Best yet! Plus Harry the horcrux, and who does Snape love?

[Kate Harding]

No: HPFGUIDX 134109

My overal thoughts on HBP - I think it's the best yet by far – the 
only one that comes close, IMO, is PoA. It flowed so much more 
naturally, and surprised us constantly – Jo constantly going against 
her own conventions in the most delightful way, for example Snape 
finally getting the DADA job – and moved far ahead of where I 
expected. It's good to see she doesn't sit on her plot! I just wish 
we didn't have to wait 2 years for the next one.

I was *so* glad to see something real of Draco in this book. As I've 
said before, up to now we've only ever seen the outer shell, but now 
we've finally had a look at the real Draco, at his real thoughts and 
feelings, and have a better understanding of him as a person. Which 
probably goes along with his own development – he himself would have 
thought he was capable of killing, but we now know that's not his 
nature, however unpleasant he is in other respects. I fear for him, 
though. I dread to think what Voldemort will do to him, and what he 
will force himself to do now for the sake of his life and those of 
his family.

I was so pleased to read about horcruxes, because it has been my 
theory all along that Voldemort had hidden his soul in an object (an 
idea found in many fairy tales, as I've said before), and that part 
of his soul must be in Harry, explaining why Harry has some of his 
abilities, and a telepathic link to him, and also why `neither can 
live if the other survives'. I believe Harry is a horcrux, but I 
don't believe Voldemort *intended* that, as it seems to me that he 
can't *know* that Harry is a horcrux – if he did he wouldn't have 
tried to kill him at the end of GoF. I also believe, for this reason, 
that Harry will have to die killing Voldemort in order for Voldemort 
to actually really die.

And the Snape stuff was wonderful. I still believe Dumbledore was 
right about him. I don't believe Dumbledore planned to die, but I do 
believe his pleading was to nudge Snape to do what needed to be done 
to keep up his cover (and possibly save Harry, who had not yet been 
discovered by the other Death Eaters lurking on the tower top). 

What I'm currently very interested in is the question of who Snape 
loves (Jo has said we'll learn more about this in book 7, soit must 
be significant). My own theory is that this is key to his motivation. 
There is good reason, I think, to believe that he was in love with 
Lily. Now I know this makes me sound like a deranged shipper, but I'm 
really not, and I take comfort from the fact that I note that Cindy 
takes a similar line in post 133969. Have a look at this quote:

Pg 512-3
Dumbledore says Snape did not know "`which boy Voldemort would hunt 
from then on, or that the parents he would destroy in his murderous 
quest were people that Professor Snape knew, that they were your 
mother and father - '
Harry let out a yell of mirthless laughter. `He hated my dad like he 
hated Sirius!'

`You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he 
realised how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. I 
believe it to be the greatest regret of his life and the reason that 
he returned - '"

When Harry tells the others (pg 575) that this was the reason 
Dumbledore trusted Snape, Lupin makes the same observation – that 
Snape hated James. But noone can say how he felt about Lily. Harry 
assumes that he felt only contempt for her because he called 
her `mudblood'. But really this means nothing, IMO. It's true we've 
seen him fawn over pure-bloods, and he may well be touchy about his 
own blood line (how could you not be growing up in Slytherin?), but 
that wouldn't necessarily stop him loving her. The scene Harry saw in 
the pensieve in OotP might suggest that actually Lily and Snape had 
been friends. She was quick to leap to his defence, and while this 
may have been simply compassion, there was something about the way 
she retorted `*Snivellus*' after he called her mudblood, the stress 
on the name suggesting that this was a very deliberately given 
insult – the feel of it would fit, to my mind, if they had previously 
been friendly, so when he called her mudblood (out of Slytheriny 
embarrassment that he needed help from a muggle-born) she responded 
(in anger and pain that he should suddenly treat her so) by using the 
nickname she knows he loathes, the first time she had done so 
probably. 

Then there's the occasion at the start of OotP when Petunia says she 
knows about dementors because she overheard `that awful boy telling 
*her* about them'. Harry responds `If you mean my mum and dad why 
don't you use their names?', which has the feel to me of Jo asking 
the reader why – a nudge to think about that question. Others have 
said elsewhere, and it seems highly possible, that `that awful boy' 
is not in fact James, but Snape. 

Also, we now know Lily was a Potions genius, which would definitely 
appeal to Snape. I'm not for a moment suggesting that she cared for 
him that way, purely unrequited love on his part, but you can easily 
imagine that for someone like Snape, who lacked love and was 
generally treated badly, that a little kindness from an attractive 
girl might result in a serious obsession on his part. I've seen it 
happen many times at school and university! All in all, if Snape had 
been in love with Lily, then the shock of her death could be enough 
to turn him round, as Dumbledore suggests. And all other things being 
equal, I'm still inclined to believe Dumbledore knows what he's 
talking about.

However, in the second chapter of HBP I was quite convinced that 
Snape must have been in love with Narcissa Malfoy. It seemed to me 
that it was her pain that convinced him to make the unbreakable vow. 
There was no real need for him to do so – it went against the spirit 
of the Dark Lord's orders, since he wanted Draco to do the job on his 
own, or at least to try, and that observation would have been enough 
to let Snape off the hook. I felt that he agreed because he couldn't 
bear to see her cry. On pg 38, "Snape said nothing. He looked away 
from the sight of her tears as though they were indecent, but he 
couldn't not pretend not to hear her." I now think I was barking up 
the wrong tree, though. Perhaps it was affection for Draco that 
changed his mind.

psyche