Re: What might Lilly have known that DD didn’t?

[Judy]

Lyn said:
>>> 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. <<<

Lily clearly thought that Voldemort intended to kill Harry; she 
said "kill me instead." So, this implies that Lily was suggesting 
Voldemort kill her and then use her body as a horcrux, rather than 
doing the same to Harry.  I suppose a dead body could be used as a 
horcrux -- yuck! It does seem that inferi don't decompose, since the 
ones in the cave were still intact, but -- yuck!

Anyway, given that Lily thought Voldemort planned to kill Harry, I 
don't think she believed that Voldemort would possess Harry in the 
process of making him into a Horcrux, therefore "overwriting" Harry's 
soul.  If Harry were killed, and his body was then made into a 
horcrux afterwards, his soul would already be gone, and in no danger 
of being overwritten.  But if Voldemort possessed Harry before 
killing him, he'd presumably be at risk of doing damage to himself, 
since he'd be in the body he was killing. 

Also, Lily really had no reason to think that Voldemort would be 
making a horcrux so long after he gained power. It's possible that 
people ususpected that Voldemort was protecting himself with a 
horcrux, but it seems that making multiple horcruxes was unheard of. 
Dumbledore himself seemed to only figure it out because of 
Voldemort's casual treatment of the Diary Horcrux.  Dumbledore didn't 
think that the Death Eaters knew about the multiple horcruxes, so the 
Death Eaters wouldn't be a source of information, either.  Really, 
Slughorn was the only one who had reason to believe that Voldemort 
was making multiple horcruxes -- but he was terrified of telling 
anyone.  Much as Slughorn was fond of Lily, it took a *lot* for 
Slughorn to tell the truth to Lily's son, so I don't think Slughorn 
would have been eager to tell Lily about this.  And, why would Lily 
even think to ask Slughorn about horcruxes? 

I see Lily's "take me, kill me instead" as pretty realistic dialogue 
for someone whose husband was just murdered and who expected her baby 
to be murdered, too.  I don't really see any hidden clues in what she 
says to Voldemort. 

-- Judy