Gilding the Lily

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 114363

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hickengruendler" <hickengruendler at y...> 
wrote:
>  
> > Kneasy wrote:
>  
> > Being  a fully paid up  member of the awkward squad I took the 
> > opposite line - AGGIE - Lily was enamoured of Snape but was 
> > rejected. There's no real evidence either way of course, but I 
> > prefer my  version - mostly because it has the potential to induce 
> > apoplexy among Lily fans - or Snape-aphobics.
> 
> Hickengruendler:
> I disagree. I think it's a highly interesting theory, but I don't 
> really think it's true. 
>

Kneasy:
I'd put odds against it too. In fact I'd put odds against most of the
theories emanating from my keyboard. Some are exercises in lateral
or perverse thinking; some are deliberately contrarian - offering
alternative  interpretations  that might make posters think, even if 
they don't agree with them; some are (hopefully) humorous twists
on canon and some are meant to be rigorous analysis, even though
JKR will probably shoot them down in flames eventually.

I'd be very disappointed if everything I posted were to be taken at
face value.

> >Additionally, they 
> > married immediately on leaving school (according to the Lexicon) - 
> > almost indecently hasty IMO. Yet we are also told that at the time 
> > of the wedding the Dursleys were already married. 

> Hickengruendler:
> Where? This really isn't sarcastic. I really can't remember it. Where 
> was it mentioned? And I also can't remember, and in this case I think 
> we really weren't told, that it was ever said that Petunia visited 
> her sisters marriage. 
>

Kneasy:
I seem to remember it being referred to in canon somewhere. Just been
to try and nail it down - and naturally I can't find it. 
I will keep looking though.

It's a reasonable assumption that the Dursleys didn't attend the Potter
nuptials:
According to the Lexicon it was 3 years between leaving school and
leaving this mortal plane and Lily "had not seen her sister for a number
of years.."
I'd expect a positive identification of Sirius when news of his escape 
was broadcast on TV. Sirius Black is hardly a common name and since 
he was the Best Man he'd be a central figure in what, for the Dursleys, 
would have been a truly nightmarish day - being surrounded by the
perversion that dare not speak its name. 
Some theorists believe that Petunia did recognise him; not I, her 
reaction isn't strong enough - see how Vernon responds when Harry 
breaks the news of a murderous Godfather/friend of his parents at the
end of PoA.