"Stand aside, girl" and the End

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 145722

Jen Reese:
> My thoughts keep drifting to Godric's Hollow and I'm wondering 
> again why Voldemort gave Lily the chance to stand aside. ...the 
> idea that Voldemort would save Lily because Snape (or anyone) 
> asked him to doesn't fit for me.
<snip>
> The second most common suggestion is that Voldemort thought Lily 
> too silly to bother with since his laser focus was on killing 
> James and Harry. This one, too, falls flat for me. Lily had thrice 
> defied him.... 
>
> ...there's this quote by JKR:
> 
> "Now the important thing about Harry's mother, the really, really
> significant thing, you're going to find out in 2 parts. You'll find
> out a lot more about her in Book 5, or you'll find out something 
> very significant about her in Book 5, then you'll find out 
> something incredibly important about her in Book 7. But I can't 
> tell you what those things are so I'm sorry, but yes, you will 
> find out more about her because both of them are very important in 
> what Harry ends up having to do." (The Connection, 1999)
>  
> JKR said there were places Harry needed to go in Book 5 in order 
> to 'play fair for the reader in the resolution of Book 7'. So the 
> Department of Mysteries will be important again. I'm not the first
> to suggest Lily worked there, it's just that now the idea she 
> might have worked in the Veil room and studied death takes on a 
> new meaning given the information about Voldemort in HBP. His 
> greatest fear is death, and Dumbledore is the only person he 
> feared probably in part because he was unafraid to die, so it's 
> fitting Voldemort might find Lily worrisome if she actually 
> studied death rather than feared it. 


SSSusan:
I really, really like this possibility.  In spite of the fact that 
I've long clung to LOLLIPOPS as a possible explanation for some of 
Snape's actions, I've never been able to buy the "Voldy offered to 
let her live as a reward for Snape" explanation for "Stand aside."  
As you noted, it just does NOT fit with the Voldy we know -- in 
particular with the person who instantly ordered the murder of 
Cedric as a mere "spare."  

I also definitely don't think he UNDERestimated Lily's talents nor 
her danger to him.  *Thrice* defying is a pretty significant history 
of peskiness.  Yes, he used the word "silly" but I don't think he 
meant it as a way of showing he didn't think her even worthy of 
consideration; I think he meant it as a general insult (for her 
peskiness!) and perhaps as a means of showing his disdain for the 
things she valued, compared to the things that REALLY mattered in 
his opinion.

One other possibility I've heard raised is that Voldy didn't truly 
mean the "stand aside" as an offer to Lily that she could be spared, 
so much as that Voldy was just so focused on Harry that he wasn't 
paying attention to her.  That has always felt a little weak as an 
explanation, too.  The particular phrasing of the words seems too 
strong to me to be throw-away or insignificant.

What I especially like in what Jen is proposing about Lily studying 
Death and not fearing it is that Voldy may have then had reason to 
find her "troublesome" or "worrisome" and so didn't want to mess 
with her unless he had to.  He might have hated the Potters for all 
they represented -- their loyalty to DD, their fight against him, 
the values they espoused, their defiance of him, and now their 
having generated this progeny which might be the one with the power 
he knew not (whatever that might be) -- but he might especially have 
been inclined to avoid Lily that night if, as Jen says, she was 
studying death, the thing Voldy feared most.

I think a lot of people think that Lily worked in the locked room 
and that what is studied there is Love.  But I think her studying 
death makes MORE sense.  Yes, she KNEW about love and understood its 
power, because she used it to protect Harry.  And Voldy already 
admitted that Lily had used an ancient magic, that he should have 
considered that and remembered it as a possibility, but it seems to 
me that the reason he DIDN'T remember it was because it was based on 
love, and love isn't on his radar screen.  Might he not have 
mentioned, "I should have remembered it -- after all, it's what your 
mother studied," if that were the case?  No, I think he admitted 
that he should have known about that, simply because he'd studied 
magic in such depth, but he didn't think of it because he devalued 
it.

So if he devalued anything love-related, WHY offer to let Lily save 
herself?  What makes more sense to me is this possibility -- that 
Voldy knew about Lily's work studying DEATH, which most definitely 
*was* on his radar screen.  For this reason, perhaps, he was a 
little more concerned about her, a little more worried about what 
she might be capable of?  Heck, maybe his plan was even to turn back 
to her after he'd eliminated Harry and see if he couldn't extract 
information from her about what she'd learned?  He might have 
thought of her both as dangerous AND as potentially useful in his 
quest to avoid death and achieve immortality.  


Jen wrote:
> Lily would then be an example of someone possessing great love and 
> no fear of death. Even though Harry possesses great quantities of 
> love, he underestimates its power just as Voldemort does. Since 
> Harry found the courage of James inside himself in POA, he will 
> likely come to terms with Lily's love and discover that power 
> inside himself as well. And hoo boy, will he need it!
> Voldemort will definitely be using Harry's hatred of Snape to 
> tempt him in Book 7 in my opinion, and Dumbledore tried mightily 
> to tell him his love will be his only protection against the lure 
> of Voldemort's power. Luckily we can count on Harry figuring this 
> out in time to save himself from the temptation to kill Snape and 
> get on with the business of Voldemort. 

SSSusan:
There's also the idea that, if Lily did study death, it might play 
out in that one of Harry's strengths is something he holds in common 
with his mother and with Dumbledore:  not fearing death.  

I've long believed that what Harry would do to defeat Voldemort 
would somehow involve sacrificial love -- the willingness to die out 
of love for others.  (I've also always hoped that the mere belief in 
this power and WILLINGNESS to take that action, to sacrifice 
himself, will prove to be sufficient and he won't actually have to 
die... but that's just the "happy ending" person in me talking.)  

Anyway, I think this fits nicely with this whole notion Jen has 
presented.  We *know* about the power of Love because of Lily's 
sacrifice, the ancient magic which protected Harry, and DD's 
stressing of it.  We also know DD did not fear death, and Lily must 
not have either based upon her actions at GH.  If she studied death, 
this would mesh nicely with that.  Harry is notoriously brave and 
willing to put his life on the line for others (the Sorcerer's 
Stone, going after Ginny in CoS, taking the extra risk to bring back 
Cedric's body, trying to rescue Sirius), even if those actions have 
sometimes been rash and not-well-considered.  

But put together the importance of love and the lack of fear of 
death, and I think we're right back to sacrificial love.  Course, as 
Jen notes, Harry's going to have to get his mind off of killing 
Snape first. ;-)

Siriusly Snapey Susan