the Prophecy Harry and James as Voldemort's targets

[Shirley]

No: HPFGUIDX 75264

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kateydidnt2002" 
<kateydidnt2002 at y...> wrote:
> Ok, in OotP we find out that Voldemort wanted to kill Harry because 
> of Trelawney's first prophecy. 
> So why did Voldemort want to kill James? In SS p294 Voldemort 
says "I 
> killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight...but 
your 
> mother needn't have died..." and in book three Harry hears 
Voldemort 
> saying "Stand aside, stupid girl!" (or something to that effect-not 
> looking at my book at the moment)
<snip>
 So why would Voldemort be so 
> intent on killing James and not Lily when both seemed to be working 
> hard against him and Harry was the only one mentioned in the 
prophecy?
<snip>
> Kateydidnt

Me:
Okay, this is my first post.  Hope I follow the rules properly.

I had a thought along these lines this weekend, because I was 
remembering what Dumbledore told Harry at the end of CoS about 
Voldemort being the last *ancestor* of Slytherin.  When I first read 
that, I read it (subconsciously, I guess) as descendent, because I 
thought he was trying to pacify Harry's concern about maybe really 
belonging in Slytherin.  It was when I started looking at the 
Unofficial guide that I noticed the true wording.

Anyway, while taking a shower Saturday morning (my best thoughts come 
in there!! ;)), I started thinking about that and suddenly thought 
that maybe Lily was Voldemort's daughter (since we really don't know 
that much about her background/heritage, except for those "green 
eyes"), and she had no knowledge of it.  Perhaps that would explain 
his reluctance to kill Lily while going after Harry.

When Harry was 12, the Chamber of Secrets was reopened, which it 
hadn't been for 50 years.  If Tom Riddle/Voldemort was 15 when the 
Chamber was opened the first time, he'd be about 65 when Harry was 
12.  At some point, I had figured out that Lily and James were 20 or 
21 years old when Harry was born.  That works out that LV was 32 or 
33 when Lily was born, and he could have been her father.  No one 
knows where he was between his time as a student at Hogwart's and his 
rise as the Dark Lord.

So, maybe Harry is the Heir of both Gryffindor *and* Slytherin, and 
that's why Voldemort deduced that Harry was the one in the prophecy.  
Of course, I don't know the significance of that, but maybe that's 
why LV didn't want to kill Lily.

Thoughts?   - shirley