[HPforGrownups] Great and Subtle Moments in Deathly Hallows

[Kemper]

No: HPFGUIDX 172566

> Diana:
... snip ...
> 5. When Snape asked Harry to take the memories pouring out of him as
> he lay dying, he said "Look...at...me.". To me, this was Snape
> finally wanting to expose what he felt was the best of himself to
> Harry. Snape's love for Lily and his grief at being partly
> responsible for her death was his biggest secret, a secret he refused
> to reveal until just seconds before his death. As Dumbledore told
> him, "...I shall never reveal the best of you." With his last words,
> Snape asked Harry to see the person he truly was, or thought he was,
> a man who opposed Voldemort, stood by Dumbledore, was on the side of
> the Order, was exceptionally brave and still hopelessly in love with
> a woman who had died sixteen years earlier. I'm sure that if Snape
> could have spoken to Harry alone, earlier when he wasn't dying, that
> Snape would have only relayed Dumbledore's message that Harry must
> die in order to rid Voldemort of the Horcrux inside him. It is
> interesting that at his moment of death that Snape chose to tell
> Harry everything about his true motivations and inner character. It
> makes me wonder if Snape finally did see the truth at last - that
> Harry was like Lily and that Snape should have befriended him instead
> of hating him because of Snape's own past mistakes.

Kemper now:
Snape's death was beautiful in its subtlety.  Snape wasn't asking for
Harry to see the best in him.  And he wasn't seeing that Harry was
like Lily.  He was dieing.
"Look... at... me"
What Snape wanted most in his last moment was to look into Lily's eyes.

Harry looked like his dad, but he had his mother's eyes.

After reading The Prince's Tale, I understood.  And wept.

Kemper