[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and the Potters

[Carol Bainbridge]

No: HPFGUIDX 47176


>kaityf at jorsm.com writes:
> > I am too now.  My first inclination is to say that it's Snape who's 
> yelling
> > out the warning, although could give him away to Voldemort, although the
> > voice tells Lilly to take Harry and run and he'd hold "him" (meaning
> > Voldemort) off.  I suppose it would be possible that Snape arrived 
> first to
> > warn Lilly.  She may have had just enough time to run and grab Harry, but
> > that's it.  Maybe Snape stalled LV for a short while and thought Lilly had
> > had a chance to get away.  If the voice doesn't belong to James, which
> > seems likely, and it doesn't belong to Snape either, who could it belong
> > to?  If as I guessed, Lucius was there as well, it certainly wouldn't be
> > Lucius warning Lilly.  I hope we get more hints about that night in book 5.

The Queen of Serpents wrote:
>1) Where the heck *is* James?  We know from the shades in the graveyard
>(order controversy aside for the moment) that James was AK'd  directly before
>or after Lily, so he must have been caught by Voldemort  or someone using V's
>wand at least sometime that night.

Do we know how soon after one died the other died?  I would think that 
Lilly died after James.  Didn't LV try to kill Harry right after he killed 
Lilly?  Didn't LV say Lilly didn't have to die?  If James was there, 
wouldn't he try to stop LV from killing Lilly?  If he was killed first, 
whose voice do we hear?  It would all have to be pretty fast.  Is this why 
we think that James was killed minutes or seconds before Lilly?  I hadn't 
thought about the possibility that someone else might have used LV's wand 
to kill anyone!  That certainly opens up some interesting 
ideas!  Especially when we've wondered what became of that wand and how LV 
got it back.

The Queen of Serpents:
>2) Why would Snape do this? And why would Voldemort not just zap him?  Even
>with LOLLIPOPS and James's life debt in play, (if you like) this is
>tantamount to suicide.

I agree.  I was really musing out loud, so to speak, as to the possibility 
of the voice belonging to Snape, but my conclusion was that the voice is a 
mystery if it doesn't belong to either James' or Snape.  IF it's true that 
it doesn't belong to James, and if Snape was there, I was just supposing it 
was *possible* that the voice belonged to Snape.  It would be a *first* 
inclination to say that, but even I could recognize the problems with that 
one.  I really think that Snape went to the Potters to try to save 
them.  I'd actually be more willing to believe that it was James calling 
out to Lilly.  However, *if* it was true that JKR was adamant about James 
not being in the death scene in TMTSNBN, then it would seem the voice 
didn't belong to him either.  I saw that as a problem.  Whose voice would 
it be?

The Queen of Serpents:
>3) I wouldn't doubt that Lupin is still upset over the Potters' deaths and
>probably shocked that Harry can remember this, even with a dementor's help.

That is certainly possibly.  I don't think I ever read it that 
way.  Lupin's reaction always bothered me.  It always struck me as an odd 
reaction.  It never struck me as shock.  It just works better for me to 
think that Lupin somehow knew that it was not possible for Harry to have 
heard his father's voice.  I can't think of anything else to support that 
feeling.  I guess I have to go back and reread PoA.  I have to finish 
rereading Gof first.