"Love" of Lily---did it have to be love?

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 35002

It occurs to me that the basic theory behind L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S. can be
perfectly correct, even if Snape and Lily Evans were never, ever in love
with each other.  As in:

In their first few years at Hogwarts, Severus Snape and Lily Potter are in
some classes together, and are assigned to work together.  They find out
that each has strengths and talents the other doesn't (AFAIK Snape is not
mentioned as being star-class material at anything but Potions, while the
most we know about Lily Evans is that her wand was "useful for Charms work,"
from Mr. Ollivander).  So, they end up working together in Potions, where
Snape coaches Evans and works with her after class to keep her from flunking
out, and she reciprocates the favor, helping Snape pass Charms.  Over the
years, this becomes a habit, and they form a firm, but non-sexually-based,
friendship.

After all, we don't know what Lily Evans looked like as a young girl, do we?
Just because Harry thought she was beautiful in the Mirror of Erised,
doesn't mean she was always beautiful.  Until she got her growth spurt,
which could have come in her last couple of years at Hogwarts, she could
have been "Miss Shorty-Greasy-Spot-Spot" to all and sundry.  Or, more
prosaically, who's to say that Snape even goes for redheads?  According to
Sydney Biddle Barrows, the so-called "Mayflower Madam," men divide into two
camps on the subject of redheads---Love 'Em and Can't Stand 'Em.  If Snape
is in the second category, he could be _friends_ with Lily Evans, while
feeling no great attraction for her, and, again for all we know, breaking
the hearts (and certain other things) of half the girls in Slytherin House.
Severus' girlfriend-of-the-moment is never particularly threatened by Lily's
presence in his life, because they're _known_ to only be platonic
friends---who'd want to snog Miss Shorty-Greasy-Spot-Spot, anyway?---and
she's got enough to worry about keeping her trophy-boyfriend away from those
other cows in Slytherin House, who'd steal him right out from under her if
they saw an opening.

So-o-o, after Hogwarts, Severus is recruited by the Death Eaters, while Lily
goes off and gets married---Severus doesn't dance at the wedding, because he
loathed James and couldn't stand to see him happy, but otherwise he didn't
much care.  After a while, he started getting pretty disgusted by the DEs'
activities, and turned mole for the MoM and D'dore, passing them information
as and when he could about what the DEs were going to be up to next.

Hearing that Lord Voldemort _killed his friend_ traumatized Snape, sending
him into a long-term depression (I know more than I care to about that, and
a lot of what he does and says sounds to me like long-term situational
depression) and motivating him to go all-out to help the remainder of the
DEs to be rounded up.  Unfortunately, quite a few of them were able to talk
their way out of trouble, and Snape had good reason to fear for his life.
Professor Dumbledore, knowing his expertise in Potions, gave him a job at
Hogwarts, and possibly felt lucky to get a guy who normally would have been
making a packet in the Wizarding World's potions industry.  (Even D'dore is
allowed to be satisfied when he gets two birds with one stone.)

So---does this theory cover all the ground?

--Eric, list-iconoclast of many lists