Lily WAS: First lesson

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185713

 
> Alla:
> 
> I took it exactly as you said - to show how brave Lily is, I read 
it 
> that contempt was here to deliberately dwonplay their danger, if 
that 
> makes sense.
> 
> But now I just realized something, and thank you for that, I 
> speculated for quite some time that Snape may have joined DE while 
at 
> school. But believe it or not, I never took this quote as 
additional 
> hint for that speculation. I think I am now. "You and your previous 
> DE" to me can nicely support that Snape indeed became a part of 
them 
> literally.

Magpie:
Or else she's just calling him out on knowing their plans to join LV 
when they graduate. 

Carol responds:
Well, yes, but what he understands may be different from what you
understand. "You have loads of magic" doesn't make much sense as an
answer to "Will I be discriminated against?" which, in any case, is an
odd question for Lily, whose probably never experienced prejudice in
her life (as didtinct from sisterly jealousy).

Magpie:
It makes perfect sense as an answer to "Will I be discriminated 
against?" to me. It's the reason she will be okay. Lily wouldn't have 
needed to have experienced discrimination to wonder if her being a 
Muggleborn would make her an outsider. I don't think she'd call it 
discrimination but she'd have reason to wonder if her parents not 
being Wizards would make her different in peoples' eyes. She'd 
understand that for some kids this is the world they've lived in for 
generations and she's just gotten a random ticket.

Carol:
I think it's completely clear from the conversation, including his
remarks about only Wizards who do something a whole lot worse than
underage magic being sent to Azkaban, that he's knowlegeable but
uncorrupted.

Magpie:
Its his being knowlegeable that I'm getting from this. I just see 
this scene as Snape having already been exposed to the idea of 
Pureblood superiority and at this point completely dismissing it as 
at the very least not applying to Lily. At this point in his life the 
idea that Lily could be inferior because she's Muggleborn is an idea 
he completely rejects. That's what I'm reading in the scene, which 
just seems subtly different from your reading that Snape doesn't have 
to reject the idea that Lily could be inferior because it's never 
occurred to him. We both agree, I think, that this scene represents a 
Snape expressing exactly the opposite beliefs as he expresses in SWM 
by calling her a Mudblood.

Carol:
As for his view of Slytherin being "probably" somewhat skewed, the
fact that he perceives it as the House of Brains and thinks that Lily
can be Sorted into it removes "probably" from the equation. 

Magpie:
Yes, my "probably" was referring to things beyond that as well. He's 
never been to the school and the "Slytherin" in his head is 
completely imaginary and probably conforms to all his wishes. I think 
he does believe Lily can be Sorted there. I assume he's wrong on that 
score, given the Hat's song about how it's for those whose blood is 
Purest, though I can't be completely sure JKR would say it was 
impossible. I just don't think that Snape wanting to believe Lily 
could be Sorted there means that he can't have had any exposure to 
the bloodline connection. I think he could have already have been 
exposed to the idea of prejudice and just be naive.

Carol:
He must have wanted to be placed in Gryffindor, where he knew James 
would be placed. Lily must have been placed in Gryffindor *against* 
her wishes since the Hat knew, as she didn't and Severus didn't, that 
she could not be Sorted into Slytherin.

Magpie:
Not necessarily against her wishes, imo. Just because Snape was mad 
for Slytherin and said she'd better be Sorted there doesn't mean that 
Lily begged the Hat for it. She could have wanted to let the Hat Sort 
her where she belonged and just see where she ended up. That's what I 
would have done in that situation. Sirius, too, didn't necessarily 
have to get Gryffindor because he wanted to be with James. He could 
have just let the Hat decide the best place for him as well. The 
thing about the Hat is JKR says it's never wrong, so any desire 
anybody has only reflects their true nature to begin with. It's not 
like you get placed in the wrong House because you don't know 
yourself, it seems.

Carol:
Here's the whole conversation, minus any commentary, the narrator's or
mine:

Severus: You're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to
come and explain to your parents.

Lily: Does it make any difference being a Muggle-born?

Severus: No. It doesn't make any difference.

Lily: Good.

Severus: You've got loads of magic. I saw that. All the time I was
watching you.

It seems to me that he's reassuring her that she's just as magical as
any kid with one or more magical parents.

Magpie:
Still reads the same way to me. I think Lily's question encompasses 
the whole Hogwarts experience. It seems like a natural question for a 
Muggle-born to ask in this situation--will it make any difference 
that I am from the outside? The reassurance you describe him as 
giving her (as you quote later regarding Hermione and Slughorn) is 
pretty much the pro-Muggle-born-tolerance position. But the 
whole "you have as much magical ability" is just one way of talking 
about whether these people are "really" wizards and witches. Severus 
thinks Lily is. I do think the two kids are coming from slightly 
different places in what they say here, but to me it still seems like 
they're both talking about stuff that links up to the prejudice we 
see in the series.

I don't think either kid would use words like "prejudice" 
or "discrimination" but it still reads to me the same way. I 
understand how it doesn't to you, but I don't think my reading makes 
less sense just because they weren't specifically talking about 
Muggle-born discrimination. I think any kid going to a school with 
this kind of set up would instinctively have that worry. In short, I 
don't think it needs to be said in those words by either of them. 

As I said, I don't think the fact that Snape watches Lily because 
she's not a Muggle means he couldn't possibly have heard any ideas 
about Purebloods or Muggleborns. I just read Severus as having a more 
complicated relationship with the idea from the outset--complicated, 
but not unusual. If he had already been exposed to ideas about Muggle-
borns I think he would have just overcome them because he wanted to 
be friends with Lily so badly. That's what I think the pause is 
showing that a scene that showed Snape as just being confident and 
not needing to drink in Lily's Lily-ness at that moment wouldn't.

Of course as a pause it doesn't actually say anything, so I 
understand people reading it differently. I just still read Snape not 
as someone who came to Hogwarts completely ignorant of the blood 
issue and then had his head filled with the stuff and turned against 
his friend, but as a kid who was exposed early in life and went back 
and forth throughout it based on emotions. Unfortunately his emotions 
temporarily led him to embrace it. I don't think it makes that much 
of a difference to Snape the character later on, though. Either way 
his views as expressed are anti-Voldemort, then pro-Voldemort, then 
anti-Voldemort again. (Which is also pro-Lily, anti-Lily and then pro-
Lily.) I guess another reason I read it this way is it lays a good 
foundation for Snape's later desire to have it both ways.

Carol:
To get back to the original point, if I were a student from a
nonmusical family with a scholarship to Juilliard and I asked a kid
whose mother had attended Juilliard, "Does it make any difference
having a nonmusical family?" I wouldn't necessarily be worried about
being discriminated against by the other students or the teachers. I'd
probably be more worried about my own ability to keep up and my lack
of training and experience in a family that didn't know B flat from a
flat tire.

Magpie:
Musical ability isn't bound up with family and exclusive membership 
in the Julliard scenario. I doubt everyone at Julliard expects most 
of the kids to come from specifically Philharmonic families, for 
instance. Lily's entering a world that operates on insiders and 
outsiders. I think it's natural for her to wonder about her status in 
this case in a way she wouldn't as a Julliard student whose parents 
who didn't play instruments.

Carol:
Carol, wondering how we would read that question and answer if we had
first met Severus and Lily as children

Mapgie:
Couldn't say, but since it comes at the end of the series especially 
I think I'd read it the same way. I've had thousands of pages telling 
me what kind of difference it makes to some people.

-m