Snape Loved Lily. The Whole Story.

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 148555

Tonks:
> Pulling up the stakes, folding the tent, putting out the fire.  
  
> Walking on towards another part of the forest.  Stopping, looking 
> back at the abandoned Snape loves Narcissa camp.  Sigh
   walking 
> on
  seeing clearing ahead.  Yes this looks like a good place to 
> camp, just on the edge of the Snape loved Lily encampment.
> 
> Yes it is official..  I am abandoning the Snape loves Narcissa 
> camp.  

Sydney:
Well, do keep it in mind for a vacation though;  I mean,
Snape/Narcissa has one advantage over Snape/Lily in that, let's face
it, it's just plain hot.  Or maybe that's just me.. anyhow..

*Sydney does a hurried tidy of the Snape/Lily camp, which is now so
well-established as to have picnic tables and shower stalls and a
little shop selling commemorative lollipops.  Realizing that her
medley of hits from "The Music Man" may possibly be alienating some
potential campers, she reluctantly puts her trombone in it's case and
puts on some soothing guitar music*

Ceridwen:
>*pulling up a convenient log and sobbing into her paper towel* 

*Sydney pets Ceridwen on the shoulder and offers a proper
handkerchief, with SS/LE 4 EVER embroidered on the hem*

Hey, we're roasting marshmallows later!  See!  Fun!


> Seeing Narcissa 
> begging for her son "my only son", just brings back the whole memory 
> of the events at GH and his sense of guilt for being the one that 
> told LV of the prophesy. No wonder he turned away when Narcissa 
> collapsed in tears in front of him, he could just imagine that 
> mother being Lily. 

Oh, yes.  It also explains his complete hysteria in the Shrieking
Shack in PoA-- think about it.  Snape tries to repair his collasal
error by turning spy at 'great personal risk'.  Desperate to protect
Lily, he warns James that one of his friends is a spy, and not to
trust any of them.   Rather than saying, 'yay, thanks Snivellus, we'll
move to Australia tomorrow!', James is "too arrogant to believe he
might have been mistaken in Black".  So Snape watches helplessly as
his advice is ignored, Sirius of course betrays them, and effectively
kills Lily and makes Snape an accomplice-- hey, rather like he tried
to kill Snape and make Lupin an accomplice!  So now here we are, back
in the Shrieking Shack, with another James telling him AGAIN that no,
Sirius is peachy-keen, and it's him, Snape, that's the crazy bad guy--
just because they made a fool of him in school...!  "Don't talk about
what you don't understand" indeed.

Oh, and the guy who killed Lily is sitting there and sneering at him.
 Well, the guy who killed Lily by telling Voldemort about her.  Hey! 
Just like Snape did himself!

I mean, come on.  Snape has more buttons than a 747, and that scene
hit them ALL AT THE SAME TIME.  JKR, you are so mean.  

Tonks:
> Poor, poor Snape. Oh what his life might have been if he 
> hadn't "worn his heart on his sleeve", if he had never fallen in 
> love and lost.  Better to never have loved at all! 

Me:
Ah, but then he would just have been a plain old Death Eater-- love
saved him, really. That's what makes it work so well with the theme-- 

Tonks:
> What a tortured soul he is... tortured and damned
 what a 
> rich character that JKR has brought to life for us. 


*sidling over a bit closer to Tonks and lowering her voice, Sydney
produces a bottle of something dark and syrupy*

Hey, can I interest you in a swig of suicidal!Snape?  I mean, it's not
for everybody, it's pretty strong stuff-- but I get the feeling it
might be your kind of poison...

The long-winded version is in message 141872;  the short-winded
version is that Snape made two serious attempts to take his own life--
the first when he found out that Lily was targeted, and the second,
actually, when he took the Unbreakable Vow.  The first I think is
closely tied in to the reason Dumbledore trusts him so much-- I think
either Dumbledore or Lily caught him before he could knock himself off
and stopped him.  And you know what?  I bet whoever it was, they
called him a coward for taking the easy way out.

See, it's weird that the accusation of 'coward' is what makes Snape
snap (heh heh... snape.. snap.. anyhow..) at the end of HBP.

"DON'T--" screamed Snape,  and his face was suddenly demented,
inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog
stuck in the burning house behind them-- "CALL ME COWARD!"  And he
slashed the air:  Harry felt a white-hot, whiplike something hit him
across the face and was slammed backward into the ground."

So, basically, Snape slaps Harry HARD across the face, which is what
someone does when they get hit on a very raw nerve.  How raw?  Well, I
think someone called Snape a coward pretty recently-- Dumbledore, in
the heated argument Hagrid overheard.  I think Snape told Dumbledore
that he was going to break the Vow and drop dead and let chips fall
where they may.  I think Dumbledore told him he promised he'd do it
and he'd damn well do it-- and if broke the Vow it was as good as
suicide, and suicide was the coward's way out (this is going by the
very plausible "stoppered death" theory, that Dumbledore had known he
was dying from the curse on the ring Horcrux).  And I think Snape told
him to go stuff himself.

Which is why when Snape appears at the top of the tower, Dumbledore
hits him with the 'pleading'-- 


"But someone else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.

"'Severus..."

"The sound frightned Harry beyond anything he had experienced all
evening.  For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. 

<little snip of how bad-ass Snape is>

"Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and
hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.

"'Severus... please..."


Dumbleodre is pleading because he really doesn't think Snape is going
to do it.  But Snape sucks it up, and does the job.  Uh, yay!  Poor
old Snape-- even in his most heroic moment, he's still the bad guy...

-- Sydney, listing to the crickets