Snape and Lily - school connections?

[snow15145]

Catlady wrote:

> But at Sluggy's Christmas party, when he is telling Snape how good
> Harry is at Potions, he says something about: "You should have seen
> that Draught of Living Death he made for me. I've never seen a 
student
> do it better, not even you, Severus." I don't think that was mere
> baseless flattery of his conversation partner; I think it relates to
> Snape having been a brilliant Potions student and a member of the 
Slug
> Club.

David's responce:

Yes, I felt this passage seemed quite significant, and it's clear he
neither flatters nor snubs Snape in this scene - he hauls Snape into
the conversation and then gives him second place to Lily in supposed
influence on Harry's skills.

What JKR seems to be conveying is that Harry's potions expertise
reminds him of Lily, and that he is better than Snape.  Given that he
is actually using the Half-Blood Prince's recipes, this creates
something of a puzzle.

I think the possibilities are:

1) Snape was the pioneer, but passed his knowledge on to Lily.  The
problem here is that they were in the same year ("Snape's Worst
Memory" in OOP established that Lily, the Marauders and Snape all took
OWLs at the same time) so they were presumably doing the same lessons
at the same time, and it's hard to see how Snape could have seemed
inferior to her yet be teaching her.

2) Lily was the pioneer, and passed her knowledge on to Snape.  Either
Snape wrote it down, or she did but he subsequently claimed the book
as his own.  I think this is an interesting possibility as it implies
Lily was dabbling in, if not the Dark Arts, at least some rather
unpleasant magic.  In the worst memory scene Snape would have a
possible motive for her not to intervene as there might be a danger
she would reveal knowledge of spells he was claiming to Slytherin
friends were his alone.

I think the main difficulty with this theory is that Snape's anger at
Harry over 'his' spells seems genuine enough: if he knew that they
came from Lily, would he react that way?


3) They were independently good at Potions, but Snape's knowledge was
passed to Harry.  The weakness is that Harry clearly reminds Slughorn
of Lily, even in a context where Snape's ability is being considered.
 Seems a bit much.

My worry is that the "real" explanation is that, in the context of HBP
only, JKR was trying to misdirect us into thinking Lily was the HBP
(hence Hermione's statements that the HBP could be a woman), and that
despite its weakness, 3) is her resolution and there was no special
connection between Snape and Lily in the context of Potions.

David


Snow:

Or if I can make another suggestion:

4) Snape (like Draco to Granger) overheard and fiercely watched Lily 
while she made her potions, writing down all that she had done (which 
is why the notes were in the book) so he could be as good as her. 
Maybe Snape's secret wish was to become an Auror and he needed to 
pass potions (just an aside). 

Anyway the Snape/Lily referencing reminds me very much of the 
Draco/Hermione one. Snape and Draco both call their adversaries 
Mudbloods, of which they both were and both very talented witches. 
But the thing that caught my eye in this book was the fact that 
Draco, unlike Snape, referenced the fact that he stole an idea from 
his adversary:  

"Yeah, I got the idea from them," said Malfoy, with a twisted 
smile. "I got the idea of poisoning the mead from the Mudblood 
Granger as well, I heard her talking in the library about Filch not 
recognizing potions." HBP pg. 589 U.S.

So Draco, even if he does hate Granger, uses her ideas to his own 
means. I can see Snape acting very similar to Lily the Mudblood in 
the same manner. 

Two other thoughts while I'm on the subject of Draco and Mudbloods. 
Why was Draco confiding in and crying to a dead Mudblood, Myrtle, if 
he despises Mudbloods?  

And, why was Draco acting as if he was under truth serum in the 
tower? Did Snape slip him a Mickey before this event at the tower 
with Dumbledore and was Dumbledore aware that Draco had been drugged? 
Just compare the twisted smile of Draco to that of Crouch Jr. under 
Veritaserum. 

Just some random thoughts

Snow  -  still recovering from too many deaths in the family
not on 
much since