Some more thoughts about Lily and the Marauders (LONG)

[pigwidgeonthirtyseven]

No: HPFGUIDX 33818


Hi all,

first of all, my apologies to Lily- fans, but I have to get this off my mind. 

In a post I wrote last week, I made the assumption that Lily *might* have been everything but a nice character, just because that's some feeling I'd got and not because I had some canonical evidence to corroborate it. Well, I don't have that much canonical evidence now, but I think there are some points worth considering:

1) We know ( and this is pure canon) that the Marauders were a very tight group of friends. It seems that maybe the bond between James and Sirius was stronger than, say, between Sirius and Peter, but I think we may see them as very close altogether. 

2) What we don't know for sure is whether all four of them were in the same house, namely Gryffindor, but to form a gang like theirs, they probably had to be.

3) There is even more incertainty about Lily's house, it is not less possible that she was a Gryffindor than a Slytherin etc. Anyway, unless we doubt what JKR said about the Marauders' and Snape's age, which we don't have any reason to do, and if the assumption of Harry' first year at Hogwarts being 1991 is correct, Lily and James necessarily had to get together while still at school. (I know we have been through this already, but it's better to make clear which point I'm departing from)

So, we have four boys or rather young men, one of them drop-dead sexy (Sirius, according to JKR), two of them at least nice-looking (James and Remus) and the fourth (Peter) eventually rather cute in a clumsy way. Four musketeers, one for all and all for one, a large part of whose school life seems to be dedicated to pulling pranks and proving to everybody that they're the uncrowned kings of Hogwarts. 

The problem, and this might also be the weak point in my musings- for I won't call it a theory-  is that we don't have the faintest idea about the four boys' sentimental attachments while still at Hogwarts. If each of them had a girlfriend, James and Lily's relationship probably wasn't much of a problem. But I seriously doubt that Remus had the courage to get close with a girl because of all the inevitable consequences of telling her about his lycanthropy, a possible refusal etc. Peter and Sirius are the x in the equation- if fanfiction may be considered as a valid means of interpretation (and I think that, if based on canon, it is as valid as any other form of speculation), then Sirius could be considered as god's very own gift to female Hogwarts students and Peter as being overshadowed by his three friends. 

OK, so according to these assumptions, we have four young men none of whom is in a stable realationship, there might be the occasional flirt but nothing serious, and then there comes LILY. Lily who takes up a lot of James's time, who wants to see him without his friends being around, making smooching noises and comments like "Get a room" when they kiss, Lily who doesn't appreciate their "boys' talk"... Interesting to think of the reactions of the other 3, isn't it? At first, maybe they dismiss her as a mere flirt among many others. Then things become obviously more serious and Sirius, Peter and Remus start getting worried. Perhaps there's some teasing ("Hey, prongs, we'll call you Bambi from now on, you've gone all soft!"), and when teasing doesn't have any effect, there's some talking reason into James ("James, for God's sake, we're only 16 years old, this is not the time to form a lasting relationship, it's the time for having fun! Give it a try and get out of Lily's clutches!"). This doesn't work either and all of a sudden, James finds himself in a big dilemma: Either he gives in to his friends and loosens the ties with Lily a bit, or he has to tell them once and for all that his relationship with Lily is now on top of his priority list.

Whichever alternative he chooses, there is great potential for conflict. And whether James momentarily backpedals or not, in the end he marries Lily, which creates the impression that she was a *very* strong woman indeed: Either strong enough to wait for him or strong enough to get the better of his three friends. But anyway, the conflict remains: If James really followed his friends' advice not to get into too deep a relationship at his age, he will, at a certain point, surely regret it and blame them for it. If he didn't, he will inevitably have to sacrifice a bit of the closeness he had with Sirius, Peter and Remus to his love for Lily. 

Apart from the fact that Lily certainly *was* a strong person, I'm wondering about the other Marauders' attitude towards her: Jealousy seems to be a good guess, unless she had the ability to charm each and every of them in just the right way that they accepted her, but didn't fall in love head over heels- if she mastered this impossible task, I'd say she was a Slytherin. Maybe it was even more or less open hostility for being a disturbing factor and creating problems that previously hadn't existed among them. One of them *might* have developed a crush, which means even more possible conflict. Anyway, isn't it at least a little strange that neither Sirius nor Remus ever talk about her to Harry? Certainly, Sirius is Harry's godfather and was Best Man at the wedding, but then we don't know whose choice that was or whether Lily was happy with it or not. All in all, more I think about the dynamics between MWPP on the one and Lily on the other side, more this topic seems interesting and I'd like to see your opinions!

Susanna/pigwidgeon37  



"And how come those portraits seem to be alive?"

"What'ya mean? All paintings move."

"No, they don't. We have lots of paintings in our villa, among them a real Chagall, and none of them..."

"And d'ya expect that something painted by a jackal will move? Now really..."



---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalised at My Yahoo!.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]