James and Lily Potter

The Many Mysteries of Harry's Parents

Indeed, there are many, many mysteries about Harry's parents, and if you have any, and would like to discuss them, feel free to e-mail me!

CAUTION: GoF SPOILERS BELOW!

The first and biggest mystery of Harry's parents, and the reason I started up this page, was the confusion around the order in which Harry's parents emerged from the wands at the end of book four. It was the reverse of the order they should have emerged, according to all accounts we've heard about that fateful night. In original editions of the fourth book, James emerged from Voldemort's wand first, Lily second... But since James was killed first and Lily died second defending Harry, she should have come out first, since they emerged in reverse order of the order in which the spells were performed...

I had all sorts of interesting theories about why this happened, and discounted the idea of J. K. Rowling making such a huge mistake as impossible. However, it was recently brought to my attention that most sites barely mention this, and those that do claim it as a mistake in publishing. Then I found an article that says that the changes were made in later editions to fix the mistake. But the article makes it sound like J. K. Rowling wasn't necessarily aware of the changes, because I'll bet she would have said something about them somewhere. You don't make that big a mistake and then pretend it never happened... So maybe she DID mean it to be like that, the publishers got confused, tried to fix it, not realizing it was supposed to be wrong, and all my theories are still correct, or at least possible.

This is what I will believe until I am once again enlightened by one of my readers and J. K. Rowling herself has been found to acknowledge that this was a mistake. This would certainly be an interesting question for one of the interviews where people send questions in, if anyone has an opportunity with one of those. Until then, I'm going to leave my theories below, in blind and desperate hope. They're underneath transcriptions of both the Original and Revised version of the passage. If you've got the Revised version, check and see if yours matches mine. This one was given to me by my uncle Bruce, an avid reader of my site. I'm interested to see if all the revised versions are the same. If you've got a british revised version, especially, I'd like to know if they match, because that might give a clue as to whether the change was made by the publishers or J. K. Rowling herself.

The Original Version:

And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand...and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be...he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment Cedric's head had appeared from the wand...knew, because the man appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight....

The smoky shadow of a tall man with untidy hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him...and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his father.

"Your mother's coming..." he said quietly. "She wants to see you...it will be all right...hold on...."

And she came...first her head, then her body...a young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. She walked close to Harry, looked down at him, and she spoke in the same distant, echoing voice of the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear...

"When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments...but we will give you time...you must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts...do you understand, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.

"Harry," whispered the figure of Cedric, "take my body back, will you? Takle my body back to my parents...."

"I will," said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of holding the wand.

"Do it now," whispered his father's voice, "be ready to run...do it now...."

The Revised Version:

And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand...and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be...he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric's head had appeared from the wand...knew, because the woman appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight....

The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him...and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.

"Your father's coming..." she said quietly. "Hold on for your father...it will be all right...hold on...."

And he came...first his head, then his body...tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like his wife. He walked close to Harry, looked down at him, and he spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear...

"When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments...but we will give you time...you must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts...do you understand, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry gasped, fighting now to keep a hold on his wand, which was slipping and sliding beneath his fingers.

"Harry," whispered the figure of Cedric, "take my body back, will you? Takle my body back to my parents...."

"I will," said Harry, his face screwed up with the effort of holding the wand.

"Do it now," whispered his father's voice, "be ready to run...do it now...."

The Theory:

The mystery I plan to discuss at the moment is that which cloaks their death. Because here is the interesting thing: besides Harry and Voldemort, nobody alive now was there. And yet we have heard quite a story about what happened. How did we discover everything we know about it, that Voldemort killed his father, then his mother tried to protect Harry, but he killed her, too. He then turned on Harry, and was defeated. We hear this from Dumbledore, first, I believe, in Sorcerer's Stone... Ah! But here's something very interesting, something I hadn't noticed before... hm...unless Voldemort, too, is lying...

In the end of Goblet of Fire the Priori Incantatum spell works on Voldemort's wand. First, out comes Wormtail's hand. Then Cedric. Then Bertha. And then Harry's dad and mom. But his dad comes first. Which would imply that his mother was killed first, since they come out in reverse order. So up until just a moment ago, I thought that all the stories about the death of his parents were wrong, that something rather different had actually happened, and that this would be important in future books as we find out more and more of what really happened that fateful night. But then, as I was looking for the place Harry first heard the false story, i found this quote from when Voldemort, via Quirrel, is trying to get the stone from Harry:

"Yes, boy, your parents were brave.... I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight...but your mother needn't have died...she was trying to protect you.... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain (294)."

Which tells us two interesting things. First of all, it would seem that Voldemort only intended to kill James and Harry, and that Lily died as an innocent bystander in the very wrong place at the wrong time. This could serve to perpetuate the Heir of Gryffindor vs. Heir of Slytherin battle theory. Harry is in Gryffindor, he pulled Gryffindor's sword out of the sorting hat, and his parents lived in Godric's Hollow... But it also totally contradicts the evidence of the wands... Which means either J. K. Rowling made a mistake of the magnitude I don't think you could make after thinking about a story for years and years, or Voldemort is lying. This is, I believe, more plausible than Rowling making such a horrendous error. If he lied about the story, then the story that would have gotten to everyone else, like Dumbledore and Hagrid, would mirror this lie, since Harry doesn't yet remember the full events of the night. Maybe, since with each book Harry seems to recover more memories of the night, the truth will eventually be revealed.

If you have any thoughts on any of this, or any other ideas about Harry's parents, go ahead and write me at dragonfyre52@hotmail.com.

* ~ * Back to Potter Storm * ~ *

All information on this site is copyright 2001 by October. Lily and James will be disappointed in you if you steal anything. You must have the permission of the webmistress to use anything on this site.