Jily Headcanon: Snape used Sectumsempra at the lake
Even Sirius Black can’t get the wound to close. He’s forced to bring Potter to the hospital wing, cussing all the way. Even so a scar remains.
Every time Lily looks at Potter’s face she’s reminded not just that Sev called her a mudblood but of how very dark his hexes have gotten. And maybe he didn’t mean to use that were she could see either but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s the spell on the tip of his tongue.
It’s really hard to hate Potter with that kind of evidence on his face. Really hard to believe Sev’s claims of being a helpless victim too.
I think something interesting about
Harry is that for his entire life people tell him "you look exactly like your father" and then harry goes and marries a woman who looks like his mother… he's like forcing a roleplay as his own parents, also the thing about him naming his oldest son and youngest daughter his parents names
he's a little freak with complex issues but we love him for it
I think about this ALL THE TIME, it is NOT an accident that Ginny looks like his mom AND shares traits with her-- being hyper intelligent and proficient at magic, a snarky and funny personality, very headstrong and willing to stand up for herself, tremendously brave...the parallel is there for a reason. I think Harry is always trying to recreate what he lost, and if he can't find surrogate parents (like Sirius and Dumbledore, who both die) he is forced to become those surrogate parents, to his children he also names after his parents??!! It is so sad and weird and sexy. I just love what a mess he is.
Furthermore, he gets glimpses of what his parents were like, but he doesn't REALLY know. So whatever ideal he's playacting towards is like, entirely constructed by fantasy. He's not imitating or emulating real people, he's striving to become these characters, these concepts, these shades of real people, so of course the performance is imperfect. We SEE in text that he has an idealized concept of his parents in his head when he gets vastly disappointing by his father's behavior in SWM. It's even SADDER when you consider what crumbs he's working with. I often think he loved Ginny but wasn't really in love with her, she just represented a handful of things that are desperately important to him: a makeshift Lily for his makeshift James, and a surefire ticket to the Weasley family. I imagine their marriage falls apart eventually because it's not based on who they are as people or what he specifically loves about her, but what he loves about the idea of his mother and what he wants in the wizarding world, but was denied (safety, a family, belonging). Terrible foundation for a family.
When I was a kid their marriage drove me crazy and I thought the epilogue was silly and too neat, but when I reread the series as an adult I was like oh...there's no other way this boy could have gone, is there? It makes perfect sense. It's a bittersweet, realistic, painful ending: he's escaped the acute trauma but he's never going to escape what the loss of his parents and what the war made him into, and what it made him value.
Why do I love a bittersweet couple? Why do I love a tragic love? Why it’s always Achilles and Patroclus, Orpheus and Eurydice, or Romeo and Juliet?
Contrary to most modern interpretations of the eternal struggle between good and evil, good seems not to triumph over evil. Lily and James are dead, and Harry is an orphan; the war is over, but the threat of Voldemort has not really vanished. Throughout the narrative, we are led to believe that Good is clearly represented by Love (which is true), while Evil is embodied by Death, the primary cause of Harry's life tragedy (his parents, Cedric, Sirius, etc).
Then we have the inscription on the grave of James and Lily:
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”
a passage from the first letter to the Corinthians, notoriously related to the salvific figure that Harry embodies in the finale when he sacrifices himself for Hogwarts and effectively resurrects from death. The question we should ask ourselves is: why did the love between James and Lily not triumph? Wasn’t their sacrifice, particularly Lily's, enough? Wasn’t their bond strong enough to overcome the evil represented by Voldemort? The answer is clearly no, primarily from a narrative standpoint — the existence of Horcruxes. Moreover, establishing when love is sufficient or not is a process devoid of meaning. People die even when they love; perhaps they die especially when they love. Love never defeats death in the way Western culture tends to represent A Conflict — with guns, swords, and (here) spells. Death is not an enemy; it does not actually represent the flip side of the coin. Here lies the alternative interpretation of the inscription on the grave, echoed by the tale of the third brother. Death is a friend and, as such, cannot represent evil.
But then, who is the enemy? What did Harry’s parents defeat? I like to think (and this is the interpretation I would love to see more often) that somehow, they defeated fate — fate as a certain, random phenomenon, devoid of any probabilistic element.
They seem (and are, narratively speaking) the classic doomed couple, condemned by the narrative, much like the great tragedies of literature that I mentioned earlier. In every version of the story, these characters must inevitably die and it’s their affection that leads them to a concatenation of events, culminating in their end. Their love is what condemns them to death. But what if they could see their entire life, from beginning to end? Would they act differently? If they could turn back in time, who would prevent their younger self from loving the other? The obvious answer is no — not because in any universe we are destined to be together (a bit lazy sometimes) but because of the reason I’ve already explained (a bit boring, lol): the characters would be so foreign to themselves that the whole story would need to be rewritten. Utterly senseless.
But… fate! Love isn’t just the reason why these characters are narrated, but also the means through which the characters tell themselves, conveying their agency, their will, and consequently becoming the masters of their story, without being enslaved by it.
Love is foundational to something that transcends themselves (namely death). In the case of Romeo and Juliet, their love is both tragic and a symbol of peace, as their respective families cease their conflicts. In the case of James and Lily, what may at first glance seem a pessimistic yearning — two premature deaths and an orphaned child — serves as a plot device that guides us toward the hopeful message of salvation concealed in Harry’s character, hope that works without a religious connotation. Here love translates into the positive acceptance of a tragic future. It kind of break the “doomed by the narrative” trope.
In other words, James and Lily are not merely destined to die because the narrative demands it, but also, and most importantly, because if they had the chance to choose, they would do it all over again — in a sort of “doomed by themselves”.
Why is "James constantly asking Lily out" such a big thing in the fandom? As far as we know, canonically, he only asked her out that once, and in public. No?
You know what, I could never decide this based only on canon quotes.
In Prince's Tale, during that whole "James Potter fancies you" speech, it seems Snape is revealing something new; if James was asking Lily out left and right, it would be common knowledge.
However, when James says "Go on... Go out with me," it doesn't read to me as if he's asking her out for the first time. I mean, boy is 16, not smooth as he tries to sound, but no one can be silly enough to just throw that question there... right?
That being said, I don't see James asking Lily out all the time (I remember that after OotP came out, there were many fics around the trope of James asking Lily out many times, and Lily turning James down with funny quips, but still, it was bordering on harassment). I don't think SWM was the first time — I see James trying to ask her out to his friends' amusement and his own embarrassment, struggling to actually say the words — but I do believe it was the last time, until everything changed between them :)
Your thoughts on marauders dynamics are so unique but feels so canon, it's interesting. What do you think about Lily's place in all of that? Especially Sirius and Lily? (Lil nervous... As I happen to be a big fan of their friendship. 😅)
Oh I am too, I think their friendship is the ONLY thing that soothes the sting of losing James to her. I think during their school years Sirius is powerfully jealous of all of James's girlfriends and crushes, but pretends to not notice, even though James starts to notice and sort of protects him by not telling him all the details. But Lily is different. He tries to hate her, tries to be jealous of her, but just can't. He ends up getting close to her and understanding why James loves her, and this ultimately in my mind is what helps him "get over" ( I don't think he ever REALLY gets over it, but he's able to set it aside) James and let him go. He also realizes that he can't keep James in his life if he doesn't accept and embrace Lily, because James and Lily are the real deal. She's who James chooses, it's non negotiable.
The text points to them having a real and true friendship--Lily had to agree to Sirius being Harry's Godson, there's that letter where she addresses him, there's the photos of him smiling and genuinely happy at their wedding. Also, like Sirius understanding the best way to maintain closeness to James is to love Lily, LILY must also realize Sirius and James are in some ways, a package deal.
More than Sirius wants James, he wants James to be happy. If it can't be with him, he understands why it's Lily. I imagine there are moments of angry and jealousy when theyre teenagers, but as adults, he grows out of that. Eventually.
Saw your post regarding intended meanings and I believe you are right regarding the intended meaning. Ultimately I always take the native language is what is intended in it's truest form regardless of how it's is translated in other languages. Beyond books, this topic was even more interesting when playing games made from other countries where localization of the script is involved. Like one that stood out to me was a game I played called Final Fantasy 10, there's a final scene between two love interests and in English, one character tells other "I Love You". The game was made in Japan and when you watch the scene in the original Japanese language the character actually says "Thank You". The popular opinion that gots passed around to why it was changed for English was that western audiences needed some grand Hollywood style scene to be satisfied, but someone who understood the Japanese culture and language explained that people in Japan rarely ever say "I Love You" even to their own family because of how strong/heavy it is, so "Thank You" is enough to imply that in the scene without them having to say it, which "Thank You" for them is much less casual than the English "Thank You" where people will throw out a "Thanks" for anything, basically the English "I Love You" is much closer to a Japanese "Thank You" for that scene's intended meaning. When I played the game The Witcher 3, I found out it was made by a Polish company adapting from the Polish Witcher novels and in that deep dive I found out that apparently even in the space of novel translations, countries can apparently do a mid/standard job, at least in translating The Witcher novels where Polish people have said most of the translations they've come across for other countries have misinterpreted intended meanings / mistranslated and the best country to do the best at both were the German novels lol super off tangent but thought that this was interesting! Also coming from an American, I will say "quite" is not used often by people, but I'd say generally in the U.S. we use "quite" similar to "very", so for example if you hear "you've gained quite a few pounds" it wouldn't be taken well, but this is hardly every said in real life more-so something written for a sitcom or "that person is quite tall" = that person is very tall.
Okay, I’m gonna pop this under a read more because this is a whole Essay, and I don’t want to clog up people’s dashboards with what I Reckon about translation theory and the sanctity of the three words, ‘Nah, she didn’t’ (spoiler: I think it’s the perfect line and that its full meaning should be preserved in translation even if it causes some initial confusion).
First off, I must admit my error! It seems that the quite thing is a case of sneaky Americanisation of Australian language without my knowing (how dare they!!). Although I do wonder if the understatement thing is working again in some cases in a way that it doesn’t in the US? ‘Quite pretty’ to me feels different to ‘very pretty’ because it can communicate that you are using a mitigator because you might not want to admit how pretty the person is—because you don’t like them or perhaps because you are A Stoic Brit/Australian who doesn’t like to admit to having more feeling than a simple adjective can contain—and the fact that you feel forced to do so enhances the perception of the person’s prettiness. Obviously word stress and intonation plays a huge role as well.
All this reminds me of a French mistranslation that used to get me—‘pas terrible’, which I translated using the faux ami/false friend to mean, ‘not bad/terrible’, but in fact means, ‘not great’. The cause of many a faux pas, as you might imagine! That awe/terror as a neutral entity that can be interpreted as positive or negative (terrible/terrific) is pretty cool to think about.
Those questions of translation that you raise are so so interesting. I Love the example with the Japanese game, or should I say, thank you for it. I completely agree about the ‘truth’ of the original text (my Catholic grandma would have been proud)—if, for example, I were an anti-jily partisan who read ‘nah, she didn’t’ as evidence of Lily’s ambivalence, I would not be convinced by the clearer interpretation of the French translator. I do think that this very issue is my strongest reason for continuing to learn foreign languages, or at least about foreign languages, in a world where ai will soon remove much of the pragmatic need for doing so. Like, yes you can get an accurate translation of the central meaning, but it’s the layers that don’t always translate.
In fact, you know what, even while writing this, I have changed my mind about the accuracy of the French translation. To me, the emphasis of ‘non, pas du tout’ is that Lily did not hate James, but the emphasis of ‘nah, she didn’t’ is that she actively liked him (or depending on what time frame you think Sirius is referring to, 5th year or their wedding, that she loved him very deeply). The casual tone tells us that Sirius finds Harry’s worry about Lily’s feelings towards James so unfounded that he feels comfortable seeming dismissive and joking about it and indeed saying nothing more on the subject. This fact says much more about Lily’s feelings than any earnest reassurance could.
Perhaps a native French speaker would not use tone in this way at this moment, but Sirius is a British character, and I think the French reader should get the opportunity to experience his cultural use of language for themselves. Same for the Japanese game, it’s hugely meaningful and telling about their culture that ‘thank you’ in Japanese can be loaded with such meaning—both in terms of communicating that the use of ‘I love you’ is so restricted and the fact that it’s ‘thank you’ and not some other term that has taken on that role. I don’t know that I like all that being erased just so the foreign audience gets the gist immediately, as opposed to having to think about why ‘thank you’ might have felt strange and therefore prompting reflection on cultural differences.
So, I suppose my point (one of my points??) is this: I would personally translate ‘Nah, she didn’t’ as something like, ‘Et bah, non.’ That might seem incredibly dismissive to the French reader, but I think it better reflects what Sirius as a British person is doing with language. Still, in my experience, Sirius responding to Harry’s worry with this line and a shrug is like the Frenchest thing I can think of, so who knows what the fuck my point was.
ANYWAY, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for sending me this ask!
can i ask why you ship jily? not being rude, just want to know :)
For some really great canon analyses, I would suggest reading these [1, 2, 3] because then you might understand my viewpoint even more. This ended up being a lot longer than I expected it to be, so the rest is under the cut.
Jily is one of those ships - like basically every other ship in Harry Potter - that I took without question at the beginning. While I adore Hinny and Romione (and Remus/Tonks be still my heart), I never doubted JKR’s decision in putting them together. I believed everything she wrote was undoubtedly correct and would stand against any argument I could come up with. I never once thought “Oh, but Harry’s relationship with Hermione would be so much stronger” or “Ron deserves someone like Luna”.
I found myself doubting how those two could have had such a strong bond of love - which was certainly the result of being exposed to their characters directly through the memory of a man whose blinding hatred for James revealed only the most biased of memories. A bond which, as you know, lead to the survival of Harry and ultimately the wizarding community. Through Snape’s memories (specifically in OotP, chapter 28) we as readers were given a first-hand acknowledgement of Lily and James in their 5th year. Due to the (somewhat hidden) bias of Snape and what we’d been exposed to previously, it doesn’t paint James in the most pleasant light. He’s shown to be a bully, someone who terrorizes Severus just because “he exists" and is "clearly unpopular" - by bullying him, James is elevated to a higher status among his peers (as if he needs it in the first place, being a pureblood and a Marauder). It appears that James would rather injure another student if it meant he would be ‘cool’. He refuses to stop hurting Snape unless Lily goes out with him, something he says "quickly," as if done impulsively. The impulsiveness of this action implies that his desire for Lily is something he kept hidden and only let burst forth when his mind was otherwise occupied (which, in my opinion, goes against what others have made ‘canon’ - that James asked Lily out frequently as a way to make fun of her publicly).
Regardless of James may have felt toward Lily, it does not excuse his bullying actions toward Severus. As Harry thinks at the end of the chapter, James appeared to be “every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told [Harry].” It is only after James releases Severus from the locomotor curse and Snape calls Lily a Mudblood that his true nature is revealed. While James was okay with bullying Snape, a boy who was placed with certain stereotypes on his shoulders when he was sorted into Slytherin, he was shocked at Snape’s foul language. It was probably no secret that Lily and Severus had an interesting friendship (after all, it’s not every day a girl from Gryffindor and a boy from Slytherin remain best friends), and so to hear Lily’s supposed best friend call her a name he was meant to protect her from must have been a shock. Acting out of what I assume to be his hidden crush on Lily, James demands an apology for her. Obviously Lily can take of herself (Slughorn says in the sixth book that she was one of the cleverest witches he ever taught), which is why she doesn’t want James to make Severus apologize. If Severus cared as much as he claimed he did, he wouldn’t have let the views of fellow Slytherins cloud his friendship. He did, however, and that changed the dynamic between Snape and Lily. I don’t want to spend any more time on the relationship between those two, so I suggest reading this canon analysis if you’re curious how I feel on that front.
(The redemption of James’s character comes later, when it’s revealed that he saved Snape - a boy he hated - from dying by Remus’ hands. If he had allowed Snape to die (something which never would have happened, because James simply wasn’t the kind of man who would let an innocent die), Remus would have been absolutely devastated, completely convinced of his monstrous nature. He would have retreated into himself, letting the Ministry cart him off to Azkaban even if Dumbledore insisted against this, and would have lost who he was. It’s a testament to James’s character that he would not allow one of his best friends to believe himself a monster - he was, after all, one of the three boys to achieve illegal Animagi by fifth year simply so Remus would not have to go through his transformations alone. Remus and Sirius also note a change in his character by seventh year, saying Lily started going out with him in seventh year after he “had deflated his head a bit”. By these accounts, and others scattered through the series, James Potter was not a horrible person, just had a peculiar hatred for Snape.)
Getting back to Jily - it’s because of this memory that I doubted, much like Harry, how Lily and James could have loved each other so vehemently to defy Voldemort three times and protect their son. The series is all about how love guides you throughout the most difficult times of your life, how it has the ability to shield you from even the darkest of evils. Without the love between the Marauders, James and Lily would not have trusted Peter and would not have made the fatal mistake of making him their Secret Keeper - but without that love, the loyalty James and Lily showed time and time again, Harry would not have survived and would not have defeated Voldemort. Lily’s love for Harry protected him from Voldemort’s initial killing curse; James’ memory in the form of the stag Patronus protects him from dementors. That’s why I realized, even after Snape’s memory, this point: Their bond had to be unbreakable for this happen. Like I said, none of it would have been possible without their love for one another. Despite their argument in front of the lake and any other disagreements that may have occurred, they still managed to love each other enough.
That’s why I ship them as much as I do; I doubted them. To doubt a love is natural - it happens at some point in every relationship. It made Jily appear even more viable than the other relationships in Harry Potter. Yes, Harry left Ginny after Dumbledore’s funeral to protect her. Yes, Remus didn’t want to be with Tonks because he believed himself to be dangerous. But in the end I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Harry would end up with Ginny and Remus would end up with Tonks. Their unions would wrap up happy endings just perfectly (disregarding unexpected character deaths), ensuring that the heroes of the story would be content.
The slight amount of wiggle room in James and Lily’s relationship, paired with the little amount we can take as canon, makes me believe passionately in their love. That they could create such a remarkable person and lead him toward salvation is inspiring and beautiful. Without them, Harry wouldn’t be alive and, without Harry, neither would anyone else. Not really.
