Why not kill Lily?

[rklarreich]

No: HPFGUIDX 142958

Colebiancardi wrote:

<merciless snip of almost entire post>

> And no one has
> addressed the fact that would LV even approve of such sappy,
> sentimental crud as love coming from his DE?  And why would LV reward
> Snape with such a boon?  Wouldn't LV worry that Snape could be turned
> by Lily to the side of the good if she lived and was given to Snape?  

Roberta now:

OK, I'll give it a shot.  As I've mentioned before, I don't believe for 
a moment that love for Lily ever motivated Snape, or that Voldemort was 
trying to save Lily for him.  However, I could see Voldemort doing 
something along those lines, not because he "approves" of something so 
sappy (of course he doesn't!), but as a reward, which would have payoff 
for him, Voldemort, later on.

Consider these two facts we know about Voldemort:

1.  He rewards those who help him (cf. Pettigrew's new hand);

2.  He manipulates and blackmails his followers using their love for 
others against them (cf. Draco in HBP).

Thus, if one of his followers rendered him a valuable service and 
wanted a potential victim saved as a "prize," I could definitely see 
Voldemort killing two birds with one stone by rewarding the follower 
with the requested prize while gaining a new hold over him.

After all, Voldemort may have no emotional understanding of love, but 
he certainly does intellectually understand its effects on others and 
how to capitalize on that.

As for Lily turning Snape to the good side (or fools' side, from 
Voldemort's point of view), I doubt that Voldemort would worry too much 
about that.  In the first place, there's his aforementioned new hold 
over Lily, and in the second, he's always half-expecting his followers 
to be untrustworthy anyway.

Roberta, who agrees with colebiancardi that Snape's real motivation 
will turn out to be more original than romantic love for anyone