OKAY I've really been wondering about this. From PoA and on we know that James has had really close and awesome friends(Exception of Wormtail). And before SWM, I've wondered if Lily maybe wasn't that social and only had a couple extremely close friends. Well in SMW, James was flipping his hair at the girls on the other side of the lake(not a direct quote-hope that it is close enough). Well when Lily tells James to stop (and we all know that conversation), it said that she was one of the girls who was sitting on the edge of the lake. With this, I am assuming that Lily was realtively popular. Which leads me to this question, we know a lot about the Marauders so where are all of Lily's friends? From reading a fanfic ("Caught in the Moment" by Bluebottlebutterfly) she reminded me that in the picture that Harry looks at in PoA of his parents at their wedding, there was only Sirius besides James and Lily. Maybe he was too busy looking for Sirius that he didn't mention another person, but where was Lily's Maid of Honor or her bridesmaids? We know that Petunia probably wasn't one of them. And at the end of Sorcerer's Stone, Hagrid gives Harry the photo album and said that the pictures from his parents friends at school. It couldn't be just Remus who sent pictures because friends are in the plural. SO, where are Lily's friends and why aren't they as important(yet) to the plot of the books as James' friends? Will one of them make an appearance? Don't they want to see Harry as well? Okay, now I'm just ranting. But I needed to get that off of my chest. And see if anyone is having the same misgivings as I am. I like to stick to the facts, meaning that I will take apart the complete text so I can ask strange questions. SOrry if this didn't make any sense.
Tonks_is_awesome
P.S. At first I hated SWM, but now I love it because We know that there is a story and many questions that need to be answered by Miss ROwling.

Wow, very long post. Well, i believe its because there are so many obvious things about Harrys father and his friends already with the Marauders circulating in cannon, that our dear Miss Rowling wants to reserve something of Lily until later on. There is obviously something about Lily, with her eyes and Harrys to the night when she was killed(Voldemort didnt really seem to be obliged to killing her.). Alot will probably be revealed about Lily in the future.

A part of the reason that Lily's friends haven't been introduced is that her friends prior to Hogwarts were Muggles. Considering what we know about her, and what we can infer, she probably didn't havevery many friends, as she doesn't seem the social type. After all, she is described as a sort of study-obsessed Prefect.

keakealani

wow, hmmm I never even noticed that, yeah, well hope we find an answer soon. Not much I can tell you, I have no idea, except that just because she was sitting where all the girls were didn't necessarily make her popular. However, the fact that James liked her probably showed it. He was going through a big-headed stage at school so I doubt he would like anyone that wasn't popular too.

Yeah...I hope we find out soon.

I think that JKR has no reasons to include Lily's social life. It wasn't necessary to the plot. The Marauders were often the ones being talked about because of their roles in the lives of the Potters (ex. Secret Keepers, Animagus....etc)

In SWM, we learn that Lily is willing to step out to stop the injustice done to Snape, then it shows that Lily is very rule-obedient or has a high sense of Justice. Then it would make sense for her to make friends with the same sort of people. These kinds of people obviously won't do things as farfetched as what the Marauders may do so they didn't get bigger roles in the HP books.

Also, SWM is a chapter based on SNAPE'S perspective. Obviously it would focus more on the people he hates rather than the future wife of his enemy and her friends.


~*Tinki-chan*~

(I just thought up another point.... )


Also, JKR doesn't have any reasons to write about the photos of Lily and her friends in Harry's Album. It would've been irrelevant to the plot.



~*Tinki-chan*~

I feel a little short-changed by not having as much information about Lily as we do about James, whatever the cause. A person's social life tells a lot about *them*. On the definite upside though, no info means anything goes for L/J fanfic writers! I'm all for artistic freedom.

That's true... less information=*freedom of speech* ..... I think I'd like that better than getting more details on Lily's social life. I mean, what if it ruins another one of our character images?


~*Tinki-chan*~

I'm assuming there you're referring to James? Maybe I'm in the minority but my image of him wasn't ruined by SWM. I've got a younger brother and when he was 15 I loved him but to be honest I didn't like being around him. He was actually in less trouble than most of his classmates, but he was thoughtless and felt invincible (much like James). Now he's 18 and grown up a bit more, and I'm pretty pleased with the person he's become. It's amazing the difference a year or two can make.

Now that I've rambled a little... <g> I think L/Jers would adapt if that happened. I haven't read all that much fanfic yet and I've already seen everything from Wallflower!Lily! to Hermione!Lily! to QueenOfSchool!Lily!.

Well, there are a few clues in canon as to who Lily's friends could have been. Alice Longbottom, Dorcas Meadowes, Marlene McKinnon - all members of the Order, all *possibly* around Lily's age (though in my mind Dorcas was a little closer to McGonagall in age), and I'd imagine that one of these three is Harry's godmother also.
It is odd that JKR has given us little information on Lily's school friends - we can only assume Harry's godmother's reason for not stepping forward is because she is dead or ill.

::nods:: Those three were probably all at least at Hogwarts while Lily was, even if they weren't in the same year. I've never heard it mentioned that there's a godmother out there, but your reasoning that if there is one she must be dead or otherwise incapacitated is sound. It's possible, I think, that she might have died before Lily and James and no one else was given the job. As few people as possible (IMHO) knew of the Potters' sanctuary so it seems unlikely they would have the opportunity to name someone else even if they had someone in mind.

I've been wondering about that a lot too, since Lily is very intruiging to me. Saiph, that is a very good idea! Hmm..I wonder if I could make up OC Characters..

JKR is probably using Lily's absence of friends as a literary tool.

FINNALLY!!! ive always noticed it. No one ever did! i was so FED UP WIT IT!!! THANK GOODNESS SOMEONE NOTICED!!

I have to agree with the mentioning above in that James probably wouldn't have noticed Lily too much if she wasn't reasonably popular (being the 15 year old git he was) and I also agree that we'll probably never know since it doesn't really matter a whole lot in the grand Harry Potter scheme of things.

We really didn't hear ANYTHING about Remus, Sirius, and Peter until book three because it was NECESSARY. After all Sirius Black as notorious, Remus was a Professor, and Peter was the Martyr turned antagonist by the end of PoA. I say that unless one of Lily's former friends suddenly becomes (in)famous in the HP universe we're going to have to let our imaginations run wild.

As much as I don't like the ceaseless parallels between Lily and Hermione (we don't know enough about Lily to be sure ) I sort of see her as a girl who probably was popular by default. Like she had a few close people she'd call friends and socialize with (similar to James) and everyone else either looked up to her or were impressed by how talented/smart/nice/pretty/whatever Lily happened to be in school.

Just by thoughts.

[COLOR=purple]Whoohoo! I'm not the only one that noticed! I hope the sixth book clears some of my questions up... I'm so sick of all those bloody OCs...

I would really like to know more about Lily's friends, not only from the FanFiction perspective. (God, people, Arabella Figg is a old woman Squib, it is not likely that she was in Lily's dormitory at Hogwarts! Sorry, pet peeve) Though I love old Mrs. Figg and have created some OC's to fill Lily's friendship void myself, I'm desperate to see the kind of friends that Lily has because of my obsession with Marauder times. It also tells a lot about the person involved to see what kind of people that they had for friends. Originally, I merely hero-worshipped James because he was Harry's father, but after I learned about the Marauders and learned about what kind of people that they were (minus Peter, of course), it really made James stand out in a whole new dimension as a character.

Thats what I keep say. It bugs me to no extent when people say Mrs. Figg went to Hogwarts. SHE DIDN'T!!!!! She was a squib for goodness sakes!

Before OotP, no one knew if Mrs. Figg was really just an old woman that wasn't magical thou, so you can't really blame people who wrote Mrs.Figg as Lily's best friend.

There are still people who continued their stories with that trend probably because they don't want to ruin their fanfics just because JKR said it otherwise after their fics were created.


That's just my thought on the matter.



~*Tinki-chan*~

When I saw the name Arabella Figg for the first time in GoF, I also though that she was one of Lily's friends in Hogwarts...pity I'm prett sure JK will reveal more about Lily in her next book

Yea, but still it would be nice, we know a lot about James' life, can't wait to know more about Lily's. That and knowing if Harry has a godmother

Nix

Well in the Snape's memory shes sitting with 'girls'.... so she does have them .. they just havn't been introduced to us. Although it is annoying when they have Arabella Figg as her best friend !!!! Doi !!

Why would Lily's best friends have been introduced? They aren't relevent to the current Potter plot.

There's speculation that Alice Longbottom is Harry's godmother (if he has one at all), which would explain the godmother's absence. But that's speculation. Same goes for speculation about Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes being Lily's friends.

I don't understand what anyone would have against OCs. There are plenty of OCs that are well-rounded and well-written. Frankly, it seems like it'd be extremely difficult to write a MWPP-era fic without including any OCs for things like professors, yearmates, Lily's friends, James/Remus/Peter's parents & family, etc. etc. etc....

Ashes, i totally understand where you are coming from! With OCs and such. I also know of OCs who are extremely well written! Being an L/J fanfic writer myself, it's IMPOSSIBLE not to make up OCs, which are incredibly fun I don't deny it, but Mary Sues are inevitable. Even the best stories have 'em, so what are ya gonna do... not much. But truthfully, in some fanfics I adore some of the well written OCs. Really I do. I even noticed that Fleur Delacour was a Sue to a certain extent (or she was up to a certain point) It's all fun and games.

I never really thought about Alice Longbottom being Godmother. *ponders* That could explain a lot. Eh, now we need JKR to just write out all the books really fast so we can all read 'em!

Cheers,

Aus

I very highly doubt that Harry has a godmother. There has been no mention of religious orientation for the Potters, and I very highly doubt that anyone would consider Sirius a good canidate for teaching a kid how to be religious. So technically, the only thing the Potters wanted to set up was a guardian for Harry should they die. There would be no reason for them to pick two people. If Sirius had died before the Potters, they would have found someone else. If the Potters died then Sirius would have selected a second guardian should he be done in. I doubt anyone of them imagined that all three of them would be taken out of Harry's life within the same twelve hours. And the last place they wanted Harry to end up was with the Dursleys.

I also don't think that Alice Longbottom could he Harry's godmother, because surely someone would have told him. The only reason no one said anything to Harry about Sirius was the tragic backstory behind it, something no one thought he would be able to handle. We know the story of the Longbottoms, never was there mention of Harry being connected to them.

I could be wrong, though.

I do suspect that we will never know Lily's friends in the same way we know James'. I get the feeling that if they were ever meant to be mentioned or have some kind of part, they by now have suffered the same fate as Hermione's sister. Or we would have at least heard of them and their connection to the Potter's before. Even before POA we had heard about Sirius Black. Hagrid said that he got Siruis' bike when we went to go and get Harry, which meant that Sirius was wherever Harry was and therefore must have at least known them, in the first book.

JKR has said that Harry doesn't have a god-mother. I don't remember where though... I think (hope) that she will reveal more of Lily's history in the next book.

Whoa, really? While I'm not a guy, I would wager that if Lily was pretty enough James would have noticed her whether she was popular or not. Guys are visually attracted to girls (yes, that's why they stare), and JKR has said that Lily was very pretty and, to top it off, was quite a catch. I think James would have noticed her.

On the sub-topic that has started in this thread, I hate hate HATE when people assume that Mrs. Figg/Alice Longbottom/Marlene McKinnon/Other female canon characters were at Hogwarts and best friends with Lily - AHHH!!!!!!! Let me just shoot myself in the head right now. But even more than that is when all, and I mean ALL, of Lily's friends are in love with either James or Sirius - come on people! I'm sure they were good looking/funny/charming but does every girl in the school have to be a love-sick automaton? Is Lily the only one with enough sense to think twice before throwing themselves at these guys?!?!?

Sorry about the pet-peeve rant, but I will say I accept these characters as potential friends of Lily's in the order (if they were in the Order) and if they were written into a fic before a later book contradicted the friendship (Mrs. Figg, for example) No one's perfect and, you know? If it's written well I'll read just about everything.

Just fixed your tags for you ~Gems/GemmaH121