[HPforGrownups] Re: Lily Evans Potter relationship to Voldemort

[rayheuer3 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 58071

Darrin, 

We seem to be largely in agreement on this.  Voldemort *always* intended to 
kill Lily *after* he killed Harry.  Lily's sacrifice is what broke 
Voldemort's power and saved Harry.

> >4.  Why would Voldemort have spared Lily?
> >  a.  He wouldn't.  He was going to kill Harry first (well, second after 
> >James) and make her watch.  THEN he was going to kill her.  He is, after 
> all, 
> >evil.
> 
> This one's mine. I think he really was just being efficient. First, kill 
> the main 
> threat (V-Mort, being not only elitist, but probably sexist, would consider 
> that 
> James), then kill who you came to kill, and then tie up loose ends like 
> Lily.

I'm not so sure about that.  A mother defending her child is not something to 
be brushed aside, even by a megalomaniac like Voldemort.  I think he wanted 
to make Lily suffer by watching both deaths.  Of course, this would seem to 
focus Voldemort's hatred on Lily, and lead to tons of speculation as to what 
their personal relationship might have been. Two other possible reasons:

> >  b.  Lily was an heir of Slytherin (see separate (and as yet unwritten) 
> post 
> >about heirs) and Voldemort couldn't bring himself to kill a "sister."
> 
> But he did. And he didn't seem to try to hard to get over it.
> 
> >  c.  Lily was an heir of Gryffindor (see separate (and as yet unwritten) 
> >post about heirs) and Voldemort knew he *couldn't* kill her without 
> serious 
> >mystical consequences.
> 
> You use "an" instead of "the." Hmmmm, there are many, eh? I'm intrigued. 
> Again, though, he didn't try too hard not to kill her.

  My musings on who is and is not an heir has been posted, so we can discuss 
those there.  But the question of "trying not to kill Lily" only comes up if 
Harry dies first.  What happened instead is that Lily planted herself between 
a homicidal maniac and his target.  This is NOT the path to long, happy life.

Now we come to the coulda/shoulda/woulda analysis of that little scene.  Why 
didn't Lily use her wand?  Why didn't she try a binding spell?  Why did she 
just stand there pleading with him like a helpless Muggle?
Is a wand in the WW like a gun in the Old West?  Something that one has with 
them constantly even when theoretically safe?  Hogwarts students and teachers 
tend to have them all the time, except while sleeping.  Harry's wand is 
locked away in the trunk while he's with the Dursleys, but he seems to keep 
it with him while with the Weasleys, and took it with him to the Quidditch 
World Cup.  So the answer seems to be "yes", but the house in Godrick's 
Hollow was (IIRC) attacked at night, and it was supposedly protected by the 
Secret Keeper spell.  James and Lily may have been sleeping when attacked and 
had no chance to get their wands.
In our Muggle World, when an attacker breaks into the house, a mother tends 
to immediately head for the nursery.  She doesn't grab a knife from the 
kitchen or a (hypothetic) gun from the bedstand or closet.  She runs to the 
crib to protect her child with teeth and nails and other primal weapons.  
Thus, I'm not too surprised that Lily went to Harry without her wand.  One 
simply doesn't think that way.
OR, Lily may have realized that there was no point to dueling with someone as 
powerful as Voldemort and tried to use feminine wiles, emotional arguments, 
and (if she got close enough) a good old-fashioned knee to the groin against 
a more powerful adversary.

  --  Ray




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