Courtly love in Potterverse WAS: What triggered ancient magic

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 187148

 
> Carol responds:
> 
> Wait. You two think that Snape's Patronus--a doe--represents the best of Snape? 

Pippin:
Not exactly. I think it's *made* out of what's best in Snape: his love for Lily, which it represents, and which did not alter when it alteration found. It *serves* as his spirit guardian. The patronus, said Lupin, is a projection of "hope, happiness, the desire to survive" and is, "unique to the person who casts it."  The doe is made out of Snape's feelings, not Lily's, you see? 

> Carol responds:
> 
> Lily calls them "your little Death Eater friends" (even though she indicates that they haven't joined up yet). And she says that Severus can't wait to join up, either. Doesn't sound as if she'd admire him for becoming a DE to me.

Pippin:
Just as Lily's friends can't understand what she sees in Snape, Lily can't understand what Snape sees in Mulciber and Avery, or the Death Eaters. Snape is so offensive to Lily's friends that they can't see past it to the good in him. Similarly, the idea of being a Death Eater is so offensive to Lily that she doesn't even *want* to understand why it's attractive to him; she can't imagine anyone wanting to be a Death Eater except out of sheer perversity. And it's so attractive to Snape that he doesn't get how  it can be so offensive to her. 

It isn't that they don't want to make the effort to understand each other. I agree that effort is a sign of love. But when people come from different backgrounds and are raised with different ideals, then it can take a lot more effort than expected. You can think you have made yourself plain in a way that any reasonable person would understand, and someone who cares about you should certainly pick up on, and find that you haven't gotten through at all. It's exhausting.  And it was OWL year when everyone was exhausted already.

Snape knows (or thinks) that he's not perverse, therefore it must be that she simply can't understand. Snape is determined to have the power and recognition he's always dreamed of having, and which he is never going to get from people who judge everyone by their clothes and their looks and their surnames. And he expects that when he does have them he'll be just as attractive as James, who eventually did win Lily despite Lily saying he was just as bad as  Snape. 


Pippin