's something that's forgotten in the up to date wizarding world, but you'd think all the conflicts of the 20th century would have reminded everyone what's possible.

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

[–] thebadwolf 8 years ago

There was more to it than the act of self sacrifice voldemort accidentely made harry into a horcrux and marked him as an equal until that point it could have been neville that the prophecy was talking about. But part of voldemorts soul was stored inside harry and the curse bounced back and destroyed voldemorts body.

For all we know others may have survived the first shot and died on the second it isn't really something that voldemort would advertise.

🇬🇧There's no point of being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.🇬🇧

[–] A_Bob 8 years ago

The thing is that in the book, Harry sacrificing himself by going to Voldy also created a similar protection over his allies to Voldy. None of Voldy's spells held firm.

Bob

[–] NobodymournstheWicked 8 years ago

I believe so

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] A_Bob 8 years ago

"That was when the protection was created around Harry. It would not have worked had Voldemort planned to kill her from the beginning."

Voldy did plan to kill Lily from the beginning. This was the reason Snape changed sides and told Dumbledore to protect Lily--because Voldy was planning to kill all three. Nothing in the scene from DH where Harry saw Voldy's memories of that scene showed he gave Snape's pleads a second thought. He told her to move and then when she didn't, instead of moving her out of the way, he just killed her. It was more prudent, as was stated in the book, to kill all of them.

However, even given the specific circumstances you provided, that should not be so rare that Lily was the first person ever to have done it. I can imagine being given the option to live but choosing to die for someone else happens once a day somewhere in in the real world.

Bob

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] A_Bob 8 years ago

"We do not see Snape asking Voldemort to spare Lily, but if he intended to kill her anyway, he would not have asked her to step aside."

My point was that Snape asking Voldy to spare Lily had nothing to do with the reason Voldy attempted to spare lily. We know Snape did ask from both the memories and the book's ending discussion between Harry and Tom Riddle, as Harry called him. However, in the Voldy memory of the scene andhow he responded to Harry's comment about it in the end of the DH book, it doesn't seem as if the request by Snape played any part in his decision.

Now the difference between Lily's sacrifice and James' sacrifice was important. James attacked James and was given no chance to step aside. He was merely killed. That he offered Lily the chance was what was important. Apparently, when he got there, he was in a prideful mood and just didn't feel like killing someone who wasn't attacking him until she refused to heed him. Then she just killed her rather than spare her.

"Both Voldemort and Dumbledore said that that was "ancient magic", so it surely have happened sometime in the past."

Yet Harry was stated to have been the first person to have survived the AK curse in that specific way. I would simply refer to this as a plot hole for how Dumbledore and Voldy understood ancient magic of sacrificial protection, but with that, Voldy still didn't truly understand it as he used Harry's blood to resurrect himself, thus taking in that very ancient magic into himself that was protecting Harry from him.

Bob