Quote from Naaga on July 14, 2023, 3:08 am

Source: Slughorn’s favorite student

So

It occurs to me… that Lily was in the Slug Club, and the other club invitees must have had some associations to Death Eaters if they weren’t Death Eaters themselves. After all, Slughorn named Lucius prefect, Slughorn allowed them to recruit under his nose in large numbers, Slughorn had to go into hiding because it wasn’t obvious enough that he would never join the DEs. New headcanon: Voldemort tried to recruit Lily based on the former Sluggies who spoke highly of her.

And suddenly JKR’s statement that Severus thought Lily would be impressed with him if he became DE does not seem all that stupid.

Precious little Death Eater friends, who?

---

I think it’s an interesting and plausible reading, and it certainly adds to Lily’s rather underdeveloped character.

We see that Petunia is very class/wealth-conscious, and it stands to reason that it’s an inherited value, so Lily would likely have been exposed to it, too. And considering her comment about Severus’ underpants, which is meant to mock his poverty in retaliation for his own insult, I do think she internalised at least parts of the same values Petunia did.

In addition to that, we see that Lily, when angered, is not explosive but rather cold, restrained, and with a knack for hitting people where she knows it’ll hurt – her comment about Petunia’s letter to Dumbledore, her jab at Severus’ poverty.

Another interesting trait of hers is that she seems to be perfectly capable of tolerating certain flaws in her friends, until a certain limit is reached – she is friends with Severus even whilst thinking he goes around calling other people (but not her) Mudbloods, she is attracted to James (and takes his side on the werewolf incident) even whilst acknowledging he is a bully, and she gets together with him practically as soon as his behaviour slightly improves (‘his head deflated a little’, as per his friends, which doesn’t suggest that James had started making grand shows of change).

I think all these quirks/traits can very believably coalesce into a Lily who would have joined the Slug Club and rubbed elbows with its members, even charming them, future Death Eaters, even charming them, whilst considering it a completely different matter – morally – to Severus’ association with those same people. You see, she didn’t like them, or agree with them, and was doing it purely out of self-interest and a desire to better her standing in the wizarding world.

Which would make Lily a very Slytherin character, indeed. An idea I enjoy.

(Whether Severus genuinely liked those people, or had the same exact self-preservation/social advancement mindset, is another topic; go write some meta about that please).

---

Nice addition, It would be an interesting take to see Lily’s reaction to being a “freak” is to try and assimilate into the world where she is marginalised.

And I love the idea of this dimensional, flawed, middle class Lily being the one who stopped Voldemort because she loved her son so much. (I mean what’s interesting about a character who is already flat goodness sacrificing herself for her son? But a charming, vivacious Lily, who was once part of social circles that espouses casual bigotry later becoming part of Order and making that sacrifice? Far more interesting).

---

Agreed! I much prefer the narrative taking Lily off her pedestal as much as it did James, partially because I’m not very keen on the combination of a bona fide Madonna figure with a much more humanised male one. It’s how we end up with people arguing that ‘we know James became a good person because Lily married him’ - Lily isn’t a real person, so much as a moral yardstick used to flesh out the male characters, who get real traits, friends, storylines, etc.

I do think the memories in ‘The Prince’s Tale’ humanise her somewhat, by showing us her less than saintly qualities. Expanding that to a Lily who was cunning and resourceful enough to succeed in the social circles you mention, but who ultimately took the Gryffindor route when it came to matters of life and death, would make her much more compelling, and rather reminds me of characters like Dumbledore and Hermione.

Which I think is already a step forward for Lily-as-a-character; a plot device/moral yardstick can’t remind you of real people (well, fictional people in this case, but with strong characterisation).