The significance of Harry having Lily's eyes

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 138863

Hermionegallo:
> I agree and I'll add (and get laughed off the board for it) that I 
think Slughorn is Lily's grandfather.  His eyes are green.  

There's nothing that says that her parents 100% without a doubt were 
her blood parents, or that one or both weren't squibs.  Or that one 
of her parents wasn't a child of a squib.

If this were the case, plotwise, Slughorn would have much more at 
stake regarding Harry, and would go to more lengths to help him or 
protect him.

CathyD:
I really would like to see your evidence for this, hg, as it appears to go against all that is canon.  Dobby's eyes are green too, does that make him a relative of Harry's as well? 

JKR has said in an interview that she gives the reader information through Dumbledore and Hermione.  The first indication of Harry's family comes from Dumbledore who told McGonagall (and the readers) that the Dursley's are the only family Harry has left.  Keep in mind that Slughorn and Dumbledore have known each other, at that point, at least fifty years (they were both in teaching positions when Tom Riddle was a kid).  With Slug's propensity to collect students and brag about who he knows and how he's connected, I can't see him not telling everyone he knows that Lily is his Granddaughter, if that were the case.  We have absolutely no canon to show that Slug did that or that he revealed himself to Harry, at all.  In fact, following your point above, that Slugorn would go to more lengths to help Harry, why didn't he just give Harry the memory he needed, instead of making Harry jump through hoops, use the Felix, get Slug drunk, in order to get the memory?  In fact, do we see Slug doing anything to help or protect Harry at all apart from bragging him up as a first-rate potions brewer? Even Harry knows he's not but only getting results because he's following the HPB's instructions.

Dumbledore didn't know?  Dumbledore has known James and Lily for 10-12 years by the time they are murdered.  The last year or two of that they were in grave danger.  You don't think Dumbledore would have asked about their families - just in case anything happened?  Yes, Sirius was Harry's godfather, but at the rate Order members were dropping there was no guarantee that Sirius would be alive to look after Harry, either.  Would Lily have overlooked her Grandfather in telling Dumbledore about her living relatives? I doubt it.  "I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood.  I delivered you to her sister, her *only remaining* relative." (OotP pg 736 Can Ed)  It's almost like JKR is saying, "You didn't believe it the first time, I'm confirming it for you here, in book five.  Petunia is Harry's only living relative."

Slughorn himself says Lily is Muggle-born.  You'd think, if he was her Grandfather, he'd know otherwise, wouldn't he?  Hagrid said that some of the best he "ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles -- look at yer mum!  Look what she had fer a sister!"

As to whether Lily's parents are without a doubt her blood parents, JKR's recent interview, I think, does make that clear.  
JKR: No. This takes us into more mundane territory. As a writer, it was more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was *completely alone*. So I rather *ruthlessly disposed* of his entire family apart from Aunt Petunia. I mean, James and Lily are massively important to the plot, of course, but the grandparents? No. And, because I do like my backstory: Petunia and Lily's parents, *normal Muggle death*. (emphasis mine) 

Completely alone, I think means, *completely, wholly, totally, entirely* alone.  JKR *ruthlessly disposed* of everyone else: every great-aunt and uncle,  every grandparent of any number of greats, every cousin thrice removed.  The grandparents aren't important, which only logically makes the great-grandparents even *less* so, IMO.  Petunia and Lily's parents died normal Muggle deaths because they were, after all, Muggles - not squibs.  If there were any magical background in Lily's family, she would not be 'Muggle-born' but a half-blood, would she not?

If you're saying that Lily was adopted then she was adopted with her sister, Petunia, or the blood-protection charm that Dumbledore used wouldn't have worked.  Does Petunia not know she's adopted? " But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" 

There have always been people on this list who think Harry has a relative in the closet.  The first one I remember is Lupin.  It was believed, by some for a time, that Lupin and James switched/transfigured themselves before the attack, so that it was Lupin who died at GH, not James.  This came about from the "'You heard James?' said Lupin in a strange voice" and the "Lupin made a sudden motion with his arm as though he had made to grip Harry's shoulder, but thought better of it."  JKR disposed of that theory by saying that James wouldn't leave his wife, child and close friend to die while he saved himself.  Then, of course, there was Mark Evans, who many thought was some relative of Lily's, a new place for Harry to go and live away from the Dursley's, a kid who would be showing up at Hogwarts any day, but who turned out to be a kid who was given a poor choice of surnames.  Then JKR said he was no-one except the kid Dudley and Gang beat up one night. She used the Evans surname because it is a popular name in the UK.  No connection to Harry whatever.

I think canon, all quite consistently, points to Harry being totally and completely alone - apart from the Dursley's (poor kid).  

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