Snape: Beyond Good and Evil (long)

[lunamk03]

No: HPFGUIDX 149031

aorta47 wrote:
> "What is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil."
> 
> -Friedrich Nietzsche
>  
> So if you can argue that Snape acted out of a love (a hard 
> argument to make), than his actions are beyond the ideas of "good" 
> or "evil."
> 
> Mark
> who admits he really just likes this thread title, but if someone 
> wants to run with this idea, go ahead.


Luna here:

I was planning to start a new thread called "Harry's eyes, Snape, 
Voldemort and DD: wrapping it all together"

But this phrase kind of summarizes my point...

This is my take on what I think will happen:

It has always been discussed what kind of "power" Harry has in his 
eyes that he might have inherited from Lily. I think that Jo has 
already started to give us some clues as to what the nature of 
this "power" in his eye is.

In Order of the Phoenix and in Half Blood Prince as well as in Jo's 
interview to Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron, we learn that Lily was a 
very popular girl. We know that Slughorn had a weakness for her: she 
was a brilliant potion maker; he doesn't stop comparing 
Harry's "talent" for potions with his mother's. My guess is that he 
also chose Ginny for his club because somehow Ginny seemed to remind 
him of Lily, Jo did say that Lily was, like Ginny, a popular girl.

Evidence in PoA (book and film) points out to the possibility that 
James and Slughorn weren't the only ones to be more than fond of 
Lily.

We have Lupin, who was suspected at first by Sirius and probably by 
James himself of being Voldemort possible spy. Why Lupin? In PoA 
film, according to Jo herself, Cuaron seemed to have been toying 
around with something that gives us clues as to what's really going 
on. My guess is that she was talking about Lupin's conversation 
about Lily with Harry. According to him, Lily saw the beauty that 
some people were unable to see in themselves. I think that Lupin 
too, had developed feelings of love towards Lily, this might have 
caused some kind of mistrust from Sirius and James' side, this is 
the reason why they didn't choose him as their secret keeper.

Now, what about Snape?
How come that Snape's single worst memory involves him being 
humiliated in front of Lily? Then, it always clicked me as unusual 
that Voldemort didn't want to kill Lily at first. Why?
According to DD, Snape was devastated after learning about what 
happened to the Potters. Why? Why should he be devastated, he 
should've been celebrating James' death.
What did DD know about Snape that made him blindly believe in him? 
Also, we know that Lily and Snape might have been in the same year, 
probably studying Potions together. I can see Lily, defender of the 
underdogs, helping or wanting to help Snape. I can see a reluctant 
Snape developing feelings of love towards her but not being able (or 
knowing how) to express them other than insulting her or treating 
her badly, as we can see in his memory when she defends him from 
James. It also seemed to me that James knew that by attacking Snape, 
he would catch Lily's attention. James knew she would come to 
Snape's defense, which means that he was aware of Lily's protective 
attitude towards Snape. I wonder how many of Snape notes in his 
Potion books actually came from Lily's advices or discoveries.  
This might explain as well why Snape's major issues were with James, 
not with Sirius who was even worst to him than James, after all, it 
was Sirius who almost got Snape killed.

I can see Snape begging Voldemort not to kill Lily, as Voldemort's 
most appreciated follower and as an award for finding out about the 
prophecy, Voldemort agreed to kill only the child and James, not 
her. This would explain why he was telling Lily to clear out. At 
the end, she didn't give Voldemort the choice, he had to kill her.
This must have devastated Snape, he must have felt miserably guilty 
and broken hearted. DD knew about Snape's feelings, this is why he 
never doubted Snape. 
All these years, Snape has been seeing Harry as the portrait of his 
father, as the reminder of what he never had with Lily, but there 
is something that must be eating Snape away: And here is where we're 
coming back to the power in Harry's eyes: Harry has Lily's eyes and 
this is a detail that Snape won't be able to evade forever. 

My thesis is that Snape returned to Voldemort for vengeance, he 
wants to make Voldemort pay for Lily's death, his rage is so blind 
that he killed DD because at that point, DD was the only thing 
standing between Voldemort and him. He needed to get rid of DD in 
order to get as close as ever to Voldemort. The problem is that he 
doesn't have the power to kill Voldemort, Harry does.

The Power in Harry's eyes is having Lily's eyes to make the people 
who loved her help him. At one point, Snape will see Lily through 
Harry's eyes and this will ultimately break Snape down with the 
result of him joining forces with, or giving his live for Harry thus 
enabling Harry to continue and kill Voldemort. Deep down, Snape 
knows he'll need Harry to kill Voldemort, this is the main reason 
why Harry is still alive: i.e. Snape hasn't killed him and has 
indirectly protected him.
 
This is the power in Harry's eyes. In HBP we learn that the deepest 
and most powerful magic does not usually comes with big flashy 
tricks, it is deep down very simple, yet terribly powerful, as 
powerful as the feeling of someone who's lost probably the first 
person to stand up for him, to see in him the beauty that no one 
else saw (not even his own family, as we can see in Snape's other 
memories) and who's seen a flash of her soul in her son's eyes.

Luna