(no subject)
"'Sir, there are some things I'd like to know, if you can tell me... things I want to know the truth about...'
'The truth,' Dumbledore sighed, 'It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your question unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.'
'Well... Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?'
Dumbledore sighed very deeply this time.
'Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will, one day... put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older... I know you hate to hear this... when you are ready, you will know.'
And Harry knew it would be no good to argue.
'But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?'
'Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.'"
-- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling.
'The truth,' Dumbledore sighed, 'It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your question unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.'
'Well... Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?'
Dumbledore sighed very deeply this time.
'Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will, one day... put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older... I know you hate to hear this... when you are ready, you will know.'
And Harry knew it would be no good to argue.
'But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?'
'Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.'"
-- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling.