Why the Potters?

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 57841

Bored with time travel for now, so I'm thinking of reasons why V-Mort 
targeted James, Lily and Harry in the first place?

Idea 1: Just Good Business

Maybe the Potters were becoming dangerous. We don't know if the 
wealth they left Harry is on par with the Malfoys, but it does appear 
to be quite a lot of money. Perhaps they were able to financally 
influence thing V-Mort wanted left alone.

Yeah, I know, boring and not magical.

Idea 2: Hatfield and McCoys

Ok, we know that Riddle is the Heir of Slytherin. Speculation has 
been the Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor. Riddle, figuring out that 
the Heir of Gryffindor would probably make trouble, he just goes and 
tries to off them. Why kill James and Lily then? Could be he didn't 
know which one of them was actually the heir or could have been just 
good form to kill the entire family.

Or, figuring that James and Lily had already produced one heir, he 
offed them before they could make another.

Idea 3: For the love of a good Snape

My distaste for this one has nothing to do with my general skepticism 
of Snape as the great power behind everything. I've seen the theory 
that V-Mort went to kill James and Harry, freeing up Lily for his 
faithful and trusty DE, Snape.

The key bit of evidence behind this and other "Why spare Lily?" 
theories is that V-Mort tries to get Lily to stand aside and later 
tells Harry, "your mother needn't have died."

Second part first. Why in the world do we trust anything V-Mort says?

And I've never been convinced he meant to spare Lily. Had he really 
wanted to, it seems he could have. We're talking about the brightest 
student ever at Hogwarts and he can't move a woman away from a baby 
without killing her? 

The "stand aside girl" bit, in my view, could have been just V-Mort 
wanting to kill the baby first. 

Idea 4: Granddaddy dearest (OR -- the Star Wars theory)

V-Mort is related to the Potters, and wants to get rid of any 
troublesome heirs. He might be related on Lily's side -- the sparing 
Lily thing again. 

There you go. Anyone else?

Darrin
-- Since GulPlum tells me I can't go back and change the discussion 
on Time Travel, I'm going to just do something else.