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

[julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 187127

Alla wrote:
> I am talking about twenty something (twenty one?) year old Severus Snape, trying to understand that maybe, just maybe the girl who used to be his best friend, is happy in **her marriage**  and loves her husband and baby.
> 
> If you think that this is too much to ask of twenty one year old to make an assumption that the woman is **happy** in her marriage and would not want to be alive at the expense of her husband and baby, well all I can say is that I strongly disagree.
> 
> He knows that Lily is married and had a baby for quite some time now, and I think he should have made an assumption (absent any knowledge he has to the contrary) that she is happy rather than not.
> 

Julie:
I'm still of the mind that Snape didn't *think* about it at all. He wasn't concerned about the state of Lily's marriage or anything else, only that he'd given Voldemort information that Voldemort was now going to use to target the woman he loved. He seemed to me single-mindedly focused on finding a way to save Lily, to undo his horrible if unwitting betrayal of her. 

If Snape did spare a momentary thought for James or Harry, he would have known their fates were out of his hands when it came to Voldemort. Voldemort's whole objective was to get rid of that prophecy child--Harry--and Snape could hardly ask for the life of his worst enemy even if he'd had any interest in doing so. Asking for Lily's life on whatever pretext he could manage was a difficult enough proposition to bring to Voldemort.

When it came to Dumbledore, again if Snape gave it any thought before begging for Lily's life, he would have known James and Harry's fates were out of his hands there also. Once he asked Dumbledore to protect Lily, the greatest wizard of the Light was certain to include Harry and James in that protection. There couldn't be any real doubt about that.

So Snape asked for what was vital to him in his clearly agitated state, and let the rest of the chips fall where they would. But I also can't see that he had *any* forethought about what it would all mean for Lily, whether she would be happy or sad, or whether he would be in any way involved in her future. He simply wasn't looking beyond keeping her alive. 

But I do agree with you on one point, Alla. I think Snape would have believed Lily was reasonably happy with James. He hated James and probably thought James had charmed Lily in some (nonmagical) way, given that she couldn't see what a jerk he really was, but from all canon evidence Snape also respected Lily too much to believe she would have stayed with James if she'd been unhappy. She liked where she was and Snape, who would have certainly been miserable about it, accepted her choice without protest or retaliation. Nothing in canon suggests he thought any different after he realized Voldemort had targeted her along with Harry and James.

Julie