The crucial questions

[carsten]

Don't know if we had this one:
LV's mother is Petunia. She once was a witch, but gave up on it because of the sad times she had with her muggle man. She didn't die, but ran away and became married to another muggle: Vernon.
Since Harry and LV would be related, it would explain their strong connection and their inability to hurt each other.

Actually I don't believe in this, but it makes a fine theory.

[Enchanter]

doesnt LV say in Goblet of Fire that the reason he didnt die is that one or more of his expirements with immortality must have worked?

[Claire]

doesnt LV say in Goblet of Fire that the reason he didnt die is that one or more of his expirements with immortality must have worked?

Yes. Yes, he does.

Did Voldemort's mom die in childbirth?

[carsten]

doesnt LV say in Goblet of Fire that the reason he didnt die is that one or more of his expirements with immortality must have worked?

Pride and arrogance are clouding his mind.

Did Voldemort's mom die in childbirth?

He is a poor witness for that.

[Hagger 9003]

its confusing. mayb voldie didnt die because harry wasnt officially able to kill him yet? maybe harry didnt have the power to vanquish him yet, so he wasnt. im not sure, cos i dont think that is how a prophecy works. mayb because harry was still alive, voldie had to stay alive. voldie cant kill himself. maybe the thing that chucked voldie out of his body was lily's sacrifice, so it couldnt kill him, as it didnt have the power? i like that last one, actually. any other opinions?

[Enchanter]

maybe, for some strange unknown reason, Voldemort did not want to kill harry. It seems the Unforgivable Curses dont work unless you really want them too.

[Aberforth]

Don't know if we had this one:
LV's mother is Petunia. She once was a witch, but gave up on it because of the sad times she had with her muggle man. She didn't die, but ran away and became married to another muggle: Vernon.
Since Harry and LV would be related, it would explain their strong connection and their inability to hurt each other.

Actually I don't believe in this, but it makes a fine theory.

Voldemort is about 50 years older than Harry as he framed Hagrid fifty years before CoS. Petunia would be a pensioner, which would mess with Dudley's mind having an 80 year old mother. Urgh.

[carsten]

Voldemort is about 50 years older than Harry as he framed Hagrid fifty years before CoS. Petunia would be a pensioner, which would mess with Dudley's mind having an 80 year old mother. Urgh.

Keen observation, excellent point, but I feel an urge to defend my weird theory.

Many wizards and witches seem to have a very long life span. In another thread people calculated LV to be over 70 and DD approx 150. So Petunia could be 90 but look like 50 . And her sister may have been much younger.

OK, OK, weak support, but that's all I have.

[lord_zer0]

I'm sure this has been raised about 300 times by such loyal potter fans, but my question has always been why are we assuming so much about Potter Sr.'s death? I mean what have we actually been told, what can be blamed on dishonesty/mistake of the person doing the telling [heaven forbid Dumbledore making a mistake, but it's possible i suppose].

Case in point: horseless carraiges. Is there a specific reason that Potter can't see them until AFTER he saw Cedric die? Was he somehow not there when his parents were killed [rendering accounts, or our assumptions, innaccurate]? Do we have any decisive evidence to prove that Lily and James Potter were actually killed? [looking back over GoF's ending I guess we do]. Then what are we missing?

Bearing that last topic in mind, who was killed pre-Potters? The Longbottoms, perhaps? Potter broke Prior Incantorum [sp] before we found out. What else happened that night that we don't know about?

Food for thought.

[darkcloak]

I like the theory that Voldermort's mum died saving him and therefore when the spell rebounded he was saved by his mother's love. Another bond that him and Harry share.

It's simple yet very JKR.

If so, I wonder what Voldermort's mum saved him from?

[Tanuki]

Well...we assume so much because we read the books and we looked at the evidence. I'm sorry if that's all it takes for us mortals

[Mistress Siana]

Do we have any decisive evidence to prove that Lily and James Potter were actually killed?

Apart from Priori Incantatem and JKR's word for it?

What we do know is that JKR has wanted to include that specific scene since the first book but decided to keep it from us untill now. So I guess there must actually be more to it, some information we don't know yet.
Well, four days to go and we'll know...

[thestral]

lord_zer0

Case in point: horseless carraiges. Is there a specific reason that Potter can't see them until AFTER he saw Cedric die? Was he somehow not there when his parents were killed [rendering accounts, or our assumptions, innaccurate]?

JK answered this question on her website, this is what she said about it, thus proving that our assumptions are not incorrect

"Why could Harry see the Thestrals 'Order of the Phoenix'? Shouldn't he have been able to see them much earlier, because he saw his parents/Quirrell/Cedric die?

JK:- I’ve been asked this a lot. Harry didn’t see his parents die. He was in his cot at the time (he was just over a year old) and, as I say in ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, all he saw was a flash of green light. He didn’t see Quirrell’s death, either. Harry had passed out before Quirrell died and was only told about it by Dumbledore in the last chapter.

He did, however, witness the murder of Cedric, and it is this that makes him able to see the Thestrals at last. Why couldn’t he see the Thestrals on his trip back to the train station? Well, I didn’t want to start a new mystery, which would not be resolved for a long time, at the very end of the fourth book. I decided, therefore, that until Harry is over the first shock, and really feels what death means (ie, when he fully appreciates that Cedric is gone forever and that he can never come back, which takes time, whatever age you are) he would not be able to see the Thestrals. After two months away from school during which he has dwelled endlessly on his memories of the murder and had nightmares about it, the Thestrals have taken shape and form and he can see them quite clearly.

[Imelyen]

K, something i think alot of you seem to be missing. Lilly died to protect Harry from VOLDEMORT, and so only voldemort's spells are rebounded and such. If Voldemorts mother died for him, he would be protected against one person, not everyone and everything...Otherwise he could just walk up to Dumbledore, b*tch smack him a couple times and then just kill him.

And where in the world did you people come up with the idea that Harry is SUPPOSED to use love to defeat Voldemort? Love may be the fuel to his power, but it's not as if he's going to say "I am the love god" and Voldemort will just die.

Bearing that last topic in mind, who was killed pre-Potters? The Longbottoms, perhaps?

The Longbottoms aren't dead....

The only thing that perplexes me about the night Voldemort tried to kill Harry is..Why was the house in ruin? the AK curse isn't supposed to do anything but kill.