[HPforGrownups] WINDOW SILLS

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 80760

Dierdre:

> For those who don't know, many TBAY theories revolve around Snape
> being in love with Lily, either now or when they attended Hogwarts
> together.

Harumph. Many theories revolved around that before Theory Bay was born.
Young whippersnappers.

> Canon shows us that Snapes *hates* Harry and has hated him since
> Snape!he laid eyes on Harry!him.
>
> The two don't add up.  Why would Snape hate the child of the woman he
> loves/-ed?  Can any of us imagine hating -- despising with the
> blackest of hatred -- the child of the person we love?  Without
> provocation?
>
> Snape's feelings for Harry are predicated upon Snape's feelings
> towards Harry's father -- total hatred because Snape totally hates
> James.
>
> If Snape's transferring one of the two strongest of human emotions,
> hatred, from father to son, it stands to reason that he'd transfer
> the other of the two strongest of human emotions, love, from mother
> to son.
>
> If the Snape!Theories are to hold, since the child of his most hated
> enemy and the child of his most treasured love are one and the same,
> Snape should have two very conflicting emotions towards Harry.  I
> haven't yet seen, in any of the books, a conflict of feelings from
> Snape to Harry.

Ah, but you are using *reason* to analyze emotional reactions.

Here is my take.

Caveat: this is ONE aspect of why Snape hates Harry. There are many threads
in that particular tapestry. I will pull in references to others as needed.

There are fathers whose wives die in childbirth, who blame the child for
their wife's death and reject the child, emotionally or physically or both.
The child who is not only the son/daughter of the woman they loved, but
their own son or daughter. Remember Ebenezer Scrooge, rejected by his father
for this reason? This is a fairly common emotional reaction, when a man must
have a place to lay blame, other than himself. We may have seen, in Harry's
blaming Snape for Sirius' death, a parallel to what Snape lays at Harry's
door--blame assigned to others where one cannot bear to recognize that you
might share it.

For Harry caused Lily's death. She died trying to save him; if he hadn't
been there to save, Lily would be alive. There is much in this to blame
James for, as well, as the father of the child that caused Lily to die. So
if Snape indeed did love Lily, he's looking every day at the reason she's
dead. And if Snape was indeed the spy who warned the Potters, suggested
strongly in canon, his warning failed. If he loved Lily, that failure is a
blame factor that his psyche must sublimate onto another. Cause enough for
hate, even with no James in the equation.

[We may see Snape and Harry both coming to deal with their roles in the
deaths of those they loved, in the next books--for other parallels in their
characters have been carefully drawn.]

But James *is* in the equation, and Harry looks like him. A very great deal
like him, which must set off negative responses every time Snape lays eyes
on him. Except for his eyes, which are Lily's eyes. Lily's eyes, set in
James' face--a constant reminder that Lily chose James. A reminder of
rejection. Cause enough for hate, stemming from old bitterness, and totally
separable from any love borne for she who rejected. I think Snape must have
sublimated his reactions when Lily chose James; he would have focused all
the negative on James; but in any case, there would have been a powerful lot
of negative emotion in that particular situation, and Lily's eyes set in
James' face would call all of it up.

Add to that reminder of rejection, an echo of a fear I have thought Snape
may have had. I think that he either loved her in silence, or told her and
was gently turned away. In the latter case, he may have feared that Lily
told James that Snape had sought her. Proud man, he would have been totally
unable to ask her this; but would have let the possibility torture him.
Another possible cause to hate; layered atop the rest.

And there is the possibility that Lily, knowing Snape had loved her, had
asked him to watch out for her son. Bitter pill, given that this boy is a
physical manifestation of his rejection; but if he loved her, he would do
it--in as bitter and angry a manner as you can imagine. Which is exactly the
way he *does* protect Harry.

[Duly noted: even if Lily never asked Snape to protect Harry, Dumbledore
surely has; and being forced to act to protect one who caused the death of
one you loved, who reminds you by simply existing of a painful rejection, is
more than enough to make Snape bitter and cruel in his protection.]

> Even if Snape loved Lily once but no longer does, you'd think there'd
> be at least a *nod* of recognition that Harry is the son of Lily.
>
> And there isn't. There's been no hint at all that Snape sees Harry as
> anyone other than James's son.  No hint, other than the OoP Pensive
> scene, that Snape even knows Lily.

Or anyone else, with a few exceptions. All the focus has been on James; Lily
has rarely been mentioned, let alone discussed. I think this omission is a
plot element, and it may act to strengthen the theory as much as it can be
seen to weaken it.

If Lily were a subject for easy reference or conversation by Snape--he would
have made it. The lack of any, I interpret as Snape allowing himself to be
carried by his hatred of James out of a dangerous emotional area, into one
he can handle quite well. It's much easier to let the negatives carry the
day, and project hatred outward, than to have to deal with emotions that
hurt you, and project pain inward.

And I doubt he can avoid the latter, and the pain makes him hate all the
more.

He has said himself that sad emotional memories, memories one fears, are the
ones that can be used as weapons against one. As the "Need to Hate" thread
so brilliantly speculated, perhaps he has chosen to foster in himself, a
tendency already there, and has actively tried to hate Harry more than he
already would have. It not only may be difficult and emotionally painful for
Snape to deal with Harry on any level other than "James' son," it may be
dangerous for him to do so.

But my point is--if Snape did love Lily, it is *not* logical that Snape
should hate her son. But logic has never really carried the day in matters
of the heart, and it *is* a natural, and understandable, and tragic,
believable reaction.

~Amanda, once-premier Snapologist