[HPforGrownups] The Voldemort-Potter Connection

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 40298

Nicole writes:

> Has anyone else thought that this whole situation with Voldemort and
> the Potters is strange?  Obviously there are things about Harry's
> past that we don't yet know but the more I think about the whole

Yes, I sure do!  I was about to post a message this evening, and read my
email first to find your post.  Well, I for one find it strange that ALL of
Harry's relatives (except Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley) are dead.
And he has never seen a picture of any of them. He clearly states (thinks to
himself rather) while looking in the Mirror of Erised that he is seeing his
family for the first time.  Now, we know that Aunt Petunia despised her
sister Lily.  So I assume she's destroyed all pictures of her?  Her own
sister?  What about their parents?  Dead, but how?  Natural causes?  Or
something else?  Where are all their pictures?  The Dursleys seem quite fond
of pictures (at least of their precious Dudley), isn't it strange that there
isn't at least one picture of Harry's grandparents around?

> thing the more puzzled I am.  Why exactly was Voldemort after the
> Potters?  It seems like they must have had some significance for him
> to go to such trouble to uncover their whereabouts and to attempt to
> murder the whole family.

Remember, he went with the intentions to kill James and Harry.  Or why else
would he have told Lily repeatedly to "stand aside."  What was it about Lily
that made him hesitate? Hmm. . .

> Also, as I reread COS, it seemed really strange to me that Tom Riddle
> makes a point of telling Harry that they look a lot alike.  Now, I

Good point.  I hadn't noticed that before actually.  They can't look THAT
much alike because Harry looks so much like his dad, so maybe Tom Riddle was
hinting at something else.

> think it highly unlikely that it's one of those Luke-I-am-your-father
> situations.  Rowling also points out how very much Harry looks like
> his dad.  Are they related somehow?  My husband has never read the

Ah, good.  Someone agrees with me. :)  To give you my theory point blank, I
think that Tom Riddle had a child with a muggle (whether adulterous or not,
I don't know, given I don't know the ages of Lily and Petunia) and that
child is Lily.  The ages work out perfectly.  Anybody have a guess at how
old Lily is?  Petunia?  Would Lily have been in Hogwarts at the time that
Voldemort "went bad?" (about 20 years before book one, according to Hagrid)
Could her name have even been changed to protect her?  Or could she have
never even known who her real father was?  Perhaps she was raised as
Petunia's full sister and no one (other than her mother and maybe a few
select others) knew otherwise.

My only J.K. Rowling support for all of this (other than deductive reasoning
from the four books and my imagination) is this:

In a Scholastic author interview last year, J.K. Rowling was asked flat out
"Is Harry related to Voldemort?"  A simple no would have sufficed, right?
Her answer?  (probably not an exact quote, but close) "Well, that would make
it a bit Star Wars wouldn't it?"  There you go.  She clearly (to me anyway)
evaded the question, changed the subject, and hoped everyone would simply
say "oh, that can't be it."  But to me it leaves the door open!

Okay, I've gone on long enough.  Comments?

Richelle