Dacre wrote:I am honestly clue less, so not entirely sure why I'm posting - but this is really interesting.
The big question to me is how did she know the spell to sacrifice herself and save Harry? All I know is she gave her love to save him - but how's that work? Why's it not happened before?
I don't think it was an actual spell. You remember in P/SS when Dumbledore says that love can leave a scar, and Harry touches his forehead? Dumbledore tells him that it's not that kind of a scar. I think the magic that the sacrificial love caused was less actual incantation-magic than the magic that anyone (muggle or magical) can perform solely based on love. It's a little hokey, but I really don't think Lily had the conscious thought "If I
do something, then die, then Voldemort's powers will be taken away and Harry will live."
Apparently, this was one of the first times someone had the chance to do something like sacrifice themselves. Firstly, it seems as though most of the victims of Voldemort and the DEs were adults, and therefore somewhat less likely to have someone fully give their life for them (as in, someone's probably more likely to sacrifice themself for a defenseless baby than a formidable fully-grown witch or wizard). Also, the Potters almost certainly knew that the reason they had to go into hiding was that Voldemort was after
Harry, not them. So they would have known ahead of time and therefore had made the concious decision to die before they let Voldemort have or harm Harry. However, James was never given the chance to actually make that choice. Since he would have been killed anyway, his death didn't save Harry. Lily actually made the choice, so it was her death that saved him. But I don't think she knew for sure what that would do. Could be she died believing Harry would soon follow. Anyway, all that to say that that seems like a reason to me that it had never happened before.