Snape Loved or In-Love with Lily?

[exodusts]

No: HPFGUIDX 148442

> Carol:
>
> If we accept for the sake of argument that Voldemort's "offer"
> consists of providing Lily the opportunity to run away and save
> herself at the expense of her son's life (in keeping with his 
contempt
> for mothers and his consistent underestimation of love), there's no
> need for Snape or anyone other than Voldemort and Wormtail to be
> present at Godric's Hollow. There's still less need for Voldemort to
> offer Lily to Snape as some sort of prize. (Are we reading in
> Wormtongue and Eowyn here? what evidence do we have that LV held
> 22-year-old Snape in such high regard?) And there's no need to 
explain
> how Snape could know that the Potters were at Godric's Hollow, which
> only Pettigrew could have told him, or how he could get there from
> Hogwarts on the night of the murders without arousing suspicion when
> you can't Apparate from Hogwarts.
> 
> It's much simpler and less messy if Snape is not involved, at least
> not until he feels a change in his Dark Mark and informs Dumbledore,
> which would not involve anything more complicated than running
> upstairs to the headmaster's office.

Exodusts:

It may be difficult to place Snape at GH on the night in question, 
but even if he wasn't there, it doesn't invalidate the possibility of 
Voldemort's offer being based on a request from Snape for the girl of 
his dreams. I am a firm believer in Snape-loves-Lily; JKR has given 
enough hints. Although the point about Snape also owing James a life 
debt at the time of James' death is a good one. The thing about Snape 
loving Lily is that it explains why an obviously rational being such 
as he would be unable to set aside a grudge against the father of a 
pupil. If he had competed unsuccessfully (even if just in his own 
mind) with James for Lily's love it makes much more sense than just 
picking on Harry because Harry's dad used to pick on him. It also 
helps to explain why the scene that Harry saw in the Pensieve was 
Snape's worst* memory. We know that James and his gang must have 
humiliated him many times. What is special about that instance, apart 
from the fact that he calls Lily a Mudblood, and she spurns him?

I read recently on this list about Snape's pejorative Hogwarts 
nickname of Snivellus, and this gave me an idea when I thought of 
JKR's comments to the effect of how terrible it would be to have 
Snape in love with you (who would want it). I also remembered 
Slughorn telling his class about the dangers of the love potion and 
obsessive love generally (although that could simply be foreshadowing 
for the Merope-Tom Riddle Sr. affair).

Suppose that Snape & Lily share Potions class. They are both top 
students. There is a shared interest and sneaky mutual admiration. 
Snape may have been half-way to having a secret crush, but would 
never dream of doing anything about it. Then James and his gang get 
wind of their closeness. James is immediately secretly jealous. So 
what does he do, for a laugh? He spikes Snape's drink of course 
(heck, if Young Sherlock Holmes can spike Dudley's drink in that 
film, Harry's dad can do the same thing - YSH=HP is another theory of 
mine). Snape is swooning all over Lily like a lovesick puppy, and 
when she, frightened, keeps rejecting him, he starts to sigh and cry 
like a true Romantic - the source of the endless amusement of the 
Snivellus nickname. Snape is eventually "cured", probably by a 
member of staff, but the problem is that the magic of the potion has 
awoken something in him that he can't let go of. It has revealed his 
own heart to him, and he doesn't like it (back to being an Occlumens 
of love). Conflicted, he swears eternal vengeance on James, and tries 
to remain cordial with Lily, although now he is hopelessly in love 
with her for real. He broods on it all the time and becomes 
fantastically embittered.