[HPforGrownups] Re:Why did Voldemort want to kill Harry?

[porphyria at mindspring.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 36247

Molly wrote:

"Personally, I've always thought that it was Voldemort's intent to let Lily live just long enough to see her only son murdered, and then to kill her as well. It seems to me that that kind of sadistic thing would be amusing to him. When she was resistant, I guess he just got bored with the games, and killed her.

"But then, that wouldn't be a very interesting plot device, now would it? So maybe not..."

Laura replied:

"Well, this seems to be at odds with the idea that Harry's protection was the result of his mother *sacrificing* her life for him. If V was going to kill her anyway, she wouldn't have been sacrificing anything, you see? Yes, I know, if he was going to kill her anyway she wouldn't *know* it, but I don't think the magic would accept that as sacrifice enough, it had to be a *real* sacrifice, you know? 
<snip>
"BUT my point is, Lily sacrificed herself for Harry and this sacrificed gained Harry's protection -- the implication is that she wouldn't have had to die otherwise."

Me:

Hmmm. I always envisioned Lily literally throwing herself between Voldemort's AK and the baby, literally covering him up with her own body. So his first attempt at AK'ing Harry hits her instead. Then his second attempt is the one that rebounds on him; that's after Lily is dead; hence the sacrifice and the counter-charm. I'd say it doesn't matter if she knew he was going to kill her in the first place or not. I mean, if you know some Evil Lord is going to try to kill your husband and child, wouldn't you sort of expect that you'd wind up dying yourself if push really came to shove? I mean, she knew L.V. was after James and Harry only, so she could have just left town if she'd wanted to, right? Whether she knew for a fact she'd wind up in the crossfire, or whether she knew that theoretically she could talk L.V. into sparing her? I'd say the fact that she chose that her last official act would be to try to protect her baby's life is enough to constitute a sacrifice whether she tho!
ught she personally was a target or not.

Voldemort did kill her with hardly a second thought. I think this is enough to quash any theories that L.V. and Lily had a "thing" or this list's odd "Ewww" theory which posits that L.V. and Snape had some sort of bargain over her. I agree with David who's said:

"I have never understood this argument. Whatever Voldemort's motive 
for telling Lily to stand aside, it lasted about two seconds in the 
face of her refusal."

Yeah, totally! I mean, if L.V. had even the slightest motivation for sparing her, whether to amuse himself or some other DE, he could have stunned her or body-bound her or something like that, right? It seems to me that he really didn't care one way or another, except that he knew he absolutely had to kill James and Harry (for whatever reason we don't know yet). If Lily got in the way, then too bad for her. That was that.

Let me know if I'm missing anything here,
~~Porphyria