I don’t know, it doesn’t seem that off-the-wall to me. Maybe it’s not to the extent that Snape was protecting Lily specifically and for his own reasons, but he did turn to Dumbledore’s side, which would also be Lily’s side, at some point. Who’s to say that he didn’t turn just before the attack on the Potters? Maybe trying stop V. was his trial for the Order of the Pheonix and the thing that makes D. trust him completely. The Snape/Lily ship I don’t buy at all, though.
Well, Snape is not exactly forthcoming with information from his past, so if it were the case that the two were friends in the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sirius just didn’t know. Severus does seem to truly hate James, though.
Voldemort has a very unique voice, high pitched and all evil sounding. And what with how Harry can instantly recall voices and faces of people he barely meets I’d say it’s safe to say that he couldn’t confuse Voldemort and Snape. I also don’t think the Snape was on Voldemort’s side right up until the incident at the Potters. Dumbledore made it clear that Snape changed sides long before Voldemort lost his power that night. If Snape only changed over on that night he would be treated with much more suspicion, as much as Malfoy probably, as well as the fact that he could have proved Sirius was innocent.
Snape may hate Harry so much because of how much Lily is inside him, his eyes after all. If Snape truly loved Lily then the sheer combination of Lily and James in Harry would be enough of a reason for Snape to despise him as he does.
Speaking of that, have there ever been any instances in the books where Snape keeps making eye contact with Harry, apart from Occlumency lessons. The need to see Harry’s eyes would be an indication of Snape’s love for Lily.
I am currently re-reading Order of the Phoenix and have to say that I think some of you who think Snape was in love with Lily is WAY off base.
I do not have the exact quote in front of me, but it is from when Harry is visiting Snape’s memories through the pensive. James Potter is jinxing Snape and Lily comes to Snape’s aid. Snape says something to the effect of not needing her filthy mudblood’s help. She then says something to the effect that she won’t anymore and calls him Snevillus (sp?).
Doesn’t quite seem like an endearing exchange to me.
My thoughts exactly! What am I missing? Is there some other evidence in the books to lead us to believe that Snape was in love with Lily? Did Rowling give some hint of this in an interview?
Or is it just a bunch of wishful thinking? Are people confusing fanfic with the real story? I don’t get it. And yet there is post after post here that seems to take “Snape’s love for Lily” as a given. I enjoy speculating as much as the next reader, but I think people are assuming an AWFUL lot here.
I suppose there is very little to go on, but you can’t blame us for thinking. The fact is there is very little to demonstrate why Snape hates Harry so much, other than he’s a great jerk. James was mean to him but goddamn, that’s a long time to hold a grudge. It just seems likely that something as important as a secret romantic feeling would give reason as to the spitefulness of Snape towards the Potters.
I did forget about the part where Snape calls Lily a mudblood but it was when Snape was younger, in a real bad state and she was just there to take the brunt. You could throw this “evidence” on it’s head just as easily and say that is was there to throw us off the possibility.
My wife and I are re-reading HP&SS. She’s raised the idea that Hagrid is Dumbledore’s secret keeper and thinks we’ve been taught, especially in HP&SS, that Hagrid isn’t very good at keeping secrets. She thinks he’ll let something slip in book 6 or 7 that jeopardizes Dumbledore and, perhaps, precipitates the Big Showdown.
The brief discussion of Harry’s scar early in HP&SS now makes us wonder if the scar itself is some sort of protection for Harry.
Dumbledore himself is the secret-keeper for the Order of the Phoenix, and I don’t think that he personally has any secrets of his own to be kept. I do have the impression that a person can only be secret-keeper for one secret, which would be why Dumbledore was not the secret-keeper for Lily and James’ hiding place.
And we don’t know what, exactly, the significance is of Harry’s scar, but we do know that it’s significant. At the very least, it forms some sort of ill-defined bond between Harry and Voldemort.
As for Snape, I’ll go ahead and shave Occam. The simplest explanation for Snape’s behaviour (his Slytherin favoritism, his spite towards Harry, etc.) is that Snape is just a jerk. Yes, I recognize that he’s had a hard life, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. It’s possible for someone to be a jerk, but still be on the side of the good guys.
But then that makes it impossible to develop any greater dimensions from the character, he remains without possibility of “redemption” and while he may have a dark past, it having no bearing on his actions makes him the typical villain, even though he is on the good side. I don’t like Snape particularly but the possibilities you are quick to dismiss lend themselves to create a very deep character. Occam’s razor is great in reality but to tell you the truth it has very little place in fantasy, and the realms of imaginationI see more happening to Snape and while it may not be love in the air for him, more must be explained about his conflict with the Potters.
This doesn’t work for me. Consider: Black Manor was not the headquarters of the Order in 1981, when James and Lily’s whereabouts were in need of being kept secret. Also, Dumbledore had volunteered to be the Secret Keeper at that time; had he already been playing that role for another entity, with a second secret-keeping role denied him, he would not have been in a position to make the offer. James had been quite insistent on having Sirius take the responsibility, and that’s why Dumbledore wasn’t doing it.
I thought at one time that Hagrid was the Secret Keeper for, not Dumbledore personally, but for Hogwarts itself. So Hagrid would need to show the first year students the way in himself, and that’s why he did it.
It was a briefly amusing notion, but there are a couple of pretty obvious problems with it:
Grubbly-Plank has no problem doing the same activity in Book 5;
and worse:
What would be the point? Many of the problem wizards (Voldie, Malfoy, etc.) have been to Hogwarts anyway, so they already know how to get in.
It does seem to me (again, from Book 5) that the Secret Keeper is used to keep a location hidden, rather than a person - so Pettigrew would have been the Secret Keeper for the Potters’ house, rather than themselves.