Snape Loved Lily, now with Secret Keeper switch

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 148609


> Sydney:
 > > <snip>
 > > 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". 

> Ceridwen:
> I have to say this, since I think it every time someone mentions 
> this:  What if James did take Snape's warning?  What if that's why he 
> was so agreeable to changing SKs?  <snippage> It seems that fiddling
with a prophecy once it's given only 
> exacerbates it, and here, Snape is fiddling, to his and the Potters' 
> certain regret.


Sydney:

Hmmmmm.. I like this because it has some nice echoes of other stuff
that's going on!  On the other hand, there's some practical
difficulties.  Sirius says he proposed the change himself because it
would be a Cunning Plan.  If James was suspicious of Sirius, wouldn't
he think this was a trick or something?  If he wasn't quite trusting
Sirius as SK, it's hard to see how he'd be comfortable with a SK
proposed by Sirius either. (And, by the way, just what WAS Sirius'
cunning plan?  If the secret can't be extorted or tortured out, and it
dies with the Keeper, then why bother with the switch?  Either JKR or
Sirius wasn't firing on all cylinders on this one.. ).

I lean towards the straightforward reading, that James dismissed
Snape's warnings.  It plays into a hunch I have, that Snape's hatred
for Sirius is a mirror of Harry's hatred for Snape.  Both have
excellent reasons to intensely dislike and distrust their objects. 
And I think both let their hatred blind them to something important. I
think Snape missed spotting Peter as the spy because he was so
intensely focused on Sirius, and the fact that his judgement wasn't
clear would have communicated to James.  I have no difficulty
picturing Snape storming around like a lunatic about yelling OMG ARE
YOU PEOPLE BLIND SIRIUS IS EVIL!!!  heh-- just like Harry about Snape.
 I'll go out on a limb and predict that Harry in Book VII will just
miss repeating Snape's mistake, using all the lessons he's learned in
HBP about researching people's individualities and so on, to get that
there's something very hinkey about ESE!Snape, and overcoming his
hatred enough to trust Snape on a crucial point.

Betsy:

>Ooh, I'll take some of that [suicidal!Snape]!  I went back and read
your indepth post
>(message 141872), Sydney, and it makes sense.  Especially if Snape
>is the utterly romantic character JKR may have him turn out to be.
>He's a direct desendent of Bronte's Heathcliff, even down to the
>questionable blood.  But he's being denied his last run on the
>moors.  Gah.  I melt. 

Yurk-- personally I'm not a Heathcliff fan-- too amoral and
self-absorbed.  Snape seems to me to be genuinely trying to live to
some sort of value system, but he's so messed up he doesn't have the
tools to do it right.  I do love Snape's Heathcliffy exterior over the
vulnerable, geeky interior... I just want to knit him a scarf or
something.    /channels Mrs. Weasley/  

-- Sydney, apologizing for the gooeyness of the sexy!Snape meme to
those on the board who don't find Snape hot... unimaginable though it
might be...