(#) psyco 2009-05-03
Hold everything!
The cloak is not a wand, so the ownership rule does not apply.
Also note that the owner of the cloak needs to actually be wearing it to be protected from death.
You overlooked your something in your analysis of the Lily's love sacrifice.
The key to the whole thing is in the dialog:
The sounds of someone stumbling from a room -- a door bursting open -- a cackle of high-pitched laughter -- (PA12)
Lily’s voice: "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
Voldemort: "Stand aside you silly girl … stand aside now."
Lily: "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead ----- "
Lily: "Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy… "
Harry hears a shrill voice laughing and the woman screaming (credit to HP lexicon)
What occurred was a sacrificial ritual, which invoked something akin to a wizards oath or unbreakable vow. Lily requested that her life be taken instead of Harry's. Voldemort complied to that request. Her life for Harry's. When Voldemort tried to kill Harry, he broke that vow, thus the Killing Curse backfired on him.
Though a love sacrifice, most human sacrifice is dark in nature, and willing or not, an act of murder, thus allowing the bit of soul to attach to Harry.
Plus love is the most impure thing in the world. People do terrible things in the name of love. Murder, theft, torture. The list goes on.
The protection Harry had that killed Quirrel were established from Harry's placement as the Dursleys. The fact he was accepted into the household was enough to strengthen Harry's protection. For sure love doesn't power this extra protection, but blood magic does.
And just because the word Flame is in Flamel doesn't been flames would protect the stone. Your over reading into it. And Voldemort had Harry's blood, which is why he could be touched, he rendered the blood protection useless outside his place of residence at he relatives.
Author's response
I tend to see it differently. How many women have begged someone to not kill their kids? What makes you think this is not a normal occurrence? It hadn't stopped anything up until that point, so how would that be any different?
I tend to think blood magic had nothing to do with Harry's placement at the hands of the Dursley's. Otherwise, the purebloods would all have these type of wards on their houses from before the rituals were considered "dark," as that doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.
I fail to see how, whether he was in a specific place would have any bearing on whether or not blood protections would work. If it allowed him to touch him in the graveyard, it would allow him to waltz right through the wards in Surrey, shouting "Crucio's for everybody!" Geography would have nothing to do with it.
I believe we will have to agree to disagree on this.