[HPforGrownups] Re: The Continuing Tragedy of Severus Snape: Reflections on Books 1-5

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 164560

Cassy:
Very true! :-) But Slughorn raved about Lily even before he had seen
Harry perform in a Potions lesson & the whole tenor of his remarks
makes it difficult for me to accept that Good-at-Potions-Lily was
still second best to Snape. She was funny, brave and charming
(Cheeky!Lily) but she was also highly gifted, IMHO... & what Slughorn
seems to recognize in Harry is Lily's creative *style* which seems to
fit with her intuitive, empathetic personality.

"Hmpf. Yes, well. You shouldn't have favorites as a teacher, of
course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in
answer to Harry's questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest
I ever taught." (HBP4)

"Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good lord, its clear you've inherited
your mother's talent. She was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was!" (HBP9)

"That's the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs!" said
Slughorn happily . "Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive
grasp of potion-making, it's undoubtedly from Lily he gets it .And an
extra ten points to Gryffindor for sheer cheek!" (HBP18)

"Well, now, this looks absolutely wonderful," said Slughorn ...
"Euphoria, I take it? And what's that I smell? Mmmm ... you've added
just a sprig of peppermint, haven't you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke
of inspiration, Harry, of course, that would tend to counterbalance
the occasional side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking.
... I really don't know where you get these brain waves, my boy ...
unless ... it's just your mother's genes coming out in you!" (HBP22)

For me all this *has* to be more significant...


Magpie:
But isn't it already significant? Slughorn's *wrong* in what he's saying 
about Harry. He thinks he's a dab hand at Potions when he's not--he's 
cribbing off Snape.

I see no evidence whatsoever that the work in the book is Lily's instead of 
Snape's--in fact, that effectively destroys one of the most important points 
of HBP. Harry was no longer bonding with a young boy he identified with who 
turned out to be Snape. It was more like he was crushing on his mother.

Slughorn's actually not a very good judge of character. It's not that he's 
always wrong, but he's blatantly biased and has his head turned by things. 
He loved Lily and thought her great at all things, and that included 
Potions. He gets carried away. He's now enamored of Harry and fawning over 
him in all things--everyone in the class knows that Harry's up to something, 
but Slughorn's crowing about what a genius he "obviously" is when he's not. 
It's not just that Harry's doing such a good job of fooling him; Slughorn's 
also predisposed to give Harry positive attention. (That's another ironic 
thing about his class--Snape's the one with the rep for unfairness, but 
Slughorn actually tops him, alienating most of the class.)

That's not to say Lily wasn't good at Potions and that she and Snape 
couldn't ever have worked together so that she is connected to the book. But 
taking the HBP's work and ascribing it to Lily is too much for me. It makes 
the whole relationship between Harry and Snape in HBP through the book 
pointless--oh, it wasn't really a meeting of the minds between Harry and his 
enemy Snape, because phew! It was Harry's sainted Mummy all along.

I guess that's why it surprises me that this theory seems to get put forward 
more than the opposite theory, that perhaps Lily came by her great rep as a 
Potions maker the way Harry did, through Snape. I'm not saying this has to 
be true, but I hear far more often that Slughorn's comments about Lily are 
reason to suspect it was Snape who was just writing down her stuff in his 
book or letting her write in his book, when Snape's the character we 
actually *see* being a dab hand at Potions and being interested in school 
and all that. His handwriting is, iirc, described in similar terms on his 
DADA exam. And the book is full of crossouts, iirc, indicating he's working 
as he goes along, not copying. Perhaps most importantly, Snape angrily 
claims credit for the book at the end--James stole *his* spells to use 
against him--the very spells written in the book.

-m