seeds of betrayal: Why was Snape upset about the Potters' deaths?

[steven1965aaa]

No: HPFGUIDX 149780

Luna mk03 wrote:

> 2-	Snape loved Lily: as horrible the idea of Snape in love 
> could be, I think this is the direction that the books seem to be 
> pointing at.
> 
> Snape desire for vengeance is fiery, as we see in POA. He hated 
> Sirius for "betraying the Potters" and hates Voldemort for killing 
> them. Snape wants to be close to Voldemort to kill him, not to 
serve him. This is why he killed DD: DD was the only thing standing 
> between Snape and his revenge.
> 
> Clues in the books and JKR Interviews:
> -	Snape's worst memory is him being ridiculed in the presence 
> of Lily.
> -	Lily was the best Potion maker of her year, she probably 
> was helping Snape in potions. It is evident that Lily went to 
> Sirius aid because she feels compelled to defend him. Why? Don't 
get > me wrong, I don't think that she was actually in love with 
Snape. I > think she wanted to be friends with him, maybe pitied him 
for being a kind of outsider and wanted to help him. Maybe she saw 
he was > brilliant too and felt attracted to that part of Snape.
> -	Voldemort asked Lily to step aside instead of killing her. 
> Why would Voldemort do that? Maybe because Snape begged him not to 
> kill her as a reward for the info he gave him?

Steven1965aaa says:

Luna, I think you may well be on the right track.  Let me
try to add something.  First, perhaps Snape's worst memory is NOT
being ridiculed and "de-pantsed" in front of Lily, maybe his worst
memory was when he called Lily "Mudblood".  If she had been kind to 
him and he liked her, he could feel pretty guilty about that, creep 
though he may be, and that could also have been the moment when he 
blew any chance he ever had with her or lost her friendship.  Maybe 
that would have been a worse moment for him that being humiliated by 
James and Sirius which was probably a fairly regular occurrance.  
Also, I doubt it was Lily helping  Snape in potions, I think it was 
the other way around.  Lily's sucess in potions may have been 
because of Snape's help, just like Harry was being helped by the 
book.  At the very end of the "fight" between Harry and Snape when 
Harry tries to use Levicorpus on Snape, Snape says something 
like "you're trying to turn my own spells against me, just like your 
filthy father did."  (I know I don't have that quote exactly 
right).  Lily may have shown the book to James, and that's where he 
got Levicorpus which we saw him use in "Snape's Worst Memory".

Another wild speculation I have: We learn at the end of HBP that 
Snape's father was a muggle.  We also suspect from Snape's memory in 
the pensieve that Snape's father was a bully (hook nose man yelling 
at cowering woman).  Maybe he caused the family to live in the 
muggle world.  If so (and now this is real wild speculation) maybe 
Snape and Lily knew each other from the muggle world, and that's 
where that relationship came from.

Steven1965aaa