Lily's Patronus (WAS: Re: Patronus question again)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 187203

Phyllis:
> > The reader never sees Lily's patronus, but when Harry views 
> > Snape's last memories in the Pensieve in DH, Snape casts his 
> > doe patronus in Dumbledore's office and says something to 
> > the effect that it's the same patronus as Lily's.  
> > So the implication is that Snape saw Lily cast her 
> > doe patronus at some point during her lifetime.
> 
> 
> zanooda:
> 
> It was not Dumbledore who said that, it was Harry during the last confrontation with LV: "Snape's Patronus was a doe, the same as my mothers, because he loved her..." etc. How exactly Harry knows that is unclear, but I guess we are supposed to take everything Harry says after his return from the limbo as the truth :-). I think Harry saw his mother's doe when he was a baby, that's why she seemed familiar to him in the forest, and after Snape's memories and the limbo it just all clicked :-).

Magpie:
I think it's obviously a slight mistake of wording from Harry and JKR. To say it isn't makes for a far bigger mistake that undermines the whole point of Snape's story. 

Harry means Snape's Patronus was a doe just like his *mother* not just like his *mother's.* He phrased it incorrectly, probably because his mother wasn't actually a deer, and it's too awkward to explain. I can easily imagine Harry making a similar mistake in talking about his own Patronus and saying "It's a stag, just like my father's" forgetting (like so many readers do anyway) that he means it's a stag just like his father was symbolically.

If Harry really meant Snape and his mother happened to share a Patronus it meant it would wander away fro the point of Snape/Lily story we've just been told--who cares if they happen to have similar animals (not the same, since no 2 are the same) as their Patronus? That would just mean they shared a similar happy memory (again, not the same memory because surely Lily's would be Harry or James centered by the time she died).

JKR started leading up to this with that scene in HBP where Tonks comes to get Harry and Snape comes to get Tonks. We have that scene with Snape making a snarky remark about Tonks' Patronus not just as a hint that Tonks is in love with Lupin but, more importantly, to introduce the whole concept of the Patronuses take the shape of the person you love (not the shape of the person you love's Patronus). Lupin doesn't associate wolves with happy memories; Tonks does. 

Zanooda: 
> As for Snape ever seeing Lily's Patronus, I'm not sure it was necessary. I think if he never saw it, the result would be the same. Unlike many readers, I believe that Snape got Lily's doe patronus only after she died - either his patronus changed, or he never cast one before. 

Magpie:
He wouldn't have cast one before. They don't teach it at Hogwarts and DEs don't do them. He wouldn't have seen Lily cast one either.

zanooda: 
> I don't like the idea of Severus having the same Patronus as Lily while she was alive. First of all, that would mean two people had identical patronuses. Isn't it supposed to be unique for each person? Secondly - Lily's Patronus symbolizes her love for James, and for Severus to have this Patronus while both Potters were alive feels kind of, erm, perverted :-). Strange, anyway.

Magpie:
Exactly. It's just a slip of the tongue by Harry and a slip of the keyboard by JKR. Tonks' Patronus is a wolf representing Lupin. Harry's Patronus is a stag representing James. Snape's Patronus is a doe representing Lily. We don't know what Lily's Patronus is and neither does Harry (he didn't learn it in the afterlife or anyplace else--we know what he learned in the afterlife; his reference to Snape's Patronus comes from the scene in Snape's memory). If her Patronus was a doe it would only be a mild coincidence. Snape could never have seen her cast a Patronus since he didn't speak to her post-Hogwarts. We could imagine Peter telling him, but that's getting into the realm of ridiculous fanwank imo (and still doesn't explain how Harry would know it).

Short answer: it's something related to flint but since Harry's saying it, it's just a slip of the tongue.

-m