GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182191

Magpie wrote:
> Well, yeah. But--and I'm not saying that you're disagreeing with 
this--I think Snape's personal responsibility for what happened is 
> one of those Very Important Events that Changed Everything and even 
> if the Potters *could* have died some other way, they didn't and 
> that doesn't change that Snape took action to get someone killed and 
> those someone's were the Potters. Not because James and Lily would 
> have been assured a long and healthy life otherwise--but they 
> certainly might have had one. As Alla pointed out, other Order 
> members were still alive come the end of VWI. 

<snip insightful comments on Snape that I essentially agree with>

Carol responds:
They were alive at the end of VWI because Voldemort was vaporized
before they could be killed. Had he not been, there would not have
been two Voldie wars separated by some fourteen years. There would
have been one continuous war of Voldie and the DEs against the WW,
which lasted from ca. 1970 onward. I think that all of Voldie's
enemies (except possibly Dumbledore, who would no doubt have managed
to kill himself via the ring Horcrux or the fake locket Horcrux) would
have been killed sooner rather than later, including the Potters and
the rest of the Order. The DEs would not have stopped "picking off the
Order members one by one" until all of them were dead.

Of course, Snape's personal responsibility for revealing the Prophecy
is very important--central to the story as it happened, along with his
remorse and lifelong atonement--but that doesn't mean that the Potters
and the Order members would have survived had he not revealed the
Prophecy or had it not been made. We simply would not have had a
Chosen One if Snape had not asked Voldemort to spare Lily's life and
if he had not reneged on his promise, turning a mere "necessary"
murder like the death of Harry's father into a self-sacrifice
empowered by ancient magic. Harry would still very likely have been
orphaned at an early age, but he wouldn't have had powers that
Voldemort himself gave him--or even the poser of Lily's love, which
depends on the fact that she had a chance to live and chose to die.

Carol, who has already pointed out that DD could not have found and
destroyed all the Horcruxes because he lacked a scar connection and
the ability to speak Parseltongue