Severus Snape: The grudge and the very long LOLLIPOPS biography...

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 28782

Rowena:
> With all due respect to the
views of other fans I very much doubt Snape turned to
the Dark Side out of unrequited love - or back when
his love was killed. His malice led him to side with
Voldemorte initially and his inner core of integrity
gave him the strength to turn back.<

As captain of LOLLIPOPS I have to step in here.  Look, I'm not denying any of the above when I say I think Snape loved Lily.  I think you've made a good point, particularly about turning to the Dark Side in the first place.  I'm not saying Lily was the only reason, but I reckon she could have been an important catalyst in both directions.  My best evidence is observation of Snape's grudge.  That grudge of is just a mite too strong, irrational and generation-crossing to be based on Quidditch alone, *especially* from an intelligent man whose does, deep down, have that sense of integrity.  JKR herself has hinted that there's more to it than that through Hagrid, we just don't know what the other factor or factors are.

OK, let me test out the gleaming, unused artillery of the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS and flesh out my case.  (Apologies to those who've heard my spiel hundreds of times before!)

What did the newly arrived, 11yo Harry ever do to Snape to make him hate him so much?  Snape was glaring at him with dislike the *minute* he laid eyes on him at the Sorting Ceremony, and started picking on him as soon as he walked into the first Potions class.

At this point, Harry hasn't done *anything* to Snape.  He hasn't broken any rules and got away with it like his father, he hasn't stolen from Snape's stores, he hasn't started playing Quidditch.  He has, of course, defeated Voldemort and accidentally achieved fame and a scar, but Snape hasn't yet had any evidence of Harry trading on this fame.  In fact, in concrete terms, Harry hasn't really had a lot of direct personal benefits as a result of ousting Voldemort - he indirectly helped the Wizarding World a lot, but in the process lost both parents and grew up in a horrible family who don't like or want him.  He didn't get anything out of it that Snape would have wanted, surely (with the possible exception of fame, but Snape doesn't seem the type to be motivated by fame to me - he obviously doesn't care that much whether people like and admire him from his behaviour.  Fudge's idea that the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard strikes me as something Fudge would identify with, not Snape).

Surely Snape, who is close to Dumbledore, would know as well as anyone in the wizarding world that Harry has been raised in the Muggle world, where he isn't famous and gets no special treatment.  Even as term progresses, Snape would be hard put to find any real evidence that Harry is using his fame to get attention (quite the reverse), especially compared with someone like Lockhart.  Snape's interpretation of Harry's behaviour is highly coloured, malicious and irrational.  Why is this?

The only reason we have thus far is that Snape hated Harry's father James.  So OK, given how much Harry looks like James, one could argue that he brings back all Snape's jealousy, and Snape projects all James' behaviour onto James' son in the absence of any evidence that Harry is anything like his father in anything but looks.  Well, maybe, but surely an intelligent man with a sense of professionalism and integrity would see how irrational this is, and how UNprofessional and unproductive it is to persecute a student in his class from Day 1 without any other reason.  Sure, he might like to pick victims.  Sure, he might look for reasons to hassle Harry.  Sure, he might take the slightest evidence that Harry is acting like James and blow it out of proportion, as he does.  But why *such* an extreme, irrational reaction to a student who seems at least average at his subject (unlike Neville), and does not go out of his way to draw attention to himself (unlike Hermione), or constantly get caught playing tricks and practical jokes (unlike the twins)?

Now, what sort of emotion regularly evokes extremely irrational behaviour?  If intense enough, jealousy of James's achievements might, at a pinch, but James has already died a horrible death.  It seems a bit much to be unable to control directing hatred of James for his achievements down a generation onto James' 11yo son (and even his friends), who hasn't yet achieved anything or done anything to him.  On the other hand, sexual jealousy drives people to extremely irrational behaviour all the time, and there is a very good reason why it could be transmitted to James' son... because James' son is also the son of the woman Snape loved, who died to save his life.

Put a crush on Lily into the equation, and Snape's behaviour makes much more sense.  He lays eyes on 11yo Harry at the Sorting, and what does he see?  Someone who looks almost exactly like the man who outclassed him in Quidditch, was popular, attractive, brilliant, elected as Head Boy and saved him life under humiliating and terrifying circumstances.  This would be bad enough.  But for to see Lily's eyes in the face of James' son, Lily whom he'd loved desperately for years, Lily who chose James over him, Lily who died to save this boy, would be agony.  All the pain, all the jealousy, all the grief would come back, pushing Snape over the edge and filling him with a desire to torture this boy as much as he can get away with to punish him for what he symbolises.  Every success Harry has, ever rule he breaks, rubs in James' victory and Lily's death even more.  He wants to torture Harry, prove him evil, get him expelled from the school so he need never be reminded again.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

There even a tiny hint from JKR in a chat I once read (no, no idea which one, though no doubt someone will be able to say).  I think she was was asking for questions from an audience and someone asked if Snape would fall in love.  JKR laughed and asked what made him/her think of that, and said it was an interesting idea and s/he would find out why later.  Or something like that which suggested there might in fact be something in it.  OK, a minimal hint, but JKR is always so careful you have to wonder...

As for the link with turning to the Dark Side, I admit my evidence is weaker, but let me weave how it might all have happened, based on what we know about the train of events, Lily, MWPP and Snape.

SEVERUS SNAPE

A Highly Biased and Subjective Biography from the Crew of L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S., loosely based on Canon Evidence

In 1983 Severus Snape and MWPP start at Hogwarts.  Severus is a clever, inquisitive, ambitious young boy, with a chip on his shoulder.  Already, at 11, his desire for revenge (perhaps on a cruel primary school teacher, if such things existed in the WW at the time) is such that he has studied more curses than a lot of the senior students.  From the start he is a successful student, excelling at Charms (into which I assume Curses fall), but never quite manages to beat two infuriating Gryffindors, Sirius and James, the best students in the year.  To add insult to injury, James becomes a Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team in his 2nd year, and his performance generates a lot of attention and adulation.

In their third and fourth years, Gryffindor and Slytherin have Potions classes together.  Although rivalry is seething between MWPP and Severus' gang of Slytherins, Severus can't help noticing one of James' greatest fans is a young redhead called Lily Evans, who has often vied with him for top student in Charms.  She tries to make peace between the warring houses, and treats him with far more respect and reason than her fellow Gryffindors.  Watching her admiration for his rival, he is increasingly taken with her good looks, kindness and talent at Charms (his own best subject).  Though he considers the weedy, bespectacled James no prize, he is painfully aware that he is no stunner himself, with his greasy skin and hair, and nurses his crush in private insecurity.  Secretly, he begins to study Potions as hard as he can so that he can impress her.  

By fifth year his crush has swelled into an obsession.  Her continued admiration of James drives him insane.  Why James and not him?  Is it the Quidditch?  (he is useless at Quidditch)  What does she see in that arrogant idiot, always strutting about with that annoying pretty-boy Sirius Black??  He longs to wither James with scorn, curse him into oblivion, but as Lily is always around, he dares not be anything but polite to him.  (MWPP laugh at his unconvincing attempts to be suave and fawning around her, and think he is the slimiest boy in the school).  When he notices that Remus disappears on a monthly basis, he rejoices to himself.  Surely this is something suspicious, something that he can uncover which will prove beyond doubt to Lily that MWPP are arrogant, foolhardy and untrustworthy.  Whenever Lily is out of sight he taunts and harangues MWPP about it, until the hotheaded Sirius loses his temper and suggests he find out for himself.  Smug with victory and afire with curiousity, Severus sneaks into the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow and is rescued from almost certain death by the worst person possible: James himself!

Severely shaken, Severus backs off for a while, but in sixth year, when it looks as if Lily and James are actually starting a *relationship* he cracks.  The time has come for desperate measures.  He slaves at his Potions homework and begins creeping around the Restricted Section of the library at night looking for love potion recipes and trying to mix them up in remote cupboards.  Just when he thinks he has succeeded, he is caught by a seventh year Slytherin called Gilderoy, who trips over the cauldron and ends up swallowing half of it.  As Gilderoy gets to his feet, he catches sight of his own reflection in a mirror and is transfixed with adoration for it.  Severus, terrified that Gilderoy will tell the humiliating story to the whole school, warns him that he will hit him with a Memory Charm and ten curses if he so much as thinks of it, but Gilderoy hardly listens.  He pulls the mirror off the wall and drifts down the corridor gazing at himself and murmuring so beatifically about Memory Charms that Severus decides not to bother.

In his last year at Hogwarts, the unthinkable happens.  Not only are James and Lily undoubtedly now a couple, but despite years of rule-breaking and joke-playing, James is made Head Boy instead of him!  Severus almost cries with anguish when he thinks of the time James and Lily spend together having cosy chats in Dumbledore's office.  Filled with bitterness, he withdraws from his quest entirely, and immerses himself in his gang of Slytherins, all of whom are scheming to gain power by joining the Dark Lord.  Severus no longer has anything to lose, and has a volcano of resentment and fury to unleash.  Every time they whisper of the Forbidden Curses, Severus imagines James, screaming and screaming as he turns Crucio on him.  When they graduate from school, the news that James and Lily are engaged is the final straw.  Severus makes straight for Voldemort, who quickly notices his intelligence and talent with curses and potions, and puts him to work.

Working for Voldemort gives Severus many outlets for his rage.  For maybe a year or two he vents his adolescence bitterness on the innocent who oppose Voldemort, and shows such cunning and discretion that Voldemort recruits him, together with many of his former schoolmates, to be a Death Eater.  As he knew James so well at school, he is ideally placed to lead the next project - the elimination of the Potter line, which has been prophesised to bring down the Dark Lord.  Once this is done, Voldemort will destroy all Muggle-borns and take over the world. Severus does away with all the peripheral Potters, and learns that Voldemort's spy has tracked down James and Lily for him.  Though his initial reaction is a terrible glee, as Severus Apparates to Godric's Hollow, three thoughts simultaneously occur to him.  The first is that if he kills James, Lily will be single again, and he might, just might, be able to claim her at last.  The second is that however much he hates James, he owes him his life.  The third, and most frightening thought of all, is that even if he did manage to kill James and claim Lily, his joy would be very brief.  Lily is Muggle-born, and his next task could well be to kill her himself.

Suddenly, the rage which has blinded Severus for so many years begins to evaporate.  Why had he killed those innocent people he had killed and tortured for Voldemort?  Was it loyalty to Voldemort, hatred for them, or hatred for am unjust world which always seem to give most to those who deserved it least?  As the last of the rage dissipates, it is replaced by a terrible feeling of shame and self-loathing.  If Lily knew what he has done she would hate him as much as he hates her husband.  The truth of it hits him like an iceberg, and he starts to shake all over at the thought of what he has become.  He knows there is only one thing left that can redeem him.  He Apparates to the Hogwarts gates, goes straight to Dumbledore and breaks down completely.

Dumbledore is a compassionate man, and knows true repentance when he sees it.  However, accepting someone back to the Good Side after he has served as a Death Eater is not something to be done lightly.  He agrees to forgive Snape and trust him on two conditions: the first, that he successfully deceives Voldemort into thinking that he is still a Death Eater and becomes a spy for Dumbledore, and the second, that he accepts the position of Potions Master at Hogwarts.  Snape agrees, and returns to Voldemort, telling him that he could not complete his task because he was intercepted by Dumbledore, and asked that it be assigned to someone else, as he will now be watched.  Voldemort is livid, but sees the logic of this, and decides to go to Godric's Hollow himself, where he kills James and Lily and is all but killed when the curse rebounds from infant Harry...

Tabouli (who got very carried away with this and has in fact fallen overboard...)


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