Lily WAS: First lesson

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185733

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > In the snippet of memory in which Severus (and I agree that it's
him--who else could it be?) kills flies, the narrator specifically
identifies him as "a greasy-haired teenager." In the other two, he's
identified as "a small dark-haired boy" crying as a man yells at a
cowering woman and as "a scrawny boy" who rides an apparently hexed
broom as a laughing girl (presumably Lily) watches. I read the
fly-zapping scene as occurring after he's lost his friendship with
Lily, in contrast to the other two, in which he's, respectively, about
three or four and nine or ten.

> Annemehr responded:
> 
> Out of curiosity, what is your reason for concluding that the hexed
 broom scene is occuring when Severus is nine or ten?  My inclination
 is to assume it's during their first-year flying lessons, and that it
was James who hexed the broom.

Carol again:
The fact that they're alone and that Lily doesn't have a broom
indicates that it's not the flying lesson. If she thought that James
had hexed Severus's broom, she'd be scowling at James, not laughing.
Besides, James at eleven wouldn't yet know how to hex a broom. He'd be
more interested in showing off his flying skills if he already knew
how to fly or learning to fly himself if he didn't. I think it's much
more likely that his mother hexed her broom to keep her young son from
using it (and being seen by the Muggle neighbors).
> 
Annemehr:
<snip>
> I don't read it [the fly scene] as showing that Snape is evil or
psychopathic, or  enthused over Dark Magic, so to that extent, I agree
with Carol.  But he is not just ridding his room of "pests," either. 
What I see is *depression,* leading to bitterness.
> 
> He's not talking to Lily anymore.  He's not, as Alla says, doing 
potions or taking a walk.  He's not owling his "DE" friends.  He's not
doing anything positive at all; he's just closed up in his room 
shooting down flies as though it were a distraction from what's really
eating him.

Carol responds:
Exactly. He's not necessarily using AK. He may be Stunning them or
using some fly-killing spell, but what matters is that he's not doing
anything useful. He's obviously lonely, bored, and depressed. If this
scene occurred after third or fourth year, he'd be with Lily. It seems
to occur after fifth year, when he's no longer her friend and not yet
a DE and seems to have lost all sense of direction. I agree that he's
depressed--and probably angry with himself as well. At least he's not
doing anything seriously destructive or cruel. But, seriously, if I
were alone in my room with a bunch of flies, I'd kill those flies--or
I'd leave. The fact that he chooses not to leave indicates that he has
no place else to go. He might find something more productive to do,
but he's evidently too depressed to find joy in books or invented
spells or potions. It's significant, too, that he's not with his
Slytherin friends even though he's presumably old enough to Apparate.
He has to be brooding over Lily. There's no other explanation for this
uncharacteristic behavior. (We never see the adult Snape doing
nothing, and Teen!Snape seems to be very studious before the break-up
with Lily. given the walls full of books and his memorization of
textbooks later, he seems to have resumed his studiousness by the time
he became a teacher if not before, which makes this period in his life
stand out from the rest.)

Annemehr 
> This is one of a series of *bad* memories (because that's what Snape
was evoking in Harry during the Occlumency lessons).  I believe it
represents the final slide into despair that was a major part of his
ultimately committing to the DEs.

Carol:
I agree about the final slide into despair but not necessarily that
Snape was evoking bad memories in Harry during the Occlumency lessons
(remember his kiss with Cho, the memory that prompts Harry to take
action?). I'm also not sure that the hexed broom incident qualifies as
a bad memory (though Snape doesn't like having Harry see it--his love
for Lily is his great secret). I think that the memories are random,
mostly bad only because both Harry and Snape have mostly bad memories.

Carol, who thinks that the primary purpose of the memories is to
arouse the reader's curiosity about Snape and add to his ambiguity