OoP: Amanda goes on and on about Snape, was Snape/Lily

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 61798

Okay, okay, I *think* I'm the oldest listmember who espouses this as their
number one favorite theory, so here's my take on this.

I think it's still a viable theory. It was by NO means proven. What it was,
was *not ruled out,* which I'll take, we have two more books to go.

The key thing I focus on here is Snape's memory.

Givens:
--he took more than one out; we have no idea what was in the others
--Harry didn't see the ending of that one

I refuse to believe that being turned upside down in public was the worst
thing that James and Sirius ever did to Snape. They didn't turn him into
anything, they didn't poison him, they didn't change him. So there had to be
another factor that made it so traumatic.

I think the other factor was the presence of an audience. But that must have
happened before, too; honestly, the way James and Sirius went into action,
the way Snape reacted, this has *got* to be a standard pattern. So audiences
have been there before, too.

So what's new, different, or especially traumatizing? They're fifteen. We've
seen the stirrings of, um, gender, shall we say, in Harry, Ron, and
Hermione, and they make a point of how James was preening for the girls. The
*girls.* They did this to Snape in front of the girls.

And the one girl who gets involved is Lily.  And he insults her fairly
egregiously.

I submit to the jury that it *may* be the case that this is a terrible
memory for him because he liked Lily, and they did this to him in front of
her. And as if he wasn't humiliated enough, she jumps in to *save* him, how
totally degrading is that? This girl you'd like to look good in front of,
not only has she seen you in your underwear, she thinks you need defending.
Oh, great.

So in your rage and humiliation, you're angry at her, too. And you strike
back at her, for she's just humiliated you, too, as much as James and Sirius
did, and right at this point you don't give a rat's ass about her intentions
being good.

And so part of the reason this memory is so bad, may well be that Lily was
there, saw, interacted.

So I think Snape/Lily is still viable. I think her presence in this bad
memory is significant. Please note: I have *always* maintained that Snape
and Lily do NOT have to have ever been a couple for this theory to work; he
just has to have honestly loved her. Which you can do without being loved
back; I think Lily would have let him down easy. No pun intended.

That's not to say that James and Sirius might have gone on to do more awful
things to Snape in that memory--I hope to God they didn't take his underwear
off--but Snape surely saw "where" they were in the memory when he went to
get Harry, and he was surely acting as if Harry had seen more than enough. I
detected no kind of hint from Snape that there was any relief that Harry
hadn't seen the worst of it.

As for the rest of the book--there really wasn't a lot of opportunity for
hinting about this sort of thing. I think most of the Snape stuff in this
book was to sow the seeds for a future understanding between him and Harry.
The seeds. It's not there yet. But they have shared memories (anyone else
surprised, as I believe Snape was, that Harry broke through to *him*? the
superb Occlumens? I think Snape removed memories to be extra careful, but I
don't think for a minute that he expected Harry to be able to do that).

Harry's reaction to glimpsing Snape's childhood was strong and odd,
considering it's Snape. "standing there with such loathing in his
eyes"...almost as if Harry regrets that it is. For one short moment, Snape
was not all the things he has come to represent over five years; he is
simply a person. And Harry's reaction to Snape's pensieve memory is honest;
he does not shut out the truth of it and what it means to his beliefs about
his father. I was impressed by the maturity and bravery of Harry in this,
and earlier, when he confronts himself honestly and is willing to face the
answers. I am hoping he will be able to confront himself honestly about
Sirius' death, and stop scapegoating Snape for it, but it was just a bit too
soon to expect him to do it at the end of this book.

Snape's seen a *lot* of Harry's childhood. I think he knows that Harry's had
a terrible time of it. Snape's got neither the personality nor the behavior
patterns--or the ability, given the role he must play--to lighten up very
much. But  the word "subtle" has again been associated with him. It was in
his very first speech in book 1; and here he tells Harry that he has no
subtlety; that subtlety is needed for what he must learn. So I look for
subtle things from Snape. And I saw one.

When Harry is picking himself up after yet another failure, and Snape asks
what the last memory is, and Harry asks if it is the one of his cousin
trying to make him stand in the toilet, Snape says "No," softly. That's it.
That's all you get. This is not Remus Lupin, and Snape hates James still,
and I still think Lily is a complicating factor, and so about all Snape will
do is this. Softly. Not menacing; not dismissively; not angrily; not low;
not sneering. Softly. Because he knows, for he is hiding some of his own
memories in the pensieve, how he would hate having his childhood indignities
seen, and Harry has not once complained about this. I think he respects
Harry for this, for what he has gone through and how he is handling himself
with Snape in his head. Softly.

I also am frankly amazed that Harry gets out of Snape's office uninjured,
after Snape catches him in the pensieve. I am amazed Harry gets out
un-Obliviated. Seriously. If I were Snape, knowing how close Harry is to Ron
and Hermione, I would have made *damned* sure nobody else would hear about
that. And Snape didn't. He let him go. Snape hates Harry for doing what he
did, seeing what he saw--but he also let him go with that knowledge.

Maybe, once the damage was done, Snape wants Harry to remember what a shit
his father was. Point is, a certain amount of respect must have built up for
Snape to let Harry retain the memory. Snape is certainly a powerful enough
wizard to remove it. He was certainly angry enough not to give a damn if it
were a bad idea or not. But I think that there is respect there, albeit
grudging, and trust, albeit only based on Harry's own loyalty to Dumbledore
and what he's been through with Voldemort. Enough to let him go unhurt and
unmodified.

So, as I said, there are seeds for understanding there. But it remains to be
seen if Harry will be able to get past his blaming Snape for Sirius' death.
And I doubt Snape will do diddly to make it any easier for him.

Snape is, I say it again, one of Harry's father figures and Harry is in full
adolescent rebellion. The different aspects of fatherhood have been "spread"
over several men for Harry, and Snape is all the negatives. Snape is the one
who won't listen, the one who knows better, the one who doesn't understand,
the disciplinarian. The one you absolutely *hate* and can't wait to get away
from. The one you only come to value when your perspective has matured.

And because Harry has matured, JKR has blurred the black/white of Snape for
him. The father figure who doesn't understand, is himself not understood
very well by Harry, and Harry comes to see this. This cold man was a small
unhappy boy, was a bullied child. And JKR has also made certain that Snape
understands some things about Harry as well, and Harry knows it; he knows
Snape saw his memories.

I think in the next two books, that IF Harry can accept Sirius' death and
that he had a role in it, the development of the Snape-Harry interaction
should be interesting. I found the scenes in Snape's office, especially the
first one, where they were talking, to be very engaging. Because their
conversation was more than sniping at each other. They were conversing. This
is a new thing. I hope it develops.

One more short bit about the worst memory. Someone asked over on Chatter,
where were the gang of kids who almost all turned out to be Death Eaters?
Why wasn't anyone helping Snape? My thought: it may be that it was occasions
like this, treatment like James and Sirius were handing him, that made Snape
start running with those others. Maybe this memory was bad, also because it
was the point at which Snape, unable to fight back any other way, turned a
corner in a Dark direction to gain safety and revenge.

Okay, I've run down now. Have at it.

~Amanda