Why didn't Lily have to die?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 93590

greatelderone wrote:
<snip> Voldemort doesn't kill her despite 
> the many strikes against her including her heritage, her part as one 
> of the order and someone who has defied his power and her potential 
> part in the prophecy. Despite all this he tells her to stand aside 
> when normally he would have killed her. It just doesn't add up.
<snip>
> How could he not see her as a threat is mystery to me.

Carol:
Unlike James, whom we know directly opposed him and fought bravely
(LV's own admission in GoF), Lily was apparently unarmed (wandless).
She did not offer to fight him--had she done so, he certainly would
have viewed her as a threat rather than a "silly girl." All she did
was stand in his way (obstacle, not threat) and *beg him to kill her
instead of Harry.* Eventually he regarded her as enough of a nuisance
and a hindrance to kill her, but it was still a "foolish
self-sacrifice" in his view.

He doesn't understand, even in GoF, that she *had* to be killed
*before Harry* for the sacrifice to work. Had he pushed her aside,
AK'd baby Harry, and *then* killed Lily (or let her live and grieve,
since she'd have been unable to destroy him), he'd have accomplished
his objective. As others have said, that objective was to kill Harry,
whom he knew to be the only person who could (eventually) destroy him.
Lily's membership in the Order and her previous defiance of him was
not important at the moment. Destroying Harry was. And since, unlike
James, she was not attempting to fight him, he saw no reason to kill
her until there was no other way.

(Whether he would have killed her later and gloated over her after
Harry was dead, I don't know. I rather think he would have enjoyed
seeing her suffer and would have let her live, knowing that neither
she nor anyone else had the power to destroy him now that Harry was dead.)

Carol, who is not doing a very good job of staying out of this thread!