Why was Lily given a chance to survive?

[abergoat]

No: HPFGUIDX 161466

Abergoat writes:

KathyO, I agree with you - I think there is a very good chance that
Snape was at Godric's Hollow, and this is why JKR says we should be
asking why Dumbledore needed the cloak. He needed it so his Voldemort
spy could be given the secret without the Secret Keeper knowing. I
imagine James would agree to this for the protection of his family,
not knowing the spy was Snape.


grangerohini wrote:

> Harry's first question was about Lily that why didn't Voldy kill 
> Lily in the first place. 

I suspect your question is very important to the story but to clarify,
Harry doesn't ask Dumbledore about his mother, his first question was
why Voldemort wanted to kill Harry. Dumbledore chose not to answer
because he (as Dumbledore tells us later) viewed Harry as too young to
be burdened with knowledge of the prophecy.

> Why did he ask her to step aside? 

Even though Harry doesn't ask this question, JKR tells us it is
important: 

JKR: [Others besides Lily] may have been given a choice [to live], but
not in that particular way.

So your question is getting down to what was 'special' about Lily's
sacrifice. I believe Fake Moody gave us the clues to this, he says few
people have the necessary 'strength of character' to resist Imperius.
I suspect Voldemort's demands to 'step away' were tests of the
Imperius he cast on Lily...it didn't work because of her strength of
character (the important thing about Lily JKR says she showed in
OotP?). 

If Voldemort couldn't control Lily then she was useless to him
so he would kill her...killing someone he had under Imperius. That has
to be EXTREMELY unusual...given that it is unusual to be able to
resist Imperius at all.

Further support:
JKR suggests it is important that Harry has Lily's eyes. When Harry is
resistant to Imperius in class, Fake Moody says "watch his eyes,
that's where you see it". (GoF, Ch 15) But then Harry also seems to
find legilimency easy, a magic done with the eyes. Was Lily a
Legilimens? There are plenty of fun directions that could go...was she
the Legilimens that perfected Snape's Occlumency? But that's off topic.

Abergoat