Priori Incantatem and ghost food

[Steve Bates]

No: HPFGUIDX 1439

<<I've
> heard 
> the not-quite-dead-James arguement before and thought "that doesn't 
> work."--cassandra>>

I agree completely; most of the explanations I have heard for the 
order that the Potters came out of the wand involve either James 
being hit by some kind of spell that didn't kill him immediately (and 
I don't think there is such a spell, otherwise it would be one of the 
Unforgiveable Curses), or James being first incapacitated by 
Voldermort somehow, then Lily being killed, then Voldemort finishing 
off James, then trying to kill Harry.  This is much too convoluted.  
Voldy would have had no possible reason for temporarily 
incapacitating James if he was going to kill him anyway.  Either he 
killed Lily first or then James, or James and then Lily.  I would 
favor the first two of these possibilities for several reasons.
First, there is evidence that Voldemort was after James and Harry, 
and not Lily.  He even said himself that he only killed Lily because 
she was defending Harry, although he may have been lying.  But if he 
was telling the truth, it would fit in nicely with the "Harry and 
James are Gryffindor's heirs" theory, which I like but am not sure is 
100% correct.
Second, it would have made sense for James to try to hold Voldy off 
while his wife and child tried to get away, which would mean Voldy 
killed James first and then attacked Harry and Lily.  In the interest 
of gender equality, I guess I should at least consider the 
possibility that Lily held Voldy off while James went off with the 
baby, but James is the better wizard, making him more qualified to go 
mano a mano with Voldy, and if part of the reason Harry survived was 
that his mother died trying to protect him, it is implied that she 
was actually physically standing in Voldy's way as he tried to get to 
Harry.  So Lily being the one to take Harry and run/hide is more 
likely.
Thirdly, Voldy himself said that he killed James first.  He could 
have been lying, but he has no motive that we know of, and Harry's 
own recollections of the event, though probably faulty, corroborate 
what Voldy said.
Although the order Lily and James came out of the wand implies that 
Lily died first, I think that the order was just reversed somehow, 
and the explanation for that is Harry himself.  But I'll leave my 
theories on how Harry could have influened the order for another 
post, while I try to collect my thoughts on the matter.