About Lily and the Marauders

[m.bockermann at t-online.de]

No: HPFGUIDX 33851

There was a time, when I was certain that Lily had been in Slytherin.
However, somebody pointed out, that JKR said in an interview that she had
been in Gryffindor, too.

Still, I am convinced she *could* have been in Slytherin, like Harry. I
know, DD said that Harry "could speak parselmouth because Voldemort" could.
But I cannot accept (unless proven wrong by JKR) that Harrys "Slytherin
traits" are simply the result of being rubbed off on Harry. That is a nice
and easy explanation I would give a twelve year old, too. But I suspect that
there is a lot that DD hasnt told Harry yet, because he is too young (see
HP1). In HP2 DD tells Harry that it is "our choices as much as our abilities
that make us who we are". That has a double meaning, this line. It means
that Harry is a Gryffindor by choice, but, as the hat has emphazised several
times, Harry "would have fared well in Slytherin". And saying that Harry got
his Slytherin abilities because of Voldemorts attack explains neither why he
survived (certainly other parents would have sacrificed themselves), nor why
Voldemort attacked him in the first place (Voldemort intended to kill Harry
but his mother would not have needed to die - says Voldemort).

So what has this to do with Lily? I believe that if Lily was in Gryffindor,
but she could have been Slytherin, too. We dont know much about her, but
she was certainly bright enough for Slytherin. And then there is the eyes...
. Everybody compares Harrys looks to those of his father - except for his
eyes. They are green and green is a colour that - in JKRs world - is
closely associated with both Slytherin and the dark arts: the colour of
Slytherin is green, the flash that accompanies the "Avadra Kevadra" curse,
the basilisk, probably Riddles eyes (we dont learn this, but Voldemort
points out the similarities between Harry and himself), the eyes of the
emblem at the entrance to the Chamber of Fears... . Somewhere here is a
secret which we dont know yet.

Still, I believe that Lily is a good person - she sacrificed herself for
Harry and from everybodys recollections she must have been an impressive
and strong woman. On the other hand there is some merit in what you are
saying - in so far as her relationship with James probably disrupted the
delicate balance of the Marauders friendship. I dont believe that was what
she intended and I am sure she and James tried to stop it. But it happened
anyway.
When they were young, the Marauders were such close friends, that they
became animagi to help Remus. Becoming an animagus is probably hard work,
maybe painful, but in any case illegal (as far as we know they didnt
register themselves or we would have learned about Peter). They were a close
knit group. And when Lily came into the picture, they did not include her in
their group. Looking at real life friendships, it is more likely than not,
that this losened the ties of their friendship. Not severe them, but losen.
And that is what, in the end, made it possible for Peter to create mistrust
and betray the Potters. Before James joined a steady relationship, the
friends seemed to trust each other so far that it is very unlikly that
Sirius would have believed that Remus betrayed the Potters and vice versa.
And before the friends drifted apart, they would have noticed a change in
Peter, or maybe it would not even have occured.
So in a way I agree with you: I think that Lily was the wedge that drove the
Marauders apart and that made the later disaster possible. I dont believe
that she did that intenionally. I am even sure that she tried to stop this
drifting apart, but that in the end she failed with that.

Which leads to the question what will happen if our present day Marauders
start to feel the call of their hormones? No matter who is interested in
whom or ends up with whom - it will take test the closeness of their
friendship. I hope they will fare better than the first Marauders.

Greetings
Barbara Jebenstreit



Susanna wrote:
This doesn't work either and all of a sudden, James finds himself in a big
dilemma: Either he gives in to his friends and loosens the ties with Lily a
bit, or he has to tell them once and for all that his relationship with Lily
is now on top of his priority list.

Whichever alternative he chooses, there is great potential for conflict. And
whether James momentarily backpedals or not, in the end he marries Lily,
which creates the impression that she was a *very* strong woman indeed:
Either strong enough to wait for him or strong enough to get the better of
his three friends. But anyway, the conflict remains: If James really
followed his friends' advice not to get into too deep a relationship at his
age, he will, at a certain point, surely regret it and blame them for it. If
he didn't, he will inevitably have to sacrifice a bit of the closeness he
had with Sirius, Peter and Remus to his love for Lily.

Apart from the fact that Lily certainly *was* a strong person, I'm wondering
about the other Marauders' attitude towards her: Jealousy seems to be a good
guess, unless she had the ability to charm each and every of them in just
the right way that they accepted her, but didn't fall in love head over
heels- if she mastered this impossible task, I'd say she was a Slytherin.