Snape's OTHER Worst Memory

[David]

No: HPFGUIDX 81166

Sydney wrote:

> 3--.  It's Snape's worst memory not because it's the worst 
incident of
> bullying, but the worst incident involving Lily.  Just from my own
> personal recollections, memories that really make me wince aren't 
of
> the dreadful things that happened to me, but of the events where I
> really wish I'd acted differently.  If only I'd said... if only I
> hadn't...  As a proud possessor of a huge, multicoloured LOLLIPOP
> (TM), this is my favored explanation!

Yes, this is my interpretation.  I was going to post more or less 
this in response to Cindy's "I see England, I see France" post, too.

I does strike me that the central event of that whole Pensieve scene 
is Lily's intervention and the way that Snape and James react to it.

However, one doesn't need to be a LOLLIPOPS (Love Of Lily Left Ire 
Polluting Our Poor Severus) fan to adopt this interpretation.  
Snape's regret is, IMO, not that he insulted someone he fancied, but 
that he sees this incident as a crucial point on the path to Death 
Eaterdom.  By reaffirming aloud in a crisis the prejudice he has 
brought from his early life, he sets himself on a path of self-
destruction, from which he is only rescued by an as-yet-unknown 
sequence events.

There is a corollary: that the significance of the prank is not in 
Snape's development, but James'.

David