Potions!Genius.... Was Lying vs Murder

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165509

Carol earlier:
> > (surely you concede, Mike, that the Potions genius is Teen!Snape)
>
> Valky interjects:
> Although this question wasn't directed to me I'd just like to note
that I actually don't concede this particular point at all. I totally
concede spellwriter!Snape (that much is irrefutable canon and besides
it's logical considering the implied by Sirius keen interest of Snape
in Dark Arts), but I continue to think that there are just that one
too many reminders of Lily in the HBP potions results to be completely
sure that the original genius behind that was Snape, Severus and
nothing but Snape. The fact that Snape and Lily shared a James-less
environment in NEWT potions and Slug Club for a year; and the
connection between that year and the Pensieve scene which I suppose is
a catalytic moment in the dynamic of these 70's Generation classmates,
only serves to reinforce the idea and increase the probability that
the HBP text was the product of more than one thinker, one of those
Lily Potter.
>
> For the moment I am happy to allow the assumption that Snape's
handwriting = Snape's work fall by the by and have appearances, but I
don't make the same assumption at all, personally. FWIW.
>
Carol responds:
What "fact" that Severus and Lily shared "a James-less environment" in
Slughorn's NEWT Potions class? Slughorn presumably took E students
then as he does now, not just "the very best" like Snape. Are you
suggesting that Head Boy James, referred to by Lupin and McGonagall
(IIRC) as the best in his year wasn't in Slughorn's NEWT Potions class
(or the Slug Club despite his obvious talents in other classes)? I'm
not sure that 's a safe assumption, and I don't know of any canon
whatever to back it up. the closest I can find is Lupin saying that
*he* wasn't good in Potions, and maybe even he scraped an E: He's just
not a Potions genius like Snape, who can make the Wolfbane Potion
perfectly every time and has all the Potions memorized, even to the
point of knowing which step has been missed to cause a potion to turn
orange instead of green (and various other examples).

The similarity of the handwritng in Severus's DADA exam and the HBP's
book is, IMO, an important clue, and the Potions hints are in the same
writing as the spells and as "This book is the Property of the
Half-Blood Prince," suggesting that Harry is right in believing that
they're all the products of the same brilliant mind. Moreover, we've
had strong evidence since SS/PS that Snape is a Potions genius, and
this is our first hint that Lily was also good in the subject. So,
BTW, is Hermione, but she's not a genius. Snape, who created those
curtains of fire and their antidotes back in Book 1, clearly is. And
even if Potions natural!Lily is not the product of Slughorn's
rose-colored memories, why would being in the same class--*after*
Severus called Lily a Mud-Blood in frustrated humiliation and she
called him Snivellus--make their working together any more than a
remote possibility and wishful thinking on the part of Snape/Lily
shippers?

I think it's been pretty clearly established that the HBP is Snape,
not Lily, and you seem to be trying to get as far from a
straightforward reading as possible. And the whole point of Harry
learning more from the HBP than he has from Snape is that he's still
learning from Snape! If he's learning from Lily (assuming that he's
learning Potions at all), then he might as well have her genes for
Potion-making, as Slughorn wrongly assumes. All the irony is spoiled.

And Snape twice teaches his students about Bezoars (in the memorable
first lesson and again when he's "forcing" the students to learn
antidotes in GoF), so the snarky joke about Bezoars from the HBP is
very much in character for him and the stage has been set for it for
five books. (I can't picture Lily grabbing Severus's book and writing
that line in the margin in his handwriting, sorry--or his copying the
line from her. The Snape we know comes up with his own sarcastic
comebacks.) That's another irony, BTW: Ron, who hates Snape almost as
much as Harry does, owes his life to him--doubly, since the HBP's
remark jogs Harry's memory of Snape's first lesson on Bezoars.

Carol, thanking Valky for correcting her typo as she really does know
how to spell "concede" <blush>