Lily Potter

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(This entry refers to Lily Potter, Harry's mother. For Lily Potter, Harry's Daughter, please see Lily Potter II)

Lily Potter (née Evans) is the mother of Harry Potter, who was murdered on the same night as her husband by Lord Voldemort. According to the Chronology of the Harry Potter stories she was born on 30 January, 1960, and died on 31 October, 1981. While at Hogwarts, James met his future wife Lily, who was also in her first year. Lily's wand was 10¼ inches, made of willow, swishy and excellent for Charms. She is described being very pretty,[18] with startlingly green almond-shaped eyes and thick, shoulder-length dark red hair. In addition, Lily was one of the brightest students of her year, with a natural and intuitive ability at Potions.[19][20] She was one of the "all-time favourite students" of Professor Slughorn, who described her as "vivacious", "charming", "very brave", and "very funny".[20][21] Rowling describes Lily as being "a bit of a catch", and like Ginny Weasley, she was a popular girl whom many boys, including James, had romantic feelings for.[22] Lily was Muggle-born, and her sister Petunia despised her for being a witch and viewed her as a "freak." Petunia was, however, envious of her sister's abilities and of their parents' enthusiasm and interest in the wizarding world. In Philosopher's Stone Petunia tells Harry that, "...for my mother and father, oh no, it was 'Lily this' and 'Lily that', they were proud of having a witch in the family!"[23] The reader learns that Petunia resented the manner in which their parents favoured Lily and that she herself had wanted to attend Hogwarts, an ambition gently turned away by Dumbledore. Rowling stated on her site that Lily did receive warning letters for testing the limits of the statute of secrecy.[24] Lily's Patronus is a doe, presumably to pair with James' Animagus shape of a stag.[25][26] Snape also has the doe as his Patronus, to match Lily's. The old, pre-Hogwarts friendship between Lily and Snape is fully revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, along with the fact that Snape harboured unrequited romantic feelings for Lily from their first childhood meeting. Rowling states that Lily might even have returned those feelings if Snape had not become so seriously involved in the Dark Arts.[27] During their early years at Hogwarts, Lily expressed her concerns about Snape's attraction to these arts and about his choice of friends. Already strained, their relationship ended in their fifth year at Hogwarts, when Snape, in a moment of humiliation, unthinkingly called Lily a Mudblood after she had defended him against James and Sirius.[12] Subsequently, Snape refuses to utter the word "Mudblood" and hates hearing it used, as shown in book 7, when Phineas Nigellus Black refers to Hermione Granger as a "Mudblood". Snape becomes a Death Eater and informs Voldemort of an overheard prophecy, which Voldemort takes to refer to Lily and her son, Harry. Fearing for Lily's life, Snape joins the Order of the Phoenix, as a spy for Dumbledore, in exchange for what he hopes will be Dumbledore's protection of Lily and her family. This hope fails when, despite Snape's pleas that she should be spared, Voldemort kills Lily because she refuses to step aside so that he can murder Harry. After Lily's death, Snape is persuaded by Dumbledore to devote his life to protecting Harry in order to honour the sacrifice of the woman he never ceased to love. Lily was Head Girl in her final year at Hogwarts. For most of the time they were students, she and James addressed each other only by their surnames. However, James was shown doodling Lily's initials during an examination in their fifth year, and Sirius recalled that James could not resist showing off (and making a fool of himself) whenever she was around. Lily herself expressed contempt and great dislike for his behaviour, calling him an "arrogant bullying toerag".[28] Harry gathered the impression that Lily hated James, but Sirius and Lupin assured him that she did not hate her future husband; they "simply got off on the wrong foot".[7] Rowling confirmed this view when asked how Lily and James had gotten together if Lily hated him by replying, "Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying".[22] Lupin told Harry that after James matured and changed his attitude, Lily started dating him in their seventh year. They married soon after leaving Hogwarts with Sirius acting as best man at their wedding. The four were full-time members of the Order and did not hold regular jobs; Remus and Lily were supported by James's money.[16][17] Though Harry bears a great resemblance to his father, it is often noted that he has Lily's eyes. In a 1999 interview, Rowling stated that "Harry has his father and mother's good looks. But he has his mother's eyes and that's very important in a future book".[29] That "future book" was Deathly Hallows. In Snape's death scene in that novel, after having passed his memories to Harry, he whispers to Harry: "Look... at... me..." In one of Snape's memories, it is revealed that Dumbledore convinces Snape to protect Harry after Lily's death by mentioning the fact that he has "precisely" the same eyes as his mother. In the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry's three children appear: a son named James Sirius Potter, a daughter who is named after Lily and a son named Albus Severus. Albus is named for Dumbledore, but his middle name honours the man who loved Lily Evans so much that he dedicated his life to protecting her son and ultimately lost his life in the attempt. It is also mentioned that Albus is the only one of Harry's three children to have inherited Lily's green eyes.