What triggered ancient magic? WAS: Re: James and Intent

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 187053

> Potioncat:
> There still is a difference between how we see Snape's feelings for Lily. Yes, in romantic love, a person wants the other person. Generally they want each other. But in this case, romantic love hasn't worked out, or perhaps Severus's love for Lily had never become a romantic love. Yet he still has a love for her. A love for an old friend. So I don't think he had "wanted" her all those years.

Alla:

Ah, but my question is here how do you know that the love he has for her is the love of the old friend? I mean if we are still speculating, sure that is one of the possibilities, but I find it interesting that I cannot find in canon that this is how Snape's love is characterised, you know?

I mean, I totally think it is possible, but is there something in there which is a direct counterpoint against my speculation?

Now that I said it, I realise that I am not exactly sure what my speculation is since I am struggling with defining how I see Snape's love for Lily.

I mean, one thing I am sure of is that I definitely see strong obsessive undertones to it, but as I also said I see undertones of courtly love - his love for Lily guided him to do better things, etc, etc.

To be honest with you it is the hardest for me to see that his love was only the love of the old friend, although sure I can see that it could be true under certain circumstances.


Potioncat:
> I also don't think he "wanted" her all those years after. But, once he killed DD and severed his ties to the Order and now had no source of strength for his mission, he went to 12GP for a token of Lily, as a source of strength. Which explains too why he tore off James and Harry. And he wouldn't be the first person to remove someone from a photo.

Alla:

But it is not his! This episode is what tells me that Snape has obsession with Lily still, you know, not just thinks of her fondly and keeps in his  heart as talisman as Doe would suggest IMO.

That's all wonderfully sweet to go and search for token of affection, strength from old friend to remember her by. Except Snape went to the house which belongs to her child now and **stole** the part of the letter which contained her love. Her love was addressed to a dear friend, but not to Snape. This piece of memory now belongs to Harry, to her orphan child and I still see Snape being unable to deal with the fact that his friend did not leave HIM any pieces of affection (that we know of, maybe he had something that we never read about) and went to steal from others.

If Snape indeed had a sweet memory of his friend in his heart, I would think his memory would have been enough to guide him in the difficult times, etc, etc. I would think that at least now he would have realised that such friend would have really wanted her child to have that letter.

But not only Snape contributed to the reason that Harry now has no alive mother, he proceeded to take away from him one of the few things Harry can remember her by.

You are absolutely right, Snape will not be the first person to tear somebody from the picture, somebody whom he does not want in the picture, except again, the picture is not his and it is quite creepy to me that not only he stole the sentimental things that belong to Harry, but he now damaged it irrevocably.

> > Alla:
> > But that is sort of my point, because to me if courtly love is the model, then Snape would be thinking about how to make lady happy and do whatever she wants, you know?
> 
> Potioncat:
> I see what you mean. So perhaps courtly love is a basis rather than a model. Courtly love was also public and accepted. (If I'm correct.)

Alla:

Right, that is why I am inclined to think that it is not the exact courtly love, it is just the fact that he does all these things in the name of Lily all these years, that's what made me think about it initially.


Potioncat: 
> Or, here's a better example of a type of love.
> 
> Sirius sat in Azkaban all those years without ever trying to clear his name, but when he saw Harry was in danger from Pettigrew, he escaped. It was his love of Harry that motivated his risk. Certainly he hadn't been wanting Harry all those years.
> 
> I know, it's not the same thing exactly as what Severus felt or did for Lily, but I think it's closer than a desire-oriented version.

Alla:

Yes, well, I know what you are saying, but the example does not work for me in a sense that Sirius wanting Harry - EWWWWW, the ages difference and basically related in a way.

Now, say Sirius escaped because he secretly wanted Lupin - sure, works fine for me, you know?