Snape Loved or In-Love with Lily?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 148472

Jen wrote: <huge snips--sorry!> I may be the only 
> one who thinks Slughorn's talk of obsessive love and the Tom 
> Riddle/Merope deal had nothing to do with Snape and Lily and 
> everything to do with Voldemort. But oh well, we can't get 
> everything we want, right?

Carol responds:
No, you're not the only one. I think that Voldemort's "offer" to let
Lily live had everything to do with his desire to kill Harry and
nothing to do with Snape, and I share your repugnance at the idea of 
"Snape collapsing down, as Nora also puts it, into a heap of
blubbering lost love"--or worse, bargaining with LV to save Lily at
the expense of James and Harry. There's just no canon to support that.

Nor do I see any way that Snape could have been at Godric's Hollow. I
have yet to receive an answer to my question about how Snape could
have been told the secret of the Potters' hiding place when we know he
was at Hogwarts at the time, or why Pettigrew would have told him even
if he could.

Jen wrote: 
> Anyway, just read Tonks post before posting this one and think maybe 
> she has a good idea: It's the hatred of the Marauders, the life debt 
> and feelings for Lily rolled up in one. Now that sounds like some 
> drama and angst, doesn't it? All those competing factors 
> contributing in the end. <snip>

Carol responds:
Yes, I'll concede that feelings of some sort for Lily, reluctance to
allow a good woman to be killed, along with her innocent child, as a
result of his having revealed the Prophecy to Voldemort, could have
played a part in his "return" (DD's word) to Dumbledore. I think that
the life debt also played an important role. He hated James but didn't
want him to die, tried to persuade him that one of his friends was
about to betray him but was rebuffed because James was too "arrogant"
to believe him, and in desperation, he went to Dumbledore. (There may
have been other factors as well, including the death of Regulus
Black.) He began spying for Dumbledore "at great personal risk" in
hopes of preventing the deaths of the Potters, then applied for the
DADA position on LV's orders and took the Potions position instead, at
which point he could only hope that DD's idea of a Fidelius Charm
protected the Potters. He could not have known about the Secret Keeper
switch or the location of their hiding place or the plot to kill the
Potters at Halloween because he was at Hogwarts. He could nothing to
prevent their deaths; hence his remorse when he found out what had
happened.

So, yes, I can see a version of Snape-loves-Lily as partial motivation
for Snape's return to Dumbledore, for the risks he took as spy, for
his acceptance of the Potions position in lieu of the cursed DADA job,
even for his later antipathy to Harry (whom he protects despite his
loathing because the real enemy is Voldemort).

But I don't see any necessity for Snape to be at Godric's Hollow or
any way that he could have been there. Voldemort had sufficient reason
to tell Lily to "step aside" without Snape's involvement, there is no
evidence of anyone else's presence (other than a certain rat Animagus)
at Godric's Hollow, and Snape had more than sufficient reason for
remorse over the deaths of the Potters without his having tried and
failed to save her at Godric's Hollow (how could LV trust him after
that?) and without bargaining with LV to have her as his reward, a la
Wormtongue and Eowyn, for which we have absolutely no canon evidence,
only fanfic. As far as I can see, those who hold this view hold it
only because they want to do so and are unwilling to consider the
possibility that "Step aside, girl" means no more than the obvious
fact that Lily was in Voldemort's way. It is his undervaluing of her
love and her sacrifice that's important, not some hidden intention to
reward Snape by giving him the woman he lusts after. (We have yet to
see Snape *lusting* after anyone, though his response to Narcissa
indicates that he, unlike Voldemort, does not underestimate the
importance of a mother's love for her child.)

Carol, once again asking 1) what purpose is served by having Snape at
Godric's Hollow, 2) how he could have been there when we know he was
teaching at Hogwarts at the time, 3) how and why PP would have
revealed the secret to him, and 4) what canon evidence can be shown to
indicate that he was there. (And, yes, I've read the post that Alla
linked me to. I read it when it was first posted and reread it
yesterday, and I remain unconvinced. Canon and logic, please!)