Courtly love in Potterverse WAS: What triggered ancient magic

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187151

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > 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:

Actually, JKR makes it quite clear that Snape's Patronus represents Lily herself rather than his love for her (though I have to resort to an interview, not canon, for the reference):

"Chely: James patronus is a stag and lilys a doe is that a coincidence? [The kid got the question wrong--it should be Harry's is a stag and Lily's is a doe, but it's the answer that matters here!]

"J.K. Rowling: No, the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus)."

J.K. Rowling and the Live Chat, Bloomsbury.com, July 30, 2007 (2.00-3.00pm BST).

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html  

So Snape's Patronus (like Tonks's) is "the image of the love of [his] life," Lily--as he envisions her--beautiful and shining and pure.

So, sure, she's what constitutes the little happiness he feels. But the Patronus represents or symbolizes Lily as Snape imagines her, not his love for Lily, just as Harry's represents the idealized James who died trying to save him (and whose voice he heard during one of the Patronus lessons). Tonks' Patronus, too, mutated to take the image of the love of her life, in this instance, his werewolf incarnation. The image represents the Lupin she loves, not her love for him.

You see? :-)

Carol, who agrees that Snape's love didn't alter when it alteration found and appreciates the Shakespearean allusion but still thinks that the spiritual guardian is an idealized incarnation of the beloved person's essence as perceived by the caster