meant to just be a lil late night doodle and ended up being an unintentional redraw💀 who knew my style would change so much in the course of like 6 months damn
idk guys sometimes you just have to accept a ship dynamic is unhealthy, insane, and sometimes abusive. and its not real people so those factors just make it interesting
please stop unfolding the origami crane and smoothing it out bc you got worried the paper was hurting from the bends
The Harry Potter series may be named after the Boy Who Lived, but if you want to know the story, keep your eyes fixed on Snape. This hook-nosed, greasy-haired, grumpy character is one of J.K. Rowling’s enduring gifts to English literature. He’s the archetypal ill-tempered teacher: acerbic, yet horribly, deliciously funny. When he’s in a scene, you can’t take your eyes off him. Snape is always the story.
In Snape, Rowling created a character of almost perfect ambiguity, a double agent who rose to become the right-hand man of both generals on opposing sides of a war. He’s at once self-controlled and seething with bitterness. Every sentence, every action has at least two possible and contradictory interpretations. The question of Snape’s true loyalties is at the heart of the books’ mysteries. Is it possible, ever, to know what lies underneath his façade?
It is. With a close look at each of the books, everything about Snape becomes knowable.
Is he a classroom bully? Without a doubt. He can be unfair, petty, mocking, prone to blatant favoritism—many of the traits that schoolchildren most loathe. But underneath his scathing surface is someone who cares desperately, enough to devote his adult life to protecting everyone in his world, even those whom he dislikes. And he does this all undercover, pretending to be evil, accepting that he will live and die without the chance to defend himself and clear his name.
Do his accomplishments cancel out the cruel things he’s done? Not at all, and that is part of the power of this character. He is often unlovable, immature, unattractive, not even kind—but he made something of himself. His story tells us that hope and greatness are for everybody, not only for those who have always been good. When we learn all the harm he did in his youth, we learn how to understand without excusing, how to give ourselves and others a second chance.
With all his ugly qualities, what makes this character a favorite with so many readers? He’s smart. He’s competent. His sarcasm is funny and his bitterness can be bracing. He always knows what to do. He’s always there when you need him. There are things that only Snape can do. A wizard who has done evil and then felt remorse knows how to undo evil magic in a way that those who have always been good cannot know.
He’s hideous, bless him, and sensitive to indignities. He loathes being mocked, especially by children; everyone sees him seething. But in all things, he does as much as he can with what he has and no more. As an adult, he becomes, not attractive, but something. Potent. Magnetic. He commands attention. When he is brave, he is almost beautiful.
He is kind to mothers, even if not to their children. He risks his life to help them. He knows how it feels to be powerless or unwanted. As vicious as he can be, when lives are at stake, there is nothing he won’t do to protect others.
For a close reader, the character of Snape is endlessly rewarding. Some mysteries are easily explained; some fizzle out. But the more you read Snape, the more you learn of him, the more thrilling he becomes.
Working for Dumbledore, he learns how to atone. He chooses what is right, never what is easy. He assumes a thankless life that guarantees he will be universally hated, universally mistaken for evil, and resists the human urge to protest his innocence. He withstands these tests, even when people cry out to him at their moment of death, because his commitment is to something greater. He forgoes recognition, forgoes adult love, turns his formidable gifts to pulling off the unspeakable under conditions that are unthinkable—accepting that his achievements will never be known. He will never claim the role of hero. Against all instinct, he wills himself to do what must be done. And we, the readers, are his witnesses. Of his many sacrifices, we see that the costliest was the renunciation of his human right to show his true self. He keeps his truths tightly hidden until his dying breath, when he is finally free to command the books’ hero: “Look at me.”
J.K. Rowling took an enormous risk, gambling the climax of her epic series on her ability to build Snape’s ambiguity to the breaking point and then show us his true self at the end. And what do we see when all is revealed? A vision of love so white-hot that it dazzles. This recognition of Snape is what brings completion to the series. And it brings the story back to Snape again and again.
- Snape: The Definitive Analysis of Hogwarts’s Mysterious Potions Master, by Lorrie Kim.
Beginning of Severus's and Lily's story hasn't changed too much . Friends since childhood, discovering magical world together and growing up side by side. There was a time, when there was something more between them. When the days seemed easier, when they'd shared a cigar or a bed... Before Severus's fascination with dark magic and harsh words about mudbloods scared Lily away... Pushing her to find happiness with another. (In this AU Lily started dating James only as a revenge, before seriously falling in love with him)
They'd found eachother again during war, despite being on opposite sides, sharing few weak moments behind James's back. Lily freshly wed, with her husband mostly out with The Order of Phoenix, often seeked comfort in Severus's arms. Their closeness was an extra reason, why Snape was desperate to keep her safe. Especially since learning Lily was pregnant (She had told Severus first, before telling James... Not knowing back then, who the baby daddy was). Lily begged Snape to keep it as a secret for then, because after all she didn't want James to learn about her affair.
Sev agreed only because of his own skeletons in a closet. (At that time Elias was already in a "making". He could never tell her about it. He couldn't even imagine how would it went... Telling his beautiful Lily, how he abused women to achieve the similar goal, to the one she was carrying under her heart).
Their bond was worn down by the time the war came to an end... And the boys being born. Elias, definitely his "child" , and Harry... Unfortunately (for Severus) James's son. Due to their agreement, they'd never mentioned the affairs. Lily decided to cut him off and start "fresh", working on herself and family she had.
Few years forward they'd met again. This time as a coworkers. Severus, already a known Potion Master at Hogwart, and Lily, new Charm Professor, were mostly awkward at the beginning. James, despite never learning about Lily's cheating, just didn't (and still doesn't) like Severus, making it harder (with snarkly comments and mean jokes) for them to rebuild their friendship. But month after month, they'd found some common ground. No one held grudges, no one mentioned the past... Now they were just friends (even if she'll always be dear to him), parents, coworkers...
Situation changed a bit after they both learnt, about their kids (Elias and Rose) being together. It has awoken memories, they both wouldn't rather touched. Yet, as supportive parents, they agreed to not interfere... And even work together. Lily coax James into letting Rose spend some Holidays at Snape's house or let Elias visit her at their place. While Severus just promised to respect James a wee more (It was really hard for him, but boy he tried), knowing it could help his son.
Their worlds collided again. Soon Rose got pregnant (James was furious) and moved with Elias and Severus. Then the weeding, shared Holidays, the first grand-babies (twins). It was also a time when Elias took the position of Potion Master at Hogwart and Severus retired, concentrating on private projects. This way Snape Junior was terrorising new years at school, while his father concentrated on his grandkids and a "Sunshine" (pet name he only used for Rose). Lily visited from time to time, happy to see her baby girl thriving.
And not missing how Severus was looking at her daughter... His eyes never leaving her sight, touch always tender. Giving Lily this strange feeling about it.
Severus’ cheeks flushed, his gaze immediately averting at his best friend’s bold words. “Please, Lily… We both know you’re too busy fantasizing over those muggle romance books to have an actual crush.”
The corner of Lily’s mouth twitched, hardly concealing a smirk. “What do you know about my muggle romance books, Sev?”
The pale boy swallowed, staring up into emerald eyes in confusion. Could she—no, she was way out of his league. She wouldn’t like someone like him, she couldn’t.
The warped train of incessant thoughts running through Severus’ head was cut short, however, at the feeling of warm fingers finding the side of his face. Severus knew his cheeks were pink at the start of this conversation, but he had the feeling that he was turning into a more concerning shade of red by the moment.
“Lily, what are you—?”
“Stop talking.” Lily mused, closing the remaining distance and pressing her lips onto his.
The raven-haired boy froze immediately. He didn’t know how to kiss, he’d never done anything even remotely romantic before. He tried to redirect his thoughts onto how he felt—clammy and nervous—then onto how she felt. Lily was warm, like a warm ray of sunlight. Gentle, soft, and assuring.
She smelled of flowers and tasted of honey so, so sweet. The way her mouth moved against his, to the way her hands held the side of his waist with so much confidence. It felt like pure bliss—up until she pulled away, that is.
Severus blinked, exasperation lacing his features. “Lily,” the boy whined at the loss of contact.
“I told you, Sev. Having fictional crushes and real crushes isn’t mutually exclusive.” Lily said matter-of-factly, pressing a final kiss to the boy’s cheek.
“I—are we…” The wizard trails off as he bites his bottom lip, unable to maintain proper eye-contact.
“As long as you don’t mind being with a mudblood,” The ginger-haired girl whispered teasingly.
Severus’ eyes widened, his shoulders slumping instantly. “I’m sorry! That was—“
Lily rolls her eyes, hitting her boyfriend’s shoulder. “I was joking. Yes, we’re together now. Quit pouting and come with me.”
i love when in snily fics where snape is like "im just a disgusting pervert for wanting to hold lilys hand and kiss her. im taking advantage of our friendship. im repulsive, she'd never want me."
meanwhile lily is sighing dreamily and kicking her feet daydreaming about tying severus up, throwing him in the black lake and watching the giant squid diddle him.
Can I ask why Lily/James is your NOTP? (I personally don't... really understand how they ended up together and don't think they would have stayed together - or at least not happily - had they lived but you seem to like them even less, so I'm wondering!)
I’m putting this answer under a cut because I think it’s likely to upset a lot of people, but the tl;dr is that we see James behave sexually violently towards her on screen and I very much doubt that changed later.
The one canon scene they have together is one in which James notices she’s upset by him waterboarding her former best friend and suggests he’ll stop if she agrees to date him. This isn’t even harassment, it’s an attempt at sexual assault/rape by extortion.
If Lily had said “Yes, I’ll date you, just leave him alone!” what do you think would have happened? Imagine being her in that position, and how she would feel about James’s further advances, and what she would fear happening if she said no later on. Imagine being in James’s head at that moment and what he’s thinking and feeling that would motivate him to proposition a woman pleading with him to stop hurting her former friend. Is he thinking, “Oh, my crush HAS to say yes now?” Is he just really into how upset she is, or trying to humiliate her more? Either is possible, and which it is has ramifications for how abusive he’s likely to be later on; neither is good.
I do not feel particularly bad for Snape here, because we know Snape and his friends are running around torturing students themselves per DH, and based on the fact that his friends were members of a Nazi hate group that was at the same time or shortly after murdering entire families including children, we can assume they were attacking innocents. The Mauraders are teenagers who are trapped in a boarding school with them, the teachers apparently aren’t bothering to expel them or punish them in any way that would like, stop them doing that even though eg. Lily can identify the people who attacked Mary Macdonald w/ Dark magic by name, so I’m not sure what the liberal students could have done besides turn to vigilante justice - just let the junior Death Eaters attack them?
But there are a lot of good reasons vigilante justice is bad whether necessary or not, this kind of random abuse of it for your own ends is one. Trying to extort sex out of the Nazi gang member you’re torturing’s upset ex-friend isn’t a good look, particularly when you follow up being shot down by calling attention to stripping his underwear off, redirecting an unsuccessful sexual assault to someone who’s already helpless. I read James as a precocious sexual sadist based off of this scene, and not in the nice, consensual BDSM sense.
Part of why I read Sirius as more reasonable than James is that he has several lines in that scene where he tries to redirect James from Lily back to Snape and tells James dismissively that Lily’s reacting like that becuase she doesn’t like him as though this is obvious and non-negotiable.
I left the issue of whether James abused Lily ambiguous in brilliant difficulty for a few reasons, one of which was that it wasn’t part of the premise and I didn’t want to leave readers who came in not expecting it feeling betrayed. Some people did anyway, but I tried to keep Harry and Sirius’s feelings in keeping with Harry’s canon complicated feelings about James and his reaction to that memory. But I think that James abusing Lily is very likely based on canon and probably more consistent with their only scene than a healthy or even dysfunctional but nonviolent relationship.
A man who marries a woman after trying to extort her for sex is probably not going to treat her well, and when that man is considerably more financially stable and higher class that’s all the more likely. And I don’t think Sirius and Remus are very successfully reassuring in canon:
“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!”
“Nah, she didn’t,” said Sirius.
“She started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.
“Once James had deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.
“And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin.
Sirius denies Lily hated James; he and Lupin do not even say Lily liked him. Sirius completely redirects from the subject of their marriage in order to reassure Harry about James; he admits James lied about whether he was still hexing Snape (in response to Snape attacking him - again, I’m not suggesting Snape is the victim in this scenario, he’s easily the worst person involved), then says “Look, your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen,” moving off the subject of Harry’s parents’ relationship completely.
All of which is to say, Sirius and Remus are unwilling to make a single positive statement about James and Lily’s relationship, only deny certain specific negative ones, even after James and Lily are fourteen years dead and they’re in the grips of nostalgic rose-colored reminiscence.
I’m not suggesting James would necessarily abuse anyone he was involved with; there are a number of reasons Lily might have seemed both particularly vulnerable and a particularly justified victim at that moment in time, and people do sometimes learn better. But it’s rare that people manage to fix a specific abusive relationship - when it happens, it usually happens by starting over with someone else.
I am also not suggesting James is worse than some of the other characters I write fic about like Bellatrix. Undeniably, Bellatrix is a much worse person in canon. But I am personally a lot more squicked by certain kinds of wrongdoing, and honestly, if I write shipfic about Bellatrix and pretty much anyone people expect her to behave like a psychopath and will leave positive comments on her outrageous behavior. If I write fic about Lily’s POV of her marriage exploring the psychology of feeling trapped in an abusive relationship, I’m likely to get flamed for bashing James.
Could you expand on the James was implied to be abusive?
So, to clarify, everything in this meta isn’t necessarily my interpretation. Some of it is, but some is in fact the opposite of my own interpretation (esp. re: Snape). But I’m going for a Doylist lens for once and trying to unweave what JKR was trying to do. This isn't normally how I analyze the text - but it's helpful to know so people can develop a more informed version of their interpretations.
I think JKR intended Jily as, at best, a dysfunctional marriage where they weren’t truly in love, and at worst, an abusive one. I’ve seen speculations that JKR based James on her abusive ex-husband - I’m not sure where that comes from or is true, it might be entirely made up, but I’m mentioning it here (ETA: the photograph of her with her ex-husband VERY strongly resembles Jily's appearance, so I see it now).
1.0 In Photographs
Photographs are regularly used in canon to show family estrangement and rejection, and in this section I'll demonstrate how they're used for the same purpose with James and Lily.
To start off, we see James and Lily in the Mirror of Erised, standing next to each other - but remember what the inscription on the frame means (I show not your face but your heart's desire), and what Dumbledore says:
[...] he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her.
“It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. [...] However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." (PS)
What we'll realize via a close analysis is that the image of James and Lily in the Mirror of Erised standing next to each other is exactly what Dumbledore says - it’s only Harry’s heart’s desire, it isn’t the truth. That Dumbledore’s words about the Mirror not being real isn’t just about James and Lily being dead, but the hidden meaning is that it also refers to James and Lily’s marriage.
Next, we get James and Lily's wedding photo, and in that photo James and Lily are standing arm-in-arm, according to Harry's POV Lily looks "alight with happiness", and Lily's also standing next to Sirius. So temporarily, in that snapshot, the image in the Mirror of Erised seems like it's still the truth.
But then we get to the Order photo in OoTP, the book Harry's meant to shed his idealization of his father:
“That’s Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke... That’s Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally... Sirius, when he still had short hair... and... there you go, thought that would interest you!”
Harry’s heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognized at once as Wormtail: He was the one who had betrayed their whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped bring about their deaths. (OoTP)
Most notably, James and Lily aren't next to each other, because Wormtail sits between them.
Note that Moody starts off the photo by saying “And there’s Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side”, telling us that we should pay attention to who’s next to each other.
Dumbledore is also standing apart from Elphias Doge and Aberforth, hinting at the way he keeps emotional distance from his friends with the former and family estrangement in the latter, and Remus is similarly standing apart from his friends - and just as important is where Lily is standing. Also note that the other married couple, Alice and Frank, are implied to be standing next to each other.
This is our first clue that what Harry sees in the Mirror of Erised and in the wedding photo is at least a partial lie.
Then, in DH, Lily sends Sirius a picture of herself and Harry - with her husband out of frame, to the point that Harry initially can’t even tell for sure it’s James in that photo:
A black-haired baby was zooming in and out of the picture on a tiny broom, roaring with laughter, and a pair of legs that must have belonged to James was chasing after him […] (DH)
Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor, under the chest of drawers (DH)
Very like the following quotes and examples:
Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets — but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too. (PS)
He couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. (PS)
A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to have walked out of it. (OoTP)
The china, which bore the Black crest and motto, was all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Sirius, and the same fate met a set of old photographs in tarnished silver frames, all of whose occupants squealed shrilly as the glass covering them smashed.
he had also managed to retrieve the silver-framed family photographs that Sirius had thrown away over the summer. Their glass might be shattered, but still the little black-and-white people inside them peered haughtily up at him, including — he felt a little jolt in his stomach — the dark, heavy-lidded woman whose trial he had witnessed in Dumbledore’s Pensieve: Bellatrix Lestrange. By the looks of it, hers was Kreacher’s favorite photograph; he had placed it to the fore of all the others (OoTP)
The old man’s eyes traveled to the painting of the girl over the mantelpiece. It was, now Harry looked around properly, the only picture in the room. There was no photograph of Albus Dumbledore, nor of anyone else. (DH)
As displayed above, OoTP in particular introduces many estrangements: Percy's from his family, Sirius's from his family, Aberforth making his first appearance and hinting at his conflict with his brother, and of course the continuous emphasis on Petunia's estrangement from Lily, and all of these are emphasized via photographs... as is Jily's estrangement.
The comparison to the Dumbledores is probably the most apt - Aberforth and Albus both talk of Ariana very lovingly while being estranged from each other, similar to how Lily talks of Harry in her letter while there being minimal references to her relationship with James by itself.
Additionally, right before Harry reaches Lily's letter and the photograph with her and Harry, he views the photo of the Marauders on Sirius's bedroom wall and muses on the group's specific dynamics, and then thinks “or was it simply because Harry knew how it had been, that he saw these things in the picture?”
But the thing is, Harry can't see the truth in the picture Lily sends Sirius, that it's a sign of an broken marriage with James - because he doesn't know how it had been with Lily, will never know, and accepting that is meant to be part of his acceptance of death. (Worth noting that JKR wrote HP while her own mother was dying/after her death).
To summarize, Jily get farther and farther away from each other in these snapshots - they go from first standing next to each other, to standing apart in the Order photo, to not standing together again in the photograph Lily sends to Sirius - because James isn't in the photo at all.
Of course, the evidence here is circumstantial - I'm not going to make a judgment on i.e. Sirius and James's closeness by them not standing together in that or the wedding photo (Sirius and Lily standing together in both on the other hand…).
But since James and Lily are explicitly stated as standing next to each other in the Mirror of Erised, and the narrative goes out of its way to point out they aren't standing beside each other in that photograph in the same book you get stuff like "Lily loathed James and maybe James forced her to marry him", I assume it's significant, especially given the Mirror of Erised explicitly comes up several times in OoTP itself:
A great black dragon was rearing in front of him… His father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror (OoTP)
He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it — (OoTP)
2.0 Lily as The Golden Snitch
A very, very important point is that James doodling Lily’s initials with the Snitch was never meant to be romantic - because the hidden, true meaning of this is that Lily is represented by the Snitch and James playing with the Snitch represents James and Lily’s relationship:
Harry stared at Wormtail for a moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment. He had drawn a Snitch and was now tracing the letters L. E. What did they stand for?
“Me too,” said James. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a struggling Golden Snitch.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Nicked it,” said James casually. He started playing with the Snitch, allowing it to fly as much as a foot away and seizing it again; his reflexes were excellent. Wormtail watched him in awe.
[...] James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom farther and farther away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second. Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open. Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded. After five minutes of this, Harry wondered why James didn’t tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be enjoying the attention. Harry noticed his father had a habit of rumpling up his hair as though to make sure it did not get too tidy, and also that he kept looking over at the girls by the water’s edge.
“Put that away, will you?” said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer. “Before Wormtail wets himself from excitement.”
Wormtail turned slightly pink but James grinned.
“If it bothers you,” he said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket. (OoTP)
Lily is the one James “nicked” aka stole, the one struggling against him, the one trying to escape but being grabbed at the last second by James AKA James finally managing to go out with Lily 7th year AKA James making a “particularly difficult catch”.
Lily as symbolized by the Golden Snitch is a really important part of canon that encompasses the whole text, not just SWM, and I promise I have a lot more evidence on that thread, but I'm writing a separate meta regarding that. (For now note that - Lily is the Snitch and Harry is the Seeker, because Lily’s playing hide-and-seek with him throughout the narrative and Harry has to seek her. Try doing Ctrl+ F + Snitch in OoTP and DH and see if you can spot patterns/hidden allusions to Lily).
3.0 My Analysis on SWM
(This section is most directly my personal thoughts)
It starts off with James attacking Snape specifically to get her attention, or at least, that's one of the reasons (“Snape lay panting on the ground. James and Sirius advanced on him, wands up, James glancing over his shoulder at the girls at the water’s edge as he went”). This is already a red flag. To clarify, in the context of the war and the atmosphere at Hogwarts, imo James attacking Snape even when Lily happens to be nearby isn't the issue, but doing something he knows upsets her specifically to get her attention is.
Second, he asks her out publicly, in front of a literal crowd. This is another red flag. This also goes back to him the imagery of him showing off with the Snitch - a.k.a showing off with Lily, liking the attention of others when he tries to "catch" her.
And the biggest red flag - blackmailing her with "I'll stop hurting Snape if you go out with me".
Now, I will say that it's questionable whether he 100% meant it or if it was a spur of the moment thing. I say this because when she says no, in a pretty dramatic and cutting way no less, he doesn't seem upset specifically by that. He just sort of moves on. (What he is upset by and his reaction to it, I'll get to in a bit). That said, if Lily had actually said yes, and they had had sex, that would've been rape.
Whether James asked her out repeatedly / harassed her, idk, I think it could go either way, from Sirius's words and SWM overall it is at least clear James making his interest in her known in showy and obnoxious ways even if he didn't directly ask her out before, despite her making her disinterest in him known just as much. But the way he asked her out in this scene is bad enough, even if it was just once.
Then James continues to call after her despite her speech making it clear she’s very infuriated and very not into him.
Then James doesn’t get why she’s upset at his behavior and goes “what is it with her” (putting the blame on her for her reaction) and then is so enraged by her rejection that he escalates his attack on Snape. This does not have great implications for what he’d do to Lily at other times when she similarly does something he doesn’t like.
As for Lily’s reaction in the scene, I think every word frankly speaks for itself regarding how much she dislikes James.
Lily compares going out with James to dating an animal at the bottom of the lake - this evokes the idea that dating James is equivalent to “drowning in despair”.
Also see how affectionately she talks about Harry's flight vs. the words about James (and this is a particularly sick burn towards James given Lily has been able to fly unsupported since she was 9 years old and Snape can probably fly unsupported by then too - Lily truly does NOT like this man).
“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.” (OoTP)
Thank you thank you, for Harry’s birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself, I’m enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet off the ground, but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (DH)
“She turned on her heel and hurried away.” - Lily is hurrying away from James, she’s running away from him, she’s the Snitch trying to escape from him.
4.0 Harry's reflections
Harry muses on the Marauders' attack on Snape, and then we have these paragraphs right after it:
Harry reminded himself that Lily had intervened; his mother had been decent, yet the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else. She had clearly loathed James and Harry simply could not understand how they could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it... (OoTP)
To reiterate - Harry was just as disturbed by James’s treatment of Lily and Lily’s loathing of him as he was by the extreme violence towards Snape in that scene. The text clearly puts those things on the same level and on par with each other here.
And to reiterate again, JKR… literally had Harry wonder if James FORCED Lily to marry him. There was zero reason for JKR to include this if Jily was ever meant to be read positively. This isn't a "cute hate to love" type of framing, JKR clearly framed Jily as disturbing. The idea of James potentially forcing her, Lily literally saying she wouldn't go out with him if it was a choice between him and the Squid - the language here is consistently of force, of lack of choice.
Then Harry's misery about the violence towards Snape is again linked to his misery about James and Lily:
For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride inside. And now... now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him. (OoTP)
“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!” (OoTP)
The descriptions of the struggling Golden Snitch a.k.a. Lily trying to escape from James is also likened to Snape struggling to escape from the Marauders' attack on him:
He put his hand in his pocket and took out a struggling Golden Snitch.
Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.
“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, “you’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus —” (OoTP)
And another hint JKR might've put in is James greeting them both similarly ("All right, Snivellus?" and "All right, Evans?"). Now, regarding Harry's conversation with Sirius and Remus:
“If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean,” said Sirius.
Lupin smiled.
"He kept messing up his hair,” said Harry in a pained voice.
Sirius and Lupin laughed.
“I’d forgotten he used to do that,” said Sirius affectionately.
“Was he playing with the Snitch?” said Lupin eagerly.
“Yeah,” said Harry, watching uncomprehendingly as Sirius and Lupin beamed reminiscently.
“Well... I thought he was a bit of an idiot.”
“Of course he was a bit of an idiot!” said Sirius bracingly. “We were all idiots! Well — not Moony so much,” he said fairly (OoTP)
Notice the language here when they talk about James in the memory - Sirius and Remus are smiling, they’re laughing, they’re affectionate, they're speaking of him eagerly, they’re beaming reminiscently - even at the stuff that i.e. Sirius was annoyed by in the actual memory (James showing off with the Snitch, etc). You can even feel the affection in Sirius going "we were all idiots <3”.
But then we get to the topic of James and Lily, and that totally and completely ends:
“And,” said Harry doggedly, determined to say everything that was on his mind now he was here, “he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!”
“Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around,” said Sirius, shrugging. “He couldn’t stop himself showing off whenever he got near her.”
“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!”
“Nah, she didn’t,” said Sirius.
“She started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.
“Once James had deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.
“And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin. (OoTP)
They are not effusive at all. Sirius in fact sounds just as unimpressed and critical of James as he sounded in the actual memory. (“Bad luck, Prongs”, “Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate”, the double meaning of Sirius telling James to put the Snitch away).
Sirius emphasizes James showing off for Lily and trying to get her attention and "making a fool of himself" (again, not positive wording), and it’s only when Harry brings up Lily seeming to hate him that Lily’s feelings are addressed at all, and all Sirius says is “nah she didn’t hate him”, never saying she liked or loved him and painting it as very one-sided.
This text uses the word “love” very, very intentionally - and it’s never once used for Lily’s feelings towards James (or even vice versa, frankly).
And in this conversation, the emphasis here quickly goes to the fact that James broke his promise to Lily (sort of evoking a broken wedding vow, etc):
“You think you’re funny,” she said coldly. “But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.”
“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly. “Go on... Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.” (OoTP)
“Even Snape?” said Harry.
“Well,” said Lupin slowly, “Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?”
“And my mum was okay with that?”
“She didn’t know too much about it, to tell you the truth,” said Sirius. “I mean, James didn’t take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?” (OoTP)
Again the language here, it's clearly making an intentional reference to James's "promise/agreement" to never attack Snape if Lily goes out on a date with him.
This is likened to Voldemort's broken promise to Lily - Lily says "Leave him alone" three times before James says "I will if you go out with me", just as Lily offers her own life for Harry's three times (take me, kill me instead, I'll do anything) and says Not Harry seven times and Voldemort seals the agreement by taking Lily’s life, and then “breaks that promise” whenever he tries to kill Harry (Voldemort's broken promise to Lily is brought up many times specifically in OoTP in coded language, part of why the parallel seems intentional, but I’ll get to that in other metas).
To clarify, I don’t think James did anything wrong there - certainly by 7th year Snape would’ve been a marked Death Eater who already murdered people, I’m just pointing out what the text is trying to do here.
5.0 Some comparisons
5.1 Wearing masks with each other
It's emphasized that Sirius is the one James stops showing off for, not Lily, and that James's hair is different and voice is different when he speaks to Lily - basically, that James is wearing a mask with Lily:
Harry had the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.
“Leave him ALONE!”
James and Sirius looked around. James’s free hand jumped to his hair again.
“All right, Evans?” said James, and the tone of his voice was suddenly pleasant, deeper, more mature. (OoTP)
Again, none of this is positive framing for Jily. In comparison, in the Prince's Tale we have Snape taking off his long coat and is comfortable wearing his mother's clothes in front of Lily. In other words, unlike James who puts on a mask with her, Snape is taking the mask off with Lily.
And as James wears a mask with Lily, Lily wears a mask with him, because in the death scene memory, her face is covered by her long hair while she speaks to James, vs. the Lily from the Resurrection Stone who pushes her hair back to look at Harry.
This is Lily setting the terms of who is and isn't allowed to see her - because similarly, she's letting Sirius see her face (I'm enclosing a picture so you can see - the picture which not only includes Harry but also Lily herself laughing), she's repeatedly described as smiling at Snape, and of course she's letting Harry see her face, yet with James, we have these passages:
“Evans!” James shouted after her, “Hey, EVANS!”
But she didn’t look back. (OoTP)
his mother had been decent, yet the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else (OoTP)
A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. (DH)
In direct contrast to:
Harry heard Snape let out a tiny groan. Lily took off the hat, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, then hurried toward the cheering Gryffindors, but as she went she glanced back at Snape, and there was a sad little smile on her face. (DH)
“Your mother’s coming…” he said quietly. “She wants to see you… it will be all right… hold on…” (GoF)
One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself, I’m enclosing a picture so you can see. (DH)
but we've had to pack away all the ornaments and make sure we don't take our eyes off him when he gets going. (DH)
Lily’s smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough. (DH)
This is especially notable given the obvious significance of Lily's eyes and Lily's gaze as a "window to her soul" and most reflective of her true emotions.
This is echoed in the only true James and Lily emphasis in The Prince’s Tale being that of James not paying attention to Lily:
One of the boys sharing the compartment, who had shown no interest at all in Lily or Snape until that point, looked around at the word, and Harry, whose attention had been focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his father (DH)
Again, James is 11, this is totally understandable and in fact it’d be weird if he was interested in Lily since he was 11, but I’m just pointing out how the language around James and Lily is consistently negative.
5.2 The Bloody Baron
“She sent a man who had long loved me, though I spurned his advances, to find me. She knew that he would not rest until he had done so."
Harry waited. She drew a deep breath and threw back her head.
“He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, he became violent. The Baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my refusal, jealous of my freedom, he stabbed me.” (DH)
“What is it with her?” said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.
“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius.
“Right,” said James, who looked furious now, “right —”
There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside down in the air.
“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?” (OoTP)
A note on patronuses and extracanon statements
I'm aware JKR has said Lily was attracted to James in SWM in extracanon, and has framed Jily's patronuses positively in relation to each other. However, these statements was years after the books were published - and it's clear JKR often changes her opinions about her characters and dynamics very often i.e. the way she framed Ron and Sirius in the early books vs the later books, so it's likely something similar happened with Jily in the other direction.
In the actual books, the doe patronus is only ever shown and discussed to emphasize Snape and Lily’s bond, it’s never discussed in relation to James and Lily. The stag patronus is firmly about Harry’s connection with his father.
As for the argument that Lily noticing James showing off with the Snitch signifies she’s into him - if some boy is constantly trying to get your attention and being obnoxious about it, you’d be hyper aware of his presence regardless if you were attracted to him. Snape is also hyper aware of the Marauders, Sirius was likewise watching Snape, etc. There is, of course the blush in her conversation with Snape - I'll get to that in a separate meta.
This is another meta about Jily as potentially abusive, I don’t agree with all of it but it’s worth reading.
Do you think there was ever a possibility of Snape and Lily being friends in some alternate universe where Snape never joined the Death Eaters? Or do you think they still would’ve fell out because of the person Snape was spiraling into?
Thank you for this ask, I was thinking about this exact topic when you sent this lol. But yes, IMO they absolutely would’ve stayed friends and people who think otherwise are massively underestimating Lily’s loyalty.
So, I assume this is a No Voldemort AU, because I can't imagine Snape just not becoming a DE with the same exact verse and circumstances at play.
So, in this AU, Snape was still prejudiced against Muggles coming into school, and he still wanted to social climb in Slytherins and make friends with bigoted purebloods, but some pretty major factors have changed, including the entire atmosphere and structure of Slytherin.
One, Lucius Malfoy doesn’t befriend Snape, because while I am adamant that Snape had some real friends other than Lily, I think Lucius in particular was incredibly exploitative, if not downright abusive, and the only reason he befriended Snape was for recruitment (and sexual abuse), although I suppose it's still possible that he befriends him for exploitation in different ways. And I think he was probably the biggest factor in Snape's radicalization. Snape does make friends in Slytherin, but only one or two (let’s go with Avery and Mulciber), and Slytherin in general is a lot less welcoming to him without the status of being in with the crowd specifically known to be in with the Dark Lord, and other proto-Death Eaters in Slytherin recognizing Snape as a potential recruit, and also Lucius as an older prefect nudging others to accept him.
Blood purity obviously exists with or without Voldemort, so Snape makes a couple bigoted friends - however, Avery and Mulciber in this AU haven't been raised in a cult since birth with the lifelong expectation that they will join up and kill and torture Muggleborns, so while they're still bigoted, they're a lot less violent and proactive about it compared to canon. Probably Snape’s still a bigot, maybe they are bullies, and at worst they even throw slurs at people. But they aren’t like, committing war crimes. The Slytherin gang isn’t attacking others with Dark Magic for a laugh. Snape isn’t throwing Sectumsempra around. They don’t plan to join up a fascist terrorist group to murder and torture people.
It’s important to note what it actually took Lily to break the friendship off. It wasn’t Snape being a bigot. It wasn’t him throwing slurs at Muggleborns. It wasn’t even him participating in Dark magic attacks on one of her friends. It was the unquestionable knowledge that he was joining the Death Eaters - that he really would participate in torture and murder, in the genocide of people like her. So if Snape never gets to that point, then Lily likely never breaks off the friendship.
Then we get to his personal violence and the toxic nature of the friendship. One thing I find interesting thematically is how Voldemort turns his followers into someone like him - and how that means they become violent and abusive and controlling towards those they consider family, exactly like he is (i.e. Barty commits patricide on V.'s orders, same with Snape and pseudo-patricide on Dumbledore, Bella kills Sirius and Tonks, etc.). Domestic violence is also extremely common amongst fascist men, particularly when they are soldiers committing the kind of violence that Death Eaters are. So I do think Snape's radicalization into the Death Eaters directly correlates to his controlling, possessive behavior towards Lily. Without that, the friendship is still volatile and complicated and toxic because Snape is still bigoted, but not to the same degree, and he wouldn't get to the point of calling her mudblood (which was so obviously a response to James asking her out and his jealousy there, lol) (The Marauders still have a rivalry with Snape & his gang, but it doesn't get to the point of the violence in canon without the war affecting the dynamics. Either way, they have no actual bearing on Snape's radicalization, as fans like to pretend).
Another thing is that I see Snape’s love for Lily as requited. So without the strain of Snape's radicalization, I can see them getting together around 5th year or something. Which makes it even less likely that Lily would give him up.
Post Hogwarts they travel the world on the traditional Grand Tour, become Potions and Dark Arts scholars together. Their goals (the intellectual ones at least) are pretty aligned, which also keeps them together. I think Snape stays pretty amoral throughout his life but is sometimes pulled into Lily's social justice endeavors (i.e. her main goal of reforming the Dark Arts community and its legal status so it is more accessible and those who practice it don't rely on horrifically experimenting on or murdering muggles and muggleborns for their research).
Basically I think they stay in this semi-toxic, dysfunctional but highly codependent and loving situationship forever lol.
The most optimistic option is a scenario in which Snape is more open to befriending Lily's friends from first year (or later, idk) and therefore extending his social circle beyond the prejudiced purebloods and changing his views, but I think that's probably unlikely and pushing it lol. Snape might change his views after Hogwarts, when he’s not in the very insular environment of Slytherin, and probably his friendships with his Slytherin friends fizzle out or at least he’s not around them 24/7. But maybe not. (Also though Sirius becomes Lily’s best friend 6th year so interesting to think how that would affect the Snily dynamic. I think Lily falls in love with Sirius at some point so, love triangle/throuple?)
Sorry this answer got VERY out of hand lolol, I'll stop now.
I really hate the portrayal of Lily Evans as mary sue and Severus Snape as creepy stalker, because no doubt Lily would've griefed just as bitterly if Severus was the one assassinated.
They spent roughly eight years together & assumingly every summer together in boring Cokeworth. That sort of adjacency birthes the kind of friendship that makes you feel like your souls are intertwined, but also resent with no rhyme or reason.
I mean,
Lily & Severus who have stupid inside jokes. Who can read each other's expressions. Who revert back into their eight-year-old selves around each other. Who argue over the tiniest things and go back to normal without even thinking of apologising or talking things over.
Lily, who taught Severus how to rollerskate, and Severus, who taught her how to cast dark spells.
Before Hogwarts, they would've had their own magical brotherhood that had nothing to do with muggle-borns vs Death eaters but what was most entertaining to do together.
LIly & Severus who both had awful tempers and might've fed off of each others cruelness. Like, little ten-year-olds loitering and committing small rebellions of shoplifting and arson and dark magic around Cokeworth - all before Lily gets told "No, you can't do that," and Severus gets told "No, you can't do that with her."
Lily who pretends to be nicer and Severus who pretends to be meaner.
And then there's all this social structure and expectations, and they're both bending under the pressure. Their friendship on the rocks. And then, summer comes, and they are back again to their stupid mischief. They spent every day together and feel at peace again. They don't talk about Hogwarts. They both hope the other wouldn't act so differently when they get back to school, but they always do.
Lily & Severus who both want the other to stand up for them.
Lily & Severus both feeling like they are the ones being cheated.
Then, Severus calls Lily a mudblood. Absolutely neither expect it. His temper alights hers, and suddenly it's just over. Very quickly and unsatisfyingly. It doesn't feel good enough. Eight years and just that? So Severus begs for either forgiveness or an argument, he's not really sure. And Lily isn't as sure about what she wants either, but she's adamant.
They see one another the next summer, before sixth year, in an ordinary public setting. They look at each other, Lily looks away and Severus keeps glaring. Nothing happens. They keep this up until graduation.
Lily who rants to all her friends about Severus being a dick and Severus who allows his friends to call Lily a mudblood - each do it for a twinge of satisfaction.
Then Lily dies and everything is forgiven. Lily is an angel and a saviour, as everyone is remembered posthumous. Severus is so hateful and loathing to everyone ever, but melts at Lily- and Lily's stupid kid. Because that's almost his kid, 'cus he and Lily are one in the same
- And if Severus were the one who died, it'd be the (mostly) same. No one could talk shit about Severus ever again. Says that James doesn't get it, and puts all her resent into him. Just him. Back then it'd felt good to get with the guy who not only idolised her, but also tormented Severus like crazy. Now she's ignorant to how she's been since.
They both mourn maliciously because that's what they had best in common.
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
yousharknotpass
izzy806
turnnoffyourmind
