harrypotterconfessions

No matter your opinion on Snape, I don’t think it’s right to belittle his feelings for Lily. You can’t say that he didn’t love her because he did. He may not have gone about his feelings in the right way, but that doesn’t change them.

southsideprinxexx

The thing is, he should. 

Lily dropped him for calling her a racial slur, started dating another guy, married that guy, got a kid with that guy, and thEN F*UCKING DIED! 17 Years later and he’s still in love with her. You don’t have to be a genius to tell why that’s inappropriate. Guy needs to move on.

snakebitcat

When Lily told him their friendship was over, he respected her decision, and then when he realized that her life was in danger, he did what he had to do to try and keep her alive. 

As for moving on after she died, no, he didn’t need to do that any more than anyone else who loved someone that died has to. 

kyraneko

When she broke things off with him, he fucked off and never bothered her about his feelings again. He kept them on the inside of his head and didn’t make them her problem. I don’t know why people are harping on him for merely having feelings about her (maybe “it’s more the fact that they exist?”) when love and caring about someone are things that happen with very little ability to just turn them on and off, and having your feelings fade into nothingness with time after a loss is a luxury that doesn’t happen to everybody.

She doesn’t owe him a thing, but what he feels is entirely his prerogative so long as it doesn’t express itself in actions that bother her. Which there is no canonical evidence that it ever does.

rickktish

Did he? Did he really though?

“He kept them on the inside of his head and didn’t make them her problem" 

You know, except for the part where he condoned the death of her husband and child so long as she survived. No, he didn’t actively pursue her as far as I can remember, but he did treat her beliefs and wants and the people she loved as being less important than her continued existence, which personally seems uncomfortably objectifying to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Snape as a character. He’s a fascinating example of someone doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and it makes him simultaneously incredibly complex and intriguingly shallow. He’s a marvelous example of the dichotomy and realistic duality of action and motive that deep characterization can explore.

As a human being, I think he’s a socially and emotionally underdeveloped asshole who needed both intensive therapy and a restraining order keeping him from Lily’s family.

My problem is not with Snape’s feelings for Lily. It’s ridiculous when people use that as the sole basis for their dislike of his character; I hate that he had feelings for her even after she rejected him is a stupid argument to make, since we don’t decide how we feel about things so much as we explore our desired outcomes for the feelings we experience. No, my issue is still the way he acted and didn’t act on those feelings, as well as the immaturity he displayed in his treatment of Harry and others. But for the sake of the feelings argument, let’s focus on that. What precisely were his feelings for Lily, and how did he act or not act upon them, and how did he treat her because of them?

Lily put up with Snape making her the exception to a rule of opression for a very long time. She tried very hard to continue to be his friend, even when she felt uncomfortable with his beliefs.

Please consider Deathly Hallows chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale, on pages 675-676 of the American edition:

“The scene changed… .

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not interested.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Save your breath.”

[…]

“I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.”

“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just–”

“Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends– you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?”

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

“I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”

“No– listen, I didn’t mean–”

“To call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole… .”

Clearly we can see here that he cares for her, but cannot reconcile her status with his love for her. After all, if he was willing to recognize it as a part of her that he could love, wouldn’t he acknowledge it respectfully and be willing to treat others of that same trait the way he treats her? But he hates her muggleborn status. Just as he hates, or speaks hatefully of, others of the same status.

Lily’s main problem with Snape was not that he used a racial slur to refer to her, though that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. No, her issue, as stated in DH, was that he held an inexplicable and unjustifiable exception for her as a member of a racially oppressed group. She complained to him that he and his friends called others of her blood status by those slurs, while she had always been the exception; she was different, she was special to him, which meant that he couldn’t view her the same way he viewed others of her status… except that in allowing that slur to slip, he revealed that some part of him did view her in that way. And his hypocrisy became too much for her to continue to deny. 

Please consider what we are willing to do for the ones we love. How do you view your loved ones? Do you listen to what they care about, even if it’s not a shared interest? Do you find things that you know they will value and share them with them, even if it’s not something you’re especially familiar with? Do you try to be sensitive to their needs and things that make them uncomfortable? Have you ever observed a behavior of yours that made them uncomfortable and tried to change that behavior? Have you ever compared values and taken time to reflect and ponder whether some of their beliefs might have more merit than some of your own? Have you ever expressed the love you hold for them by being willing to concede your own behaviors, practices, or ideas and being willing to “agree to disagree?”

… can we really call his treating her as separate from a part of her experience and identity for the sake of his own comfort “Love?”

I can’t.

Let’s look at some other things.

Page 673:

“Lily and Snape were walking across the castle courtyard, evidently arguing. 

…

“…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?”

“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?”

Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. 

“That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all–”

“It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny–”

“What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape.” 

I’mma just pause here and bring up the fact that Snape never addresses whether or not he finds Dark Magic humorous, only deflects and distracts. She’s clearly uncomfortable and scared, and he’s invalidating her fear and discomfort, trying to justify and minimize it to validate the actions she’s expressing concern over. This is not a thing that someone who wants to support and connect with someone will do; it’s something someone who wants to be supported and validated in their own poor decisions will do to try to force validation.

By the way, we never, ever find out if Snape agreed with Mulciber and Avery that it was funny. I’ve seen some people say he might have found it funny then, but would not as an adult. Whoop-de-doo if that’s a case, he was still a disturbed teenager who made his so-called “best friend” deeply uncomfortable. I’ve even seen some people argue that he was trying to defend his friends in spite of being uncomfortable with it, just as Lily does to her friends about Snape’s own actions, but there’s no indication of that in the text. Instead, Snape redirects to something else that he’s concerned about, completely ignoring Lily’s concerns. That “if you think that’s funny” bit is never addressed at all.

Back to the text:

“His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.

“What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Lily.

“They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?”

“He’s ill,” said Lily, “They say he’s ill –”

“Every month at the full moon?” said Snape.

“I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold. “Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?”

“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.”

Please note here that Snape did not bring up the Marauders as a balancing point to Lily’s concern about the people he is actively seeking to spend time with. His complaint is not that Lily is spending time with them, nor that she seeks them out, which would be a fair counterargument against her protestation of his spending time with his own less than savory friends, a kind of “if you think my friends are bad what about yours” that would make sense in this discussion. No, he draws attention to them only because everyone thinks the Marauders are wonderful, and he must prove to Lily that they are not, with no regard for her actual opinion of the Marauders or the concerns she was expressing. It’s not even a necessary argument as it turns out because Lily doesn’t admire them as Snape imagines she must along with everyone. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first:

“The intensity of his gaze made her blush.

“They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice. And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there–”

Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends; too! You’re not going to – I won’t let you –”

“Let me? Let me?”

Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.

“I didn’t mean – I just don’t want to see you made a fool of – He fancies you, James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And he’s not … everyone thinks … big Quidditch hero –” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her forehead.

“I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.”

Harry doubted that Snape had even heard her strictures on Mulciber and Avery. The moment she had insulted James Potter, his whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snape’s step … .”

I’d love to take time to examine Snape’s language in referring to James Potter “Playing the hero,” but that’s another analysis. For now let’s focus on the controlling language he uses to refer to Lily, and his disregard for her condemnation of his friends. 

“I won’t let you.”

That. is not. language. you use. for someone. you love.

That is a hallmark of an unhealthy relationship.

And yes, she shuts him down and he backs off. But he still believes that 1) it is his place to “protect” her from his bully’s affections and 2) he can or ought to be able to prevent her from acting as she chooses regarding another person. It doesn’t even matter right there that she dislikes James Potter. He thinks he should be allowed to forcibly keep her from him regardless of her feelings toward him. 

And the fact that he’s so paranoid about it in the first place! This is not an inferiority issue in the way I’ve seen some describe it. Snape feeling inferior to James would involve his speaking deprecatingly of himself, not James. No, Snape does not feel inferior. Snape feels superior to James because he regards James’ actions and behaviors to be despicable and his own to be acceptable. He is frustrated not because he feels that he is not as good as James, as an inferiority complex would lead to, but instead because he feels that James is being treated better than he should be, based on a mass misperception of James’ worth of character. I don’t see any specific indication in the text that Snape feels that he deserves the praise and attention that James has, which would usually go with this pattern of thought, but he does feel that everyone is wrong about the way they view this very popular sports team guy in their school and he has to prove it to Lily. Not everyone, at least from what we have of the text, just Lily. 

This is the flag that pops up when a boyfriend accuses his girlfriend of cheating on him with a classmate because he saw her wave to him as they passed each other. It is a sign of an unhealthy and controlling relationship when one person becomes paranoid about and seeks to control the other person’s relationships. 

why would you ever call this love?????

Have you seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JYyHa03x-U 

It feels pretty damn applicable here.

This is what he wanted to do. This is what he thought he could do. And that is terrifying.

And as soon as she validates his opinion, he has no further need to listen to her. He got what he wanted. And yes, I see your argument that if it shows up in the Pensieve he clearly heard and remembered her saying it and raise you that he clearly didn’t care enough to act on her concern that Avery and Mulciber were evil. He got the thing he was looking for for the entire conversation and felt no further need to continue it. In fact, maybe I’m wrong about Snape being disturbingly paranoid about Lily’s opinion on a popular figure; Slytherins are known to be cunning, regardless of Snape’s utter failure to display that particular quality beyond some basic double-acting, so perhaps that was why he brought up the Marauders at all in the first place: she wasn’t validating him on his opinion of his friends or their habits, so he brought up a topic he knew she would agree with him on. Narratively it would make less sense that way, but it’s certainly a possibility. Maybe even a slightly better possibility than my own assumptions of his reasoning, since it speaks to Snape’s desperate need to hear someone say “you’re right” rather than his disturbing hyper fixation and need to control Lily and every aspect of her life. Though it still doesn’t help make any argument that he loved Lily, rather than that he obsessed over her unhealthily.

I’m afraid that having to seek the better of two disturbing options is really not boding well at all for any argument that Snape truly loved Lily at all.

And then we get to the clincher for me, starting on page 676:

“The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone… . His fear infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for –

…

“Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?”

“No – no message – I’m here on my own account!”

Snape was wringing his hands: He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him.

“I – I come with a warning – no, a request – please –”

Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other.

“What request could a death Eater make of me?”

“The – the prophecy … the prediction … Trelawny …”

“Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore. “How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?”

“Everything – everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why – it is for that reason – he thinks it means Lily Evans!”

Take a moment here to note that he doesn’t even refer to her by her married name. According to the Harry Potter Wiki, James and Lily were married for three years. Harry was one when they were killed, and Lily must already have been pregnant with Harry at the time that Voldemort assumed her child might be the one of the prophecy, so she must have been Lily Potter for over a year at this point, and yet Snape refuses to acknowledge this. This is not “respecting her feelings,” this is being afraid of her reaction if he tried to express himself directly to her again. It is tragic that she appears to have been his sole source for love, affirmation, and validation for so long, but he is unhealthily reliant upon and obsessed with her in a manner that is only called “love” by a very twisted definition of the word.

“The prophecy did not refer to a woman,” said Dumbledore. “It spoke of a boy born at the end of July–”

“You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down – kill them all –”

“If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”

“I have – I have asked him –”

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard such contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

“Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her – them – safe. Please.”

I’ve seen some arguments that Dumbledore is making assumptions and putting words in Snape’s mouth. But I see no evidence in the text that Snape is disagreeing. His first and only priority is Lily, and he only cares that James and Harry are protected because they come in a package with her. 

He. Does. Not. Care. About. Her. Son.

Ignore James. He hates James, obviously. but Lily’s son, who is more important to her than her own life, he holds no regard whatsoever for. He would rather see her child die and her live on unhappy than see her happy. 

And. That. Is. Still. Not. Love.

Look at how he reacts when she dies and Harry lives:

‘The hilltop faded, and Harry stood in Dumbledore’s office, and something was making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Snape was slumped forward in a chair and Dumbledore was standing over him, looking grim. After a moment or two, Snape raised his face, and he looked like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since leaving the wild hilltop.

“I thought … you were going … to keep her … safe… .”

“She and James put their faith in the wrong person,” said Dumbledore. “Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?”

Snape’s breathing was shallow. 

“Her boy survives,” said Dumbledore.

With a tiny jerk of the head, Snape seemed to flick off an irksome fly.

“Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?”

“DON’T!” bellowed Snape. “Gone … dead …”

He doesn’t want to view her son as a living person. He doesn’t want to remember that someone she created with his most hated enemy is someone she loved. He’s once again separating a key part of her life, self, and experience from his idealized view of her, and it’s painful for him when Dumbledore tries to force him to change that perspective.

“Is this remorse, Severus?”

“I wish… I wish I were dead… .”

“And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly. “If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear.”

Snape seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Dumbledore’s words appeared to take a long time to reach him.

“What – what do you mean?”

“You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son.”

“He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone –”

“The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does.”

There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, “Very well. Very well. But never – never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear … especially Potter’s son … I want your word!”

He does not consider Harry to be Lily’s son, not really. Perhaps it is because she had a child with James Potter; perhaps it is merely because she had a child that was not his. It’s really impossible to say. But regardless, he refuses to view the child she died for as a part of her, as someone she loved and valued. We try to protect and nurture the things our loved ones value, not destroy them. Not if we really love them. 

Snape did not love Lily, but perhaps this obsession, this hyper fixation on her and her alone was the closest he could come to real love, and that is heartbreaking.

“My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist …”

That Dumbledore refers to Snape’s reluctant agreement to protect the last person he has to connect him with Lily as “the best” of him is… tragic. This man was so utterly lost and consumed by hatred that merely agreeing to help keep a child alive when he is faced with mortal peril, reluctant though that agreement may be, is the very best part of his personal character. 

Some people are able to move on after their loved one dies. Some are able to date and remarry after the death of a spouse, to live well in spite of their loss. 

Snape never could, because he went beyond loving Lily: he needed her like he needed air, food, water. She was essential to him. He was obsessed with her, unwilling to go on without her without the manipulation and coercion of Dumbledore, and he would gladly have died rather than live in a world without her. Which, while it sounds romantic in some ways, is. not. healthy. For him or for her.

Conclusion:

So. We have seen that Snape’s treatment of Lily was unhealthy. We have seen that his view of her required that he separate key characteristics from her and imagine her to be separate from them. We have seen that in the contest between his “love” of Lily and his loathing of James, the latter came out on top quite easily in his view and treatment of her son, who she loved literally more than life itself, as demonstrated by her willingness to give up her life to protect him. We have seen that Snape held no care or consideration for Lily’s own feelings, only his own toward her. It seems to me that in the years between Lily’s severing ties with Snape and her death, if he never approached her (which we cannot know, having no record of those years) it was out of fear for how she would treat him, not out of any respect for her own feelings. when has he shown respect for her? When has he treated her as a person to be loved and valued, rather than as an object to be hoarded and protected, or as a caretaker to finagle the occasional bit of affection and validation from?

Snape came as close to loving Lily as he was perhaps capable of, but he did not love her. Not in a healthy way that could have been reciprocated.

I accept responses only with quotes and sources. My argument is evidence-based and I expect any refutations to follow the same pattern.

weasleyismyking540

Originally posted by adventurelandia

Beautiful!!