Lily Didn't Have to Die/Trelawyney's First Prediction (was Re: Professor Trelawney's First Prediction)

[Nicole L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 43989

> sym_2_one at hotmail.com writes:
> 
> << Voldemort wasn't 
>  actually after the Potters as a family.  He was
> only after Harry. 
>  James and Lily Potter died because they trying to
> protect their son. >>

To which, Christy responded:

> 
> Hm, I don't know about this.  V'mort doesn't say
> that James and Lily both 
> didn't have to die, only Lily.  I really don't see
> why he would lie about 
> this.  It really doesn't serve his purpose. V'mort
> is quite similiar to 
> terrorists.  They don't want to strengthen their
> victims resolve, they want 
> to destroy them.  Inventing something that will only
> strenght Harry's love 
> for his mother doesn't exactly suit v'morts purpose
> at the time.  That "lie" 
> would give Harry more ammo to fight back.  I
> personally think James and Harry 
> were the only ones to die because possibly the
> prediction was a Potter was 
> going to be V'morts downfall.  Lily, not being a
> blood Potter was therefore 
> safe. 

I had to look this up in canon to refresh my memory. 
It's Voldemort's speech from chapter 17 of PS/SS:

"How touching..." it hissed.  "I always value
bravery...Yes, boy, your parents were brave...I killed
your father first, and he put up a courageous
fight...but your mother needn't have died...she was
trying to protect you..."

Voldemort doesn't exactly say that James *had* to die
but because he specifically points out that Lily
*didn't* have to, my interpretation of this statement
is that Voldemort's intent was to kill James and Harry
but not necessarily Lily.  He did kill her when it
became necessary for him to do so but had she handed
Harry over without protest, I don't think he would
have killed her.  Therefore, this leads me to believe
that there is something special about Harry and James
that Voldemort felt the need to snuff out.  Again,
this seems to me to be further support for the idea
that Harry is heir to something or that there is
something unique about him, but that's a different
discussion.  ;)

Christy said:
> I think that perhaps DD may have been exaggerting a
> bit there.  Since sooo 
> many of her predictions are bogus, its just his
> little way to inject a bit of 
> humor. And even if this was her first, it is the
> sort of thing people would 
> hope for.  Kind of like the light at the end of the
> tunnel.  


I think a lot of people are assuming that Trelawny's
prediction was that Harry would bring about the fall
of Voldemort, but I don't really support this theory. 
True, Dumbledore does not tell Harry what that first
prediction is but I don't think that proves that the
prediction was that Harry would defeat Voldemort. 
Again, we know precious little about James and Lily. 
What if Trelawny made a prediction that had something
to do with one of them?  Maybe her prediction had
something to do with what James was doing at the time.
 Maybe she predicted that the Potters would be killed
because of it.  If this were, in fact, her prediction,
I don't think Dumbledore would tell Harry about it
because he has not yet told him anything about what
his parents were doing in the days before Voldemort's
downfall or explained to him exactly why they needed
to use the Fidelius charm to hide from Voldemort. 
There's something more to this than what we've learned
so far.  Voldemort and the Death Eaters seemed to have
killed rather indescriminately and I don't think the
big man himself would trouble himself over two
particular wizards unless he had some reason for it.

Now, I think Christy has a point.  Dumbledore could
have been making a dry statement as to Trelawny's
success rate.  Or maybe he has a reason for hiding the
real number from Harry.  We all suspect that he was
not very forthcoming when he told Harry that he saw
himself holding socks in the mirror of Erised, so
maybe he's being evasive again.  Maybe Trelawny's made
hundreds of true predictions but it serves
Dumbeldore's purposes better to pretend to take her
predictions with a grain of salt.  Maybe she's a true
seer and in order to ensure that she is protected from
Voldemort and the DE's, Dumbledore and his circle
write her off as a fraud.  Maybe the reason why
Dumbledore always seems to know everything is because
Trelawny tells him.  I don't necessarily buy into this
theory but I think an argument could be made for it.

What if what Dumbledore said is the absolute truth and
Trelawny has only made two predictions that have come
true?  To me, this would shoot down the thought that
the first prediction was that Harry would ultimately
defeat Voldemort.  He hasn't done that yet, has he? 
The way Dumbeldore phrases the sentence leads me to
think that the first prediction has already come true
and he already knows that for fact:

PoA Chapter 22: "Who'd have thought it?  That brings
her total of *real* predictions up to two.  I should
offer her a pay raise..."  

The emphasis on real is mine.  What does he mean by
real anyway?  She makes all sort of predictions all
the time and each and every one of them is presumably
"real" as she certainly seems to think that she
actually has the power of Sight.  I take the "real" in
the sentence to mean predictions that have proven to
be *real* because they proved to be *true*.  If this
is the case, then I submit that the first prediction
had something to do with James and baby Harry, not
seventeen-year-old Harry.  There's my opinion.  Fire
away, if you will.  :)

~Nicole, who was jumping up and down like a giddy
five-year-old after seeing the new CoS trailer last
night.  November is not going to come fast enough.

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