Snape as Harry's protector or not WAS Snape and moral courage LONG

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184702


> Montavilla47:
> Yeah, I know.  It creeps me out a little, too.  It's one of those
ways that JKR manages to keep Snape right on the edge between 
> sympathetic and not.  
> 
> I mean, it seems so selfish and self-absorbed, and down right 
> psychotic to tear up the photograph (he doesn't actually tear the
> letter) and only take the page of the letter that contains the
words, "Love, Lily."  As though he wants to pretend--even at that
point-- that Lily was his and had no connection to the husband, baby,
or  friend.

Pippin:
But how is that different than the feeling you are ascribing to James,
etc? As if Harry is just theirs, and has no connection to anyone else
in the world? 

Do you think, if they had known that Voldemort was going to offer Lily
a chance to live at her son's expense, that they would have told her
to take it? Would she have been the person they loved if she had?

Montavilla:
> Also, people tend to point out that the letter really belonged to 
> Harry and Snape was stealing it.

Pippin:
Perhaps that is why Snape included it in the memory set, as a way of
returning it.


According to JKR, this scene  is supposed to be right after
Dumbledore's death, so it's no wonder Snape is overwrought.

I think Snape is mourning his rejection as he reads the letter,  not
Lily's death per se. He's crying like a child, so I think we are
supposed to infer childish emotions. I can remember crying like that
at my sister's wedding when I was about ten. Of course I knew I should
be happy for her, but I suddenly realized that she was going to a new
home that didn't include me, and wasn't sorry about it at all. 

I think Snape liked to believe that Lily had made a terrible mistake
marrying James, and that she really could have been happy in Snape's
world. There's some wonderful layering here, with Lily in denial about
Dumbledore's life and Snape in denial about Lily's. 
 

Pippin