Ok this may be a dumb question (Snape/Lilly)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182573

Tandra wrote:
> >
> > Ok so we know that Snape's Patronus is a doe, which we find out in
DH. 
> > But why does it seem to be common knowledge (to Harry, DD, and 
everyone on this board but me) that Lilly's was a doe as well? I do
not remember this anywhere in the books. <snip> Thanks to anyone that
can help.

Jayne responded:
> I thought we only found that out in Snape's memories in DH. I don't
remember it being said anywhere else.

Carol responds:
The only place in which it's explicitly stated that Lily's Patronus is
a doe is Harry's remark to Voldemort during his Snape vindication
speech near the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, "Snape's Patronus was a
doe, the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of
his life, from the time when they were children" (DH Am. ed. 740).

No one has in fact told Harry that his mother's Patronus is a doe. He
has seen the doe Patronus once without knowing who cast it, he has
seen Snape cast it in the Pensieve memory as proof of his devotion to
Lily's memory (DD, it seems, has never seen it before but instantly
understands that it symbolizes Lily), and he (Harry) knows because of
Tonks that a Patronus can change (presumably Snape's was different
before Lily's death, assuming that he could already cast one, and if
Umbridge could, I daresay Snpe could).

Harry, then, is drawing an inference that he presents as fact. Since
JKR gives us no other explanation for DD's ability to associate
Snape's Patronus with Lily, Harry is probably correct. DD would have
known Lily's Patronus because she would have used it as a member or
the original Order of the Phoenix to send messages. Snape, in any
case, expects him to recognize it.

Snape's doe Patronus obviously represents Lily, whom he idealizes as
pure and beautiful and powerful, all traits that we see in the bright
and beautiful Patronus whose dazzling light hurts Harry's eyes. But
what would it represent if Lily cast it? Usually, a Patronus, or
protective spirit, represents someone other than the caster: Harry's
represents James, Snape's represents Lily, Tonks's new Patronus
represents Lupin, Hermione's otter seems to represent Ron, and so
forth. Fortunately for Snape, Lily's Patronus (assuming that Harry is
right) was not a stag, representing James (whose Animagus form is a
stag), but it could (ironically for poor Severus) suggest that she is
James's perfect mate, especially if his Patronus matched his Animagus
form rather than reflecting some other person. (We don't see the
Patronus form of any Animagus, unfortunately, so there's no way to
test the hypothesis.)

To reiterate, Harry is drawing an inference rather than repeating a
fact that he has been told. He is probably correct, but it's possible
that Snape's Patronus simply symbolizes his idealized Lily without
ever having been Lily's own. Either way, the doe Patronus matches
Harry's stag Patronus, an irony of which Snape is probably painfully
aware.

In another post, Jayne wrote:

Talking of Patronus's. Lupin taught Harry to produce a patronus.
Do we ever find out what Lupin's was. I don't remember ever seeing it
in canon .
Please help

Carol responds:
We never learn the Patronus form of any of the Marauders. Lupin
apparently casts a Patronus early in PoA, but Harry is unconscious at
the time, and Hermione describes it only as "a silvery thing" that
"shot of [Lupin's] wand (PoA Am. ed. 85). In teaching Harry to cast a
Patronus, he does not cast one himself.

On a sidenote, it's possible that Patronuses generally move so fast
that their form is unrecognizable. Harry sees DD cast one to send a
message to Hagrid in GoF but it appears only as "something silvery"
that "streak[s] away through the trees like a ghostly bird" (GoF Am.
ed. 560). Similarly, Harry casts a corporeal Patronus in front of the
whole school in PoA when Draco and his friends disguise themselves as
Dementors, yet two years later at the formative meeting of the DA in
OoP, everyone seems surprised that he can cast a Patronus. Earlier in
the same book, Lupin, who saw him cast the Patronus at the Quidditch
match and referred to it, in Harry's hearing only, as "quite some
Patronus," asks him what form his Patronus takes as a security
question, something that only Harry would know. I guess we're supposed
to assume that the rest of the spectators only saw something big and
silver hurtling toward the "Dementors."

Carol, resisting the alternate explanation that JKR simply forgot or
neglected to check her canon "facts"

Thanks
Jayne
Asking odd questions again