What might Lilly have known that DD didn’t?

[Lyn J. Mangiameli]

Often there is the assumption that DD knew everything, if not controlled everything. As 
the books have proceeded, this assumption is become more open to question. In 
particular, I'd like to consider some possibilities. Is it possible that Lilly may have known 
some things DD didn't. 

Lets establish the possibility with a rather mundane speculation. If DD is honest in saying 
he didn't know three of the Mauraders were Animagi (something many of us seriously 
question), and there is the distinct possibility that Lilly did know her husband, and two of 
his friends possessed this capability, then we may have at least one instance of Lilly 
knowing something DD didn't. Somehow, I think that in a fully intimate relationship, James 
would have shared knowledge of his capabilities with Lilly. [And to be tangential here; this 
generates the amusing image of the three transforming at will to have a boy's night out, 
with or without Lilly's knowledge or consent. It makes one wonder if this might not have 
been a means of exclusion with respect to Lupin, for Lupin lacked the ability to transform 
at will,  a capability that even the weakest of the other three had obtained,]. 

Which brings me to wondering if there wasn't something much bigger that Lilly knew that 
DD didn't, namely that Riddle had been making Hxs and more specifically, that he may 
have been interested in Harry being his last Hx. Why do I say this, it goes back to the one 
line that haunts and intrigues me more than any other line in the books, "Not Harry, please 
no, take me, kill me instead." I continue to find the first phrase, "take me,"  as more than a 
synonym for "kill me, " in part because there would have a needless redundancy in the 
words that an editor would likely have eliminated. No, I believe the two phrases were 
deliberately written and retained, but then this begs the question, "Take me for what?"  In 
this case, I would now speculate that Lilly knew that LV was there for a purpose in addition 
to killing Harry and Lily was offering herself as more than just a substitute death. One 
speculation might be that she is offering herself as a substitute vessel for the formation of 
a Hx. 

What I have posited previously with respect to possession can be easily adapted to Hxs. In 
this form it goes like this:

The "Take me" line just isn't wording consistent with someone who is first thinking of and 
inviting their death (at least in USA common usage), and it creates the image that a choice 
of who to "take" was even conceivable. If LV's motivations and actions were solely in 
reaction to the prophecy, a choice of who he must kill would be out of the question, thus 
most current understanding holds that LV was there to kill HP,  and Lilly was sufficiently 
aware of this probability that she had engaged in prophylactic charms (so to speak) to 
prevent HP's death. Again, if she had the understanding that the mission of LV was to kill 
the adversary described in the prophesy, how could she even conceive that he might be 
interested in killing her instead of Harry, or might in any way show mercy. Nor is it 
consistent with the presumed protection charms placed upon Harry, both Lily's and the 
one's that it is suggested DD may have made, otherwise, why not protection charms for all 
their lives. So no, anyone aware of even the first two lines of the prophecy, aware of LV's 
past behavior sufficiently to have "thrice defied him," even under duress, could not 
conceive that LV would have any interest in substituting anyone's death for Harry's—
unless there was some reason to believe that LV might be there for another reason.

So what if Lily had her own reasons to believe the LV might be present that night for a 
purpose other than murder of her son. Note that Lily's initial words to LV that night are 
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!", rather than  "please don't kill" Harry. In the short 
three lines we have from Lily, she only uses the work kill once, and in every other phrase 
the action is left unstated or vague. This raises my suspicion, though I recognize the 
suspicion likely may not prove to be warranted. 

Nonetheless, I can't help but consider that Lilly's charm on HP may not have been primarily 
or only to ward off an AK, but to ward off possession and/or an attempt to use Harry as 
the repository of a Hx (though given DD expressed understanding at the time, he would 
not have thought to have personally created, or suggested the creation of charms that 
protected against Hx formation, unless of course, possession is required to do so with a 
human host, and an anti-possession charm would have accomplished this secondarily.) 
What if Lilly's real worry was to prevent HP from becoming a Hx, for to become a human 
Hx for another is actually worse than death because it would involve an "overwriting" of 
the host's own soul (and therefore a "fate worse than death"),  and thus she offered herself 
as the host instead of her son. For me, this would be more in line with Lily's actual words.

Now if LV was intending to transfer a portion of his soul, with its attendant powers, from 
the Riddle body to the HP body, and in the process overwriting or dominating the existing 
soul,  I can't imagine doing so without first possessing the potential host. If the 
possession and Hx process was disrupted, then it might have been this "blown Hx" or 
"blown possession" that stripped LV from his TR body  and thus the LV ended up with no 
body not because of a reflected AK, but because his attempt to possess/Hx Harry was 
disrupted when LV's "soul/being" was not fully attached to his body.
 

So how might Lily have know that LV might have had some other or additional mission 
beyond murder. Well, I think most would consider Snape to be the most likely source of 
that information, though I think Lupin remains a distinct possibility. If DD is being truthful 
(always a question) that he didn't suspect Riddle's Hx plans until the Diary was revealed 
and the events that surrounded it in COS, then he couldn't have warned Lilly of such a 
possibility, and wouldn't have provided a protective charm against it.. However, I think it is 
unlikely that Snape could have been the direct source of the warning, as surely Snape's 
mind already had been well probed by DD, and such info was not to be uncovered. So by 
whatever means, I think there is a distinct possibility that Lily knew of the Hx possibility 
before DD, and even more intriguingly, chose not to share that information with him.


Now please allow me to speculate in one other area -- that James and Lilly didn't want DD 
to know precisely where they were hiding or what they knew, because they no longer 
trusted DD nor felt he was acting in their family's best interests. Why might that be? One 
possibility is that too many members of the Order were being picked off, perhaps with the 
common factor being that they were on secret missions only DD was supposed to know 
about. Perhaps they distrusted DD for bringing Snape back into the fold. But a more likely 
factor is that they saw DD as just too wiling to use their son as a weapon against LV 
(directly or indirectly, possibly as bait for a trap). Keep in mind, DD makes it quite clear 
that he had no a priori love for Harry, that it only developed over time while watching him 
at Hogwarts. A deep distrust of DD may also offer an explanation for why Lilly didn't run 
away from GH--for where was she to run away to? Running to the safety of DD should be 
the logical conclusion, but not if she did not see DD as a source of safety for her child. 
Lupin was already under a cloud of suspicion, Peter had just betrayed them, and perhaps 
even Sirius was to be questioned. No, if DD could not be counted on, then there was no 
where to run to and hide.  She made her stand at GH, in her last best efforts to save her 
son, because it was the only means left to her to save her son. 

So what might Lily have known that DD didn't? Well quite likely that LV was making Hxs, 
and that she and the Marauder's were questioning if they must fear DD almost as much as 
LV.

Just some thoughts to ponder, more for fun than enlightenment.