Snape as having been loved

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 136390

<snip>

> CathyD again:
> JKR's recent interview said that Snape had loved.  That is the 
> power Dumbledore suspects as being the one the Dark Lord knows 
> not. 

Umm, no, it did not. 

<quote>

Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?

JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even 
than Voldemort, who never has.

</quote>

This makes perfect sense in Rowling's cosmology.  If one has been 
loved, someone has given that person a precious gift--trust, and the 
committment of oneself.  Love, in Rowling's world, is something that 
binds people together and motivates the better actions in life.

Someone who has been loved and then turns to the anti-love anti-life 
group of the Death Eaters is committing a sin against another person, 
who had put part of themself into a bond between the two.  Voldemort, 
never having been loved, is not offending against anyone.  Snape, 
having been loved (at some unknown point), either *had* committed an 
offense in the past or *is* committing an offense in the present.  Or 
both.

Whatever it is, it speaks against Snape not having been a genuine DE 
at some point in time.  After all, if we want a redemption plot 
(which I am now no longer convinced Rowling is going for with Snape), 
there has to have been a fall--and to mediate that fall is to take 
all the BANG out of the upswing.

-Nora wonders why it's so hot this early in the morning