Lily being spared (was Re: Why did Barty Crouch Jr join Voldemort?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 189796

> Carol responds:
> > If we consider the interviews as valid, JKR says otherwise.
> Unless Voldemort intended to keep his word, the love magic would
> not have worked. Lily *has* to trade her life for Harry's--a true
> sacrifice--or there's no love magic, only a double murder that LV
> intended all along.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> Carol, noting that in the flashback in DH, Voldemort debates with
> himself over killing Lily, indicating that he did *not* intend to
> kill her all along <
> 
> 
> June:
> The fact that Voldemort made a promise to Snape and did not keep
> it has little to do with what happened. Lily would not have known
> a promise to keep her alive had been made because if she did, she
> would have just told her husband that Voldemort was coming over to
> kill him and Harry and "Oh yeah, if I keep out of the way and let
> him kill you guys I will be spared." It was a total surprise to the
> Potters, therefore if Voldemort had accidently killed Lily while
> she was protection Harry, the protection Harry had would still be
> there because she loved him enough to give her life for him. If
> Lily was spared then Harry would have been dead and either there
> would be no story at all or a totally different story.

Carol responds:
Voldemort wouldn't accidentally kill anyone--although, of course, he accidentally caused the AK to turn on him. And of course if he had spared Lily and killed Harry there would be no story.

But my point is this. Voldemort promised Snape that he would spare Lily, a promise that he intended to keep. Had he not made that promise, he could have killed Lily with impunity. He would not have told her to stand aside--giving her a real chance to live had she been unmotherly enough to value her life over her child's. He would simply have AK'd her on the spot and then have killed Harry. No love magic, no story, just a victory for Voldemort. Or he could have honored his promise and merely Stunned her and then killed Harry, making him again the victor--but again, there would be no Love magic and no story.

For the Love Magic to work, Lily had to have a real chance to live, a real choice (admittedly, a choice with no good alternatives). She could either stand aside and live (Voldemort says more than once that she didn't have to die) or she could *sacrifice* herself, trading her life for her child's ("Kill me *instead.*") That chance would not have come had he not intended to keep his promise to Snape. Granted, no bad consequences (other than a terribly fragmented and unstable soul) are immediately apparent when he kills her because she has *chosen* to die in Harry's place. But when he betrays her by trying to kill Harry, breaking his implied promise to her, her sacrifice gains its magical power--the AK rebounds against the caster and Harry is granted some of Voldemort's own powers (as in the Prophecy).

Lily doesn't need to know that Voldemort made a promise to Snape. She only needs to know that Voldemort wants to kill her son--not her, or he would not have ordered her to stand aside, not once but several times. That, according to JKR, gives her a choice that, say, the Muggle mother in DH or Marlene McKinnon isn't offered--a chance to save herself at the expense of her child. She pleads with him to kill her *instead*--putting herself in Harry's place (not knowing, of course, why Voldemort would want to kill an innocent child). That *choice* automatically triggers the Love Magic so that when Voldemort breaks his end of the bargain and tries to kill Harry, Harry is magically protected in a way that other children aren't.

If Voldemort had chosen to kill Neville instead, there would have been no Love Magic--not because Neville's mother didn't love him as much as Lily loved Harry but because Voldemort would not have promised to spare her (no DE was in love with her as Snape was with Lily) and therefore he would simply have AK'd her as he did the Muggle mother with no resulting Love Magic. Most likely, he would not have given her a chance to offer her life for her son's. Certainly, he would not have ordered her to stand aside. He would have had no more qualms about killing her than he did about ordering Wormtail to kill Cedric Diggory, who was also in his way. He would have treated Lily as he treated James, who was simply murdered. No follower had pleaded for *his* life and no promise had been made to spare it.

The whole point of bringing Voldemort's promise to Snape into the story (aside from the effect of her death on Snape himself) is to give Voldemort a reason for sparing Lily. Without that promise, she would have had no choice to live. Without the choice to live, there would have been no Love Magic.

Carol, with apologies for being somewhat repetitive