DH - unanswered (and irritating) questions

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174490

ciraarana:
>  > Q: Snape wasn't yet teaching at Hogwarts when he approached 
Dumbledore with the plea to keep Lily safe (otherwise they wouldn't 
have met at the hilltop). So, when did that interview take place? and
why did it take Voldemort so long to find the Potters? They only went
into hiding a week before they were murdered. 
>  
>  Nate:
>  Where did you read that it was a week?  I took it to be much longer 
>  than that.  After all, the prediction speaks of a someone that WILL 
>  BE BORN that has the power to vanquish the dark lord; therefore, 
>  Snape will have told Voldemort about the prophecy more than a year 
>  before murder.  As soon as Harry was born (still more than a year 
>  before James and Lill die) Voldy would think that Harry is his 
>  threat, prompting Snape to see Dumbledore.
>  
> Cira:
> Hagrid said the Potters had been killed a week after they had gone
into hiding, right back in PS/SS. And I guess the time that elapsed
between the making of the prophecy and the murder of the Potters to be
something like two years. And the Potters only went into hiding one
week before Halloween. What was Voldi doing all the time?
> 
Carol responds:
As I understand it from the much-disparaged letter from Lily to
Sirius, the Potters were already in hiding long before the Fidelius
Charm was placed. James had probably gone out using his Invisibility
Cloak before Dumbledore borrowed it and was getting restless cooped up
inside. But Dumbledore's suggestion for the Fidelius Charm does seem
to have come later. I thought it was PoA, not SS/PS, which states that
the Charm was only in place for a week before they died. Hagrid would
not have known about it, would he?

As for Snape, he obviously goes to Dumbledore as soon as he learns how
Voldemort interprets the Prophecy. Given the weather, it's some time
after Harry's birth on July 31. I don't think that's a summer storm
they're enduring before DD casts the protective spell. In any case,
Snape has to spy for DD "at great personal risk" for quite some time
before DD is willing to hire him to teach at Hogwarts (certainly not
in the cursed DADA post), much less testify before the whole
Wizengamot that Snape is no more a Death Eater than he is. So I would
say that the scene in the Pensieve memory takes place a few months
after Harry's birth. The second scene obviously takes place just after
Godric's Hollow, when Snape is already Potions master.

I don't know why it took Voldemort so long to find the Potters. Maybe
it took Wormtail awhile to find the "courage" to betray them or he was
equally interested in killing off Order members or the Potters and
Longbottoms had not yet defied him thrice. If I were LV and really
thought that the Prophecy referred to a baby rather than an adult
posing a present threat, I'd have been watching the birth
announcements in the Daily Prophet. But maybe LV didn't do that and
didn't yet know which boy or boys had been born at the end of July.
Maybe he was debating pure-blood vs. half-blood in his mind for
fifteen months. Maybe the story just required Harry to be fifteen
months old rather than newly born when his parents died. Did JKR even
see the discrepancy, which we've wondered about for ages?

>  ciraarana:
>  > Q: Snape approached Voldemort with the plea to not kill Lily? And
Voldemort agreed? He agreed to not kill a "Mudblood"?? (And he did
agree, didn't he, because he gave Lily the choice to step away.)
Looking at Voldemort's policy ... Are we supposed to accept that?
>  
>  Nate:
>  Admittedly, this was a little suspect to me as well.  That being 
said, Voldemort obviously doesn't care too much about the request, as
he kills her anyway when he could have easiler stunned / moved /  
cursed around her.
> 
> Cira:
> Well, I wouldn't say he doesn't care much about the request. After
all, the told her THREE TIMES to get away. And he didn't have to say
it even once, if he was going to kill her after all. I think he was
doing his "best" to honour the request. Only when Lily stubbornly
refused to step aside he lost patience and killed her.

> However, about Snape making the request in the first place, someone
else - I forgot her name, sorry - suggested that Snape might have told
Voldemort he wanted to revenge himself on James by raping his wife.
And surely Voldemort would have understood that.
><snip>

Carol responds:
This one is answered in DH. Snape told LV that he *desired* Lily. Not
revenge, not rape, just lust. (It was a lie, of course, but one that
LV would believe and one which Snape could easily enable LV to believe
with his peculiar version of Occlumency.)

"'Snape's Patronus was a doe,' said Harry, 'the same as my mother's
because he loved her nearly all of his life., from the time that they
were children. You should have realized," he said as he saw
Voldemort's nostrils flare, "he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?'

"'He desired her, that was all,' sneered Voldemort, 'but when she had
gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of pure blood,
worthier of him--'

"'Of course he told you that,' said Harry, 'but he was Dumbledore's
spy from the moment that you threatened her, and he's been working
against you ever since!'" (DH 740).

Voldemort doesn't understand love, which he could not imagine Snape
feeling, especially for an unworthy "Mudblood." But even he would be
able to see that Lily was attractive, and he has no difficulty
supposing that Snape, a very young man of about twenty-one, finds her
sexually desirable. James doesn't even come into the picture, any more
than he does when Snape pleads to DD for her life. It's all about
Lily. Or that's how it starts.

Carol, thinking that some of our questions may be answered on a
careful rereading of a book that's still new to all of us