[HPforGrownups] The Death of Lily and James

[the firey chasm from whence it came]

No: HPFGUIDX 65077

At 03:01 PM 6/27/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>This might seem very trivial and pointless - but I've been wondering
>why Voldemort would have spared Lily and James' lives? He told Harry
>that James died defending Harry and Lily wasted her life by trying
>to save her baby. But surely, if LV broke into the Potter house he
>would have intentions to kill Lily and James aswell as Harry? Lily
>and James were in the Order, they had defied him three times and
>Lily was Muggle born. Would he really have spared their lives if
>they hadn't tried to defend Harry? In GoF he tells Harry that his
>parents needn't have died.


I've been wondering about that myself. One thing we have to remember though 
is that Voldemort, being an evil Dark Lord after all, may not have been 
being truthful. What he probably meant was "I offered to spare your parents 
lives if only they gave you up without a fight". That's just the sort of 
thing V. would say if he really wanted someone to fork over something he 
wanted. But what parent isn't going to fight for their child? And if Lily 
and James had handed over Harry to V., they pretty much would have been 
joining up with V. by default. By not fighting him, they would have 
inadvertedly acted as his servant. In that case, V. might have wound up 
using them similiarly to how he used Wormtail. Or he might have just killed 
them anyway if he thought he had no more use for them. In any case, I don't 
necessarily think we should take V.'s word at face value. Think about the 
nature of the character here. It's not exactly a stretch to think that he 
might have simply been bullshitting.

It's possible we might hear even more at some point about the details of 
what happened that night, and that might clear things up a bit. There's 
some things that still need to be explained: like who managed to get V.'s 
wand and keep it for him all those years, and what Hagrid and Harry were 
doing for a whole day after the attack before he was deposited at the 
Dursleys'. Hopefully that'll be explained at some point.

~dream