How to install Lion without disc So I'm new at Mac... I bought a Macbook Pro Late 2011 and the previous owner didn't do a fresh install.

So I booted from the recovery partition, Disk Utility, erased the Macintosh HD and went to "Reinstall OS X Lion". The problem is I thought the recovery HD actually had the OS image, but it seems it doesn't. So it's downloading it but it says 43 hours remaining... (and the last time I tried it went to 50% and then said "couldn't download additional components" and I had to start over...)

I've Googled a lot and I saw it's possible to put Lion on a USB stick. Problem is, this MBP came with Lion pre-installed, so it's not in the Apple Store available for download.

So now I have an empty HD, waiting for Lion to download (45 hours...) and stuck.

What are my options? I don't want to use illegal images...
Your option is to continue letting it download. Apple does give the installer file, through Recovery Mode.

It sounds like you have an exceptionally slow Internet connection. I recommend that you do this somewhere with a better connection.