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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187115

Steve wrote:

> > From a counselor's pov, in real life, love does work like that many times. Many people who truly love someone, go the extra mile to make a special effort to empathize with what that person needs and if it is within their power to do so, will make an effort to do so.  True, some people have no clue what others that they love want or need.  But if those people are in loving relationships w/ that person, and if that person is aware of the lack of empathy and understanding going on there, it is going to affect the future of that relationship. 
> 
Potioncat responded:
> I hope you're not saying that if one person doesn't automatically know what the other person wants/needs then there isn't love. Now, I'd have to agree that having learned what the other wants/needs and making no effort to provide it (within reason) is a different matter.
> 
> Ron had to read a book to find out how to please Hermione (no smirking out there). We saw him listening more and stopping himself to reconsider her feelings.
> 
> (Well, I had to work canon in, didn't I?)
>
Carol adds:
To get back to fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boys knowing what a girl wants and trying to respect her feelings, Harry has no clue why Cho is crying all the time and has to deal with the "chest monster" when he see Dean kissing Ginny. He doesn't want to upset Ron by asking Ginny out (which shows that he doesn't understand Ron, either--Ron's been hinting for ages that he's like to see them together), but he doesn't consider Ginny's feelings. Sure, she wrote that silly valentine when she was eleven ("His eyes are as green as a pickled toad"), but she's shown no sign lately that she's more interested in Harry than in Dean. And Ron (from GoF through half of DH) is even worse in terms of understanding Hermione. He makes no attempt at all to understand Lav Lav; he just enjoys snogging her publicly.

I don't see how we can expect more of Severus Snape at the same age. True, he's been Lily's friend for a long time and he taught her about the WW when they were both nine or ten, but she's the one who's drawing away from him. She wants him to give up his friendship with Avery and Mulciber, which he, at that point, simply can't do. He just wants her to see that James Potter is an arrogant toerag. They're kids; they don't spend much time together because they're in different Houses (Ron has less excuse; he's in the same House and most of the same classes as Hermione and spends a lot of time in her company. I like Ron, but he's emotionally dense!)

Once Lily stops talking to Severus, it's impossible for him to know what she wants. No doubt he thinks that she's making a serious mistake by getting closer to James Potter and actually going out with him, but he probably thinks as Harry does that he must have forced her against her will. (We never read about boys giving love potions to girls, but it could happen, with potentially serious consequences for the girl.) And once they're out of school, they never even see each other. She's in the Order and he's a DE. All he knows is that, married or not, he still loves her (I think the Lily he loves is the purely imaginary pure and innocent being symbolized by his Patronus, but also his childhood friend. If there's a touch of desire it's no more than Harry feels for Ginny.) And what he wants for her when he hears that LV is targeting her is her safety, her life. It never occurs to him that she might not want to live without her husband and child.

He never really understands her, but how could he? He can't comprehend the possibility that she might actually love James Potter, for one, or that she might feel the same way about her child that he feels about her. (Lily wants Harry to live even if it means that he's an orphan; Snape wants Lily to live even if it means that she's a childless widow.) And, as Harry understands and Voldemort doesn't, it has nothing to do with desiring her for himself. He just, quite simply, can't bear the idea of her being murdered, especially if it's partly his own fault.

Carol, who thinks that most teenagers are too busy trying to figure out themselves to truly understand anyone else's thoughts and feelings