[HPforGrownups] Re: snape and lily BEFORE DH

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 173622

colebiancardi wrote:
> well, as long-standing member against LOLLIPOPS ("Love Of Lily Left
> Ire Polluting Our Poor Severus" which can be read at
> http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/hypotheticalley.html#lollipops), I was
> dismayed (and that is stating it mildly) that it became canon.

Bart:
To me, there was one major difference between the canon and the gist of 
the bad ship Snapelily, one that made all the difference; that they were 
friends BEFORE they even entered Hogwarts. This makes all the difference.

One aspect that is SOP in teen movies is the initial static situation. 
Up until the beginning of the movie, the kids were always stratified 
into their social positions. You forget that, in small towns, they 
probably knew each other all their lives, and might have been quite 
different when they were kids.

I've seen a few cases of the movies breaking out of that mold in the 
last few years, where it's revealed that two arch enemies at 15 or 16 
were actually friends when they were 5 or 6 (or vice versa).

When I read the description of the friendship in book 7, especially the 
meeting after the "Worst Memory", I was immediately reminded of a 
passage from Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which, thanks to the fact that 
it's in the public domain, I can quote in its entirety (the passage, 
that is).
---
"He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a 
mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the 
light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

'It matters little,' she said, softly. 'To you, very little. Another 
idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to 
come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'

'What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined.

'A golden one.'

'This is the even-handed dealing of the world!' he said. 'There is 
nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it 
professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!'

'You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently. 'All your other 
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid 
reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until 
the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?'

'What then?' he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what 
then? I am not changed towards you.'

She shook her head.

'Am I?'

'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and 
content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly 
fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you 
were another man.'

'I was a boy,' he said impatiently.

'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she 
returned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in 
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how 
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have 
thought of it, and can release you.'

'Have I ever sought release?'

'In words. No. Never.'

'In what, then?'

'In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of 
life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of 
any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,' 
said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; 'tell me, 
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!'

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of 
himself. But he said with a struggle, 'You think not.'

'I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered, 'Heaven 
knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and 
irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, 
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girlyou 
who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, 
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding 
principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would 
surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love 
of him you once were.'

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

'You maythe memory of what is past half makes me hope you willhave 
pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the 
recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it 
happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!'

She left him, and they parted.

'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you 
delight to torture me?' "
---
Bart