Filch/Mrs Norris (FLIRTIAC) & still more LOLLIPOPS...

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 34877

Rita F:
> Yeah, peeves was on the map wasn't he?  But, I don't know if animals would be, remember Pettigrew is human, so he should be there--but would every toad, rat and owl?  I doubt it.  So, that would explain why Scabbers wasn't looked for or found on the map.<

Ahaaaaa, now this brings back my other (more outlandish (subversive, Elkins?) but nonetheless thought-provoking) shipping theory... FLIRTIAC (Filch's Lover Is Regretting Transformation Into A Cat).  Recall, ladies and gentlemen, that JKR casually mentioned that *Mrs Norris*, like Scabbers/Wormtail/Peter, turns up on the Map.  Suspicious, isn't it?  Not to mention Filch's overwhelming affection for her and extreme angst at his Squib status.  *And* chumminess with his fellow unlucky in love, Prof S. Snape!  Someone (Mr Norris, in a fit of jealous rage?  Maybe even Filch himself, in a rare, accidental, spontaneous successful attempt at magic?) permanently cursed Mrs Norris into cat form, I say.  Remember also, folks, that JKR has indeed spelled out that the cats in the series will be very significant...

What can I say, I like my SHIPs off the beaten waterways...

(Tabouli glances affectionately over the railings of the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS at the little FLIRTIAC dinghy bobbing nearby.)


>Cindy (crestfallen that Tabouli's LOLLIPOPS explanation did not 
>contain the word "ambush")

(Captain Tabouli croons a soothing sea shanty at the bloodthirsty Cindy).  OK, OK, we can wangle one in.  Never let it be said that the crew don't look after the lower deck.  I can fall in happily enough with the idea that trapping all his old Slytherin friends in an ambush was the task Snape had to accomplish to prove his loyalty to Dumbledore, though I find it a bit hard to imagine Snape ever having a close and cuddly circle of friends, even his "high school gang".

I see more of a "hang out together for safety in numbers" than a "supportive group of friends who look after each other out of emotional closeness".  And, perhaps, being secretly a little nervous of Snape's nasty streak and abilities.  I also imagine they would have disapproved of Snape having a crush on a Gryffindor girl (the Enemy!).  Perhaps, as George/Prince of Lies started to grow on Snape in his Death Eater days, they started to get suspicious about his ebbing stomach for the fight (and even more so when, unbeknownst to them, he'd started spying for Dumbledore), and wondered about the failure of Snape's usually swift and deadly efforts at Finding and Killing the Potters.  Maybe someone, whoever was closest to Snape in school (Avery?  Let's say Avery, for argument), had a growing suspicion not that Snape was a spy, but that lingering feelings for Lily were staying his hand.

As the year after Harry's birth went on, these suspicions grew and grew until Snape realised the game was going to be up, set himself up to have Avery inform the other Death-Eaters in the Slytherin gang and "catch" him red-handedly protecting the Potters, but in fact have a Polyjuice Snape who was really an Auror to lure them in, who, at the instant the Death Eaters turned up, gave the signal for an entire Auror contingent to Apparate in and grab the lot...

(Better, Cindy?)

Eileen:
> (Harry goes into Snape's office and) Finds a picture of Lily with flowers in front of it?
>/me begins to laugh hysterically. 

How about Harry, prowling about under the Invisibility Cloak one night, hears a sound as he is passing an empty classroom, and peeps in to see Snape kneeling in front of the Mirror of Erised, his face contorted with pain, his knuckles whitely clutching the frame, an anguished hiss of "Lily!" on his lips?

Perhaps it'll be revealed (in a quiet or even sniggering aside? bursting out under pressure?) directly to Harry by one of the characters who was around when Snape was in high school, namely Sirius, Lupin, Dumbledore, Hagrid or Snape himself.  Hagrid, perhaps?  We already know from PS/SS that Hagrid knows that Snape has a resoundingly good reason for hating Harry, but not one which is appropriate for 11yo ears.

We'll see.  Didn't JKR say that we're going to find out a lot more about Lily in OoP?  Someone's gonna speak up...

(btw, how seriously should we take the current rumour that OoP will be out in July?  On the OT list, people seem to have accepted this as fact, but I can't help feeling a lingering cynicism.  Convince me, someone...)

Marina:
> The romantic elements so far (we might also include Hagrid and Madam
Maxine) have been minor side bits; none of them have been presented as
the driving force behind a character's life-changing,
character-defining decision.  Also, the characters involved have all
been already presented to us as nice folks capable of sentimental
feelings, so adding another bit of warm fuzzies to them doesn't really
change anything.  Adding it to Snape, however, would be like putting a
single pink flamingo in the middle of a Gothic cathedral.<

**Exactly!!**  It's what hip young film-makers call "ironic juxtaposition"!  I'd actually call the lone-pink-flamingo-in-Gothic-cathedral another argument in *favour* of LOLLIPOPS.  Can't you see the beauty of Snape, bullying, nasty, surly Snape being the one character in the series with an all-consuming crush driving him?  It's glorious!  (and provides still more fuel for his burning resentment against the world in general and Harry in particular).

Marina:
> Snape was a spy for some time before
James and Lily died, so for a threat to Lily's life to become a
motivator for Snape changing sides, there would have to be a lengthy
gap between Voldemort deciding to kill the Potters and actually doing it.  


Lily's life wasn't under threat!  In fact, if V achieved his aim and killed only James and Harry, she would have been left free for Snape, making the side swap definitely a moral crisis not a simple "get the girl" scenario.  And heaping *more* angst on Snape.  Does he help with the effort to kill off Lily's husband and child and leave her free for him, or does he risk going spy to protect her happiness?  Poor, poor Snape.  What a position to be in.  Of course, if he *did* collaborate in killing Lily's husband and child, Lily would hardly fall into the arms of one of her killers, would she?  On the other hand, spying on her behalf is heroic.  If V succeeded despite Snape's efforts in killing James and Harry, the chances of her weeping on the shoulder of the daring spy who tried to save them is much better.  Except that Harry spoiled it all.

(this, btw, is the hard LOLLIPOPS line, i.e. Lily as primary motivation for both joining V *and* leaving V for D.  The all-day sucker version.  Chupa-Chup versions which allow for other, as yet undisclosed major factors are available at your local travel agency...)

Cindy's already covered the time factor admirably (Captain Tabouli pauses, her quill poised over a list of passengers under consideration for promotion to crew member, but suspects that Cindy won't apply).  Let me see if I have anything to add.

Out can(n)nons!

PoA Chapter 10, Fudge: "Not many people were aware that the Potters knew You-Know-Who was after them.  Dumbledore (...) had a number of useful spies.  One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James and Lily at once.  He advised them to go into hiding.  Well, of course, You-Know-Who wasn't an easy person to hide from.  Dumbledore told them that their best chance would be the Fidelius Charm."

PoA Chapter 19, Sirius: "YOU'D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE JAMES AND LILY DIED!  YOU WERE HIS SPY!"

GoF Chapter 30, Dumbledore: "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater.  However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk."

Now, we know that V was specifically after James and Harry, not Lily, from Tom's comment in the Chamber of Secrets.  The fact that V wanted to kill a specific defenceless baby suggests that he knew there was something special/dangerous to him about that baby.  Could be the ol' prophecy line (Trelawney's first, maybe... hmm, could she be an ex Death Eater too?).  If it was "Lo, the first born of James Potter shall dispatch the Dark Lord", V could have started his campaign as soon as James married (or even earlier), as soon as Lily fell pregnant (in which case topping Lily would have worked just as well), or after Harry was born.  Then again, it could equally have been "Yea, the babe born on the 31st day of July in the year 1980 will slay the Dark One", or "Seek ye the man-child sprung from the loins of the raven-haired four-eyes in Godric's Hollow (or wherever)".  We don't have enough information to judge.

However, I'd say V decided to kill the Potters not long after Harry's birth, and recruited Wormtail around this time (October 1990) to help him.  "A YEAR", right Sirius?  Which means that Spy Wormtail took a year to give V the Potters.  Not great going.  Probably a combination of Wormtail being an ineffective spy and Dumbledore's own spying network thwarting his efforts.  After all, if we are to believe Fudge, a spy tipped D off "at once".  Snape, perchance?  We know he was a Death Eater, in V's inner circle, privy to the plot.  It's not that much of a stretch to say that after Harry was born, and V heard the prophecy, V announced to his Death Eaters that killing the Potters was now his number one priority, triggering Snape's crisis and change of sides, and leading to Wormtail's recruitment.

Then James and Lily go into hiding for long enough for Dumbledore to observe that *someone* (Wormtail) seemed to be passing information on their whereabouts to V, making it almost impossible for them to hide. Enter the Spy Snape/Spy Wormtail face-off.  Wormtail has a tea party at the Potters' house, scurries to Voldemort, V announces their location at the Death Eater board meeting.  Snape hears this, scurries to D, warns him that it's time for James and Lily to move again.  And so it goes on for 11 months or so.  If that sounds too long to be plausible, think about it... Snape vs Wormtail.   Which do *you* think would have the edge there?

Eventually the worried D decides that this is too risky (perhaps because Snape's school buddies are getting suspicious, remembering his Lily crush?) and suggests the Fidelius charm.  Very difficult to perform, says Flitwick.  A further three week delay while they organise who's going to be the Secret Keeper, prepare the charm, hide Peter, etc.  Peter gets the Secret, and is squirrelled away in some special hiding place, where he uses head in the fire to tell V.  V, heartily sick of the year's delay, decides to go directly to the deed himself instead of announcing it to his inefficient Death Eaters.  Hence Snape doesn't find out and the Potters are doomed.

Peter scarpers, and isn't in his hiding place when Sirius comes to check on him, arousing terrible suspicions.  V hits Godric's Hollow, with well-known results.  Sirius arrives at Godric's Hollow minutes too late, then hunts Peter down.  The breaking of the Fidelius Charm after the Potters' deaths alerts Dumbledore and Snape to the fact that they have failed and both James and Lily are dead, the latter unnecessarily through protecting Harry who, miraculously, survived.  Cue for yet another few logs on Snape's eternal fire of angst...

Captain Tabouli (triumphantly unfurling some banners from the mast of her Ship...)


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