Lily's protection for Harry

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 151840

Sridhar wrote: 
> 
> Was James already a target? Did LV think he was doing Snape a favor
by killing James and leaving Snape to woo Lily (since he is convinced
 Snape is on his side and he knows Snape and James hate each other)?
He is already convinced that Harry is the threat.
> 
> I am as confused as you, probably more. 
> 
> Sridhar, who wonders if he is Professor Lockhardt.

Carol responds:
Well, first, I'm pretty sure that you're not Professor Lockhart or
you'd be in St. Mungo's practicing "linked-up writing" or whatever he
calls it and autographing moving photos of yourself without quite
knowing why.

Regarding the confusion, if you take Snape out of the picture, there
isn't any, or at least, not much. As you say, Harry is the threat, the
Prophecy Boy who can vanquish LV at some future point and must
therefore, in his view, be destroyed. What other motive does Voldemort
need (except perhaps the additional intention of creating a Horcrux
with the soul bit from this highly significant murder)? James comes at
him, armed and dangerous, and "has" to die, but Lily, apparently
unarmed, merely stands in his way. Rather than waste time and energy
fighting her, he orders her out of his way. The "silly girl" doesn't
get it; all she has to do is allow him to accomplish his objective and
she can live. (Why doesn't she stop screaming and sobbing and just
move? he wonders. Doesn't she value her own life?)

HBP!Harry, under the influence of Felix Felicis and therefore more
likely than usual to be correct in his inferences, tells Slughorn
succinctly, "He [Voldemort] told her to get out of the way. He told me
she needn't have died. *He only wanted me. She could have run*" (HBP
Am. ed. 489, my italics). 

James, OTOH, couldn't run. He had to fight Voldemort to give Lily a
chance to escape with Harry. Since Lily and James thought until that
moment that they were safe because of the Fidelius Charm, I would
guess that Lily happened not to have her wand with her (possibly
another reason why her situation was unique or at least highly
unusual?) and couldn't fight, so she blocked Voldemort's path and
offered her own life in exchange for Harry's instead. And Voldemort,
underestimating both her strength of character (probably because of
his own mother) and the power of love (again probably because of
Merope) gave the "silly girl" a chance to "stand aside" and escape
death because he didn't care about her; he only wanted to thwart the
Prophecy and assure his immortality by killing Harry. 

IOW, James posed a threat and therefore "had" to die in LV's view even
though he wasn't the Prophecy Boy; Lily *seemed* to pose no threat and
therefore could have lived if she had only stood aside (which of
course she would not have done, but LV doesn't understand that). LV
expected her to be weak like Merope, a "silly girl" (and a Muggleborn
to boot--note Diary!Tom's comparison of her to his father in CoS and
and Voldemort's similar comparison in GoF). He underestimated the
power of a mother's love because his own mother hadn't loved him
enough to retain her magic and live (and perhaps also the strength of
character of Muggleborns because his Muggle father had deserted him).
In psychological terms, LV (it seems to me) is projecting the
deficiencies of both his parents onto Lily, the Muggleborn mother, but
not onto James, the pureblood father who is prepared to fight him to
the death (and receives the "honor" of dying in battle as a
consequence--note LV's tribute to his fallen enemy in GoF--James, he
says, died fighting like a man). And yet it's Lily's death, the
willing sacrifice of her own life to save Harry's (as opposed to an
armed duel which can only postpone Harry's death, not save his life)
that activates the ancient magic.

That part, to me, is simple (whether or not you accept my explanation
of LV's motivation). Lily could have lived by standing aside; James
was offered that option. As I've already stated upthread, it's only
the way in which Lily's sacrifice differs from what any other mother
would have done under the circumstances that I find confusing, and the
important question (IMO) is not why Lily could have lived but how her
sacrifice activated the ancient magic.

At any rate, why not trust Harry's simple synopsis, which explains
Voldemort's motives quite simply without bringing Snape into the
picture? If we do that, and simultaneously consider what DD says about
LV constantly underestimating the power of love, we have our
explanation of why Lily didn't have to die (she was an obstacle, not a
threat) but James (who was a threat, not an obstacle) did. (Snape's
motives for joining Dumbledore don't need to be brought in here; he
"returned to our side" more than two months *before* Godric's Hollow,
and he was at Hogwarts when the Potters were killed.)

Carol, noting that the desire to complicate Voldemort's motives seems
to stem from a desire to implicate Snape in some way