SHIP: LOLLIPOPS fights on

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 37933

(WARNING: Post contains roleplaying whimsy)

Archgarchus:
> Am awaiting with baited breath permission to board this marvellous vessel

Captain Tabouli is overwhelmed.  She has already pressed a LOLLIPOPS badge and ticket onto Archgarchus, but so enthusiastic a reception to her Good Ship she has not witnessed in months!  She whips out her lollipop pink mobile phone and summons her musicians to play a march in honour of Archgarchus boarding the Ship and an escort of honour to lead Archgarchus to the deluxe suite in a shower of confetti.

In the midst of her welcoming party, however, one of the Captain's spies arrives with ill tidings.  Cindy, known member of the violent FEATHERBOAS fraternity, is rumoured to be perusing the lifeboats...

Cindy:
> I find my rather limited faith in LOLLIPOPS shaken to its 
very foundation, and that's saying something.

The Captain's eyes bulge in indignation.  What grounds has Cindy for this unspeakable wavering of faith in the proud and watertight Snape Loved Lily theory?

Elfundeb:
>Getting the Marauders in trouble 
> is not going to endear him to Lily

Cindy:
> But which way does this cut, though?  Would Snape want to have his 
fingerprints on an attempt to get James in trouble?  Wouldn't this 
necessarily get back to Lily and cause her to see him as a rather 
oily, gliding, prowling, slimy snake in the grass?<
>
>Or does it mean that Snape developed his Love of Lily later in their 
Hogwarts days -- sometime after the Prank?  Is Snape's Love of Lily 
simply wanting something he couldn't have just because his rival had 
it?  Have the LOLLIPOPS crewmembers come to an accord on this point?<

Captain Tabouli shakes her head emphatically, and marches off to the lifeboat wing, where Cindy is surreptitiously weighing a paddle in her hand.  The Captain whips the paddle away and indicates a chair in the corner with a very stern expression.  With unusual meekness, Cindy sits.

Now.  Let us first consider the developmental curve JKR has outlined for us in the Potterverse.  Girls, it seems, develop crushes as young as ten, but boys, from all she has shown us, don't emerge from the girl germs stage until around 13, and are still pretty awkward about the onset of hormones by fourth year, judging by Harry and Ron's agonies over the Yule Ball.  Given that James is Harry's father, and the resemblance between them, we would expect James to have developed an interest in girls in his mid-teens.  Presumably he would have had more confidence than Harry (not having been subjected to the Dursley treatment), but I'd say the evidence suggests that genuine Potterverse pair-bonding starts at about fifth year.  Percy is in fifth year when Ginny catches him snogging Penelope in the classroom; even the rosebush gropers don't appear to be in Harry's year.  Nope, my money is on boys starting to develop crushes and hankerings in fourth year, and pairing up not happening until fifth year.

The year when the Marauders cracked the Animagus code.  The year when the Prank happened.

>From first to third year, the rivalry between the Marauders and Snape is boyish.  They are cocky and smart and popular; he is underhand and resentful.  He tries to get them into trouble, they bait and ridicule him for being a curse-happy greasy tell-tale.  Snape, being far less confident and prone to grudges (as well we know), *hates* this.  Suffers immeasurably.  Since they are all in Potions classes together, this is prime persecution time, and as their boyish bickering escalates in fourth year, it is observed by one pretty, principled young redhead.  Who confronts the Marauders for being such bullies: leave poor Snape alone.

Never before has someone stood up for Snape.  Let alone a pretty red-haired girl.  He is smitten, nay, consumed.  The Marauders, on the other hand, are irritated.  Can't this prissy do-gooder see what a loser he is?  That he deserves everything he gets?  (witness Sirius' continued sneers at Snape as an adult, his smirkily allowing Snape's head to bang on the ceiling of the Shrieking Shack corridor).  When they pick up that Snape has developed a monster crush on Lily, they find this hilarious.  Snape is of course far too insecure to act on his feelings, but gazes anguished from the sideline, watching her every move, tallying every minute she spends talking to other boys.  Naturally, he resents every *millisecond* Lily spends talking to his arch-enemies, the Marauders.

Quidditch is the worst of it.  (remember how everyone in the books so far tries to palm off Snape's jealousy as Quidditch alone?)  Lily is in Gryffindor, and regularly watches James and cheers him on in Quidditch games!!  It *destroys* him to see it.  Makes him ill with jealousy and hatred.  (Should he take up Quidditch?)  Somehow, somehow, he must get rid of his rivals, or at least smear them so conclusively in Lily's eyes that she will never respect them again.

Now.  What does Lily hate?  Cruelty.  Bullying.  Immature practical jokes aimed at victimising people.  (I ask you, Cindy and Elfundeb, do *you* think Lily would have approved of the goings-on in the grounds, the running around with a werewolf?  I seriously doubt it).  Remember, too, that Snape was not, from what Sirius says, playing nasty jokes himself to get them into trouble.  No, he was snooping about *trying to get them expelled*.  Which to me says that he was trying to get them caught breaking valid school rules.

Reiterating Elfundeb:
> >Getting the Marauders in trouble is not going to endear him to Lily

If Lily is a girl of principles and fairness who is prepared to confront taunting schoolboys about their cruelty (as she is in my version of LOLLIPOPS, and remember she was made headgirl, which lends weight to this), I imagine she would see them getting into trouble for doing cruel and irresponsible things as entirely just.  A way of teaching them to be more mature and considerate.  Hence Snape wanted to catch them doing something which *Lily* would disapprove of, to prove their villainy.  And hey, whatever Lupin's up to every month looks very fishy indeed, don't you think?  Bound to be breaking some serious rules.  Time to start the snooping which ultimately led to the Prank...

I say the Lily/James relationship only started after the Prank, whereas Snape's crush predated it.  Think about it.  There's nothing like you and your best friend nearly getting torn to pieces and/or turned into werewolves by another close friend to teach a boy a sobering lesson.  I'd bet that rivalrous antics (if not the hatred, obviously) toned down a lot after the Prank.  Snape probably went into shock and lay low, sticking with his fellow Slytherins.  Likewise, the incident prompted a little maturation among the Marauders, executing a lot less nasty pranks, which would no doubt have softened Lily towards them.  
It's not impossible that if she found out about James' courageous rescue, she may even have been impressed.  Subdued and shocked, James began to realise Lily had in fact had a point.  One day, they are prac partners in Potions, and, now freed from his irritation at her moral stance on his behaviour, he notices how lovely she is...

Yup, if you date James and Lily's relationship from maybe a few months post-Prank, it all fits.  No problem for LOLLIPOPS at all.  A major problem for Snape, of course, who is so beside himself with anguish and bitterness he retreats deeper and deeper into the circles of the junior Death Eaters, and leaves school to join Voldemort and punish the world that has wronged him...

Tabouli (polishing her Captain's badge)


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