Snape and Lily and the HBP

[Lyn J. Mangiameli]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
< minor snip> 
> I can see Lily and Snape being friends, however, very platonic
> friends, before the blow up in the pensieve. They would 
> have kept it secret, because Slytherins and Gryffindors
> are supposed to detest one another on sight. 
><another snip> 
> But what I'm getting at is, suppose Lily and Snape were
> helping each other in secret, studying potions,  but Snape 
> started to feel jealous of her, the way Hermione started being
> jealous of Harry in HBP. And then, in the pensieve, Lily breaks
> their compact by trying to help him in public, and we 
> know, if there's one thing Snape can't stand, it's being helped
> in public by someone he's jealous of.
> 
> So he says, "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods
> like her!"
> 
> and she says, "Fine. I won't bother in future."
> 
> And she means it, not only the help she tried to give
> him just then, but help with potions, too.
> 
> And that's the end of their friendship,  so that
> by the time they are having classes together, in sixth
> year, Slughorn doesn't observe them collaborating.
> 
> Slughorn doesn't notice they have a similar style, maybe
> because Snape isn't the kind of student he pays attention to,
> and maybe because Snape resolved that he wasn't going to
> use anything he worked out with Lily if he could possibly
> help it.  
> 
> So Snape threw the book away or abandoned it at
> the back of the cupboard and did his best to forget it
> ever existed.
> 
> And of course, it's Snape's worst memory because he
> never got to make it up with her, and worse than that,
> he feels responsible for her death.
> 
> What do you think?


Lyn Now:
I think that is almost exactly it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I do think it very likely 
that they had a clandestine, but at least overtly platonic, relationship well before the 
Penceive scene, and that the events of that scene did change the character of that 
relationship.