FAQs: Lily died before James?

[Big D]

No: HPFGUIDX 103445

I think everyone's overthinking this a bit. In our quest to uncover 
all the hidden clues and secrets of these books (not to mention our 
desire to find new ones to ponder that relate to the events of the 
final two books) sometimes we look right past the obvious.

It has been well-established in the past (and was corrected in later 
printings of GoF, like the one I have) that James was killed first, 
then Lily, which would then cause Lily to come out of Voldemort's 
wand before James in the graveyard. As JKR says, that's how she had 
it in the original manuscript, but the editor changed it and she 
didn't catch it, hence the mistake of James appearing first in the 
original editions.

I just looked at JKR's site again, and the wording has definitely 
changed since I first saw it about 14-15 hours ago. It now 
says "Lily first, then James" despite saying the exact opposite 
orginally. The fact that it's been altered to match everything that 
has previously been established backs up my original thought: the 
original wording of "James first, then Lily" was a typo. A typo 
about a typo, of sorts, which just makes things more 
confusing for everyone, but there you have it. 

Big D