𝕵𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖊

So it’s unlikely that the Riddles’ murders or Myrtle's were used for horcruxes, the former murders clearly impulsive and the bodies untouched at time of investigation, and the latter almost definitely an accident. So Tom killed someone else (likely a Muggle) to create the diary horcrux, anywhere from the latter half of 5th year to early 6th. Hepzibah Smith’s probably wasn't a horcrux murder either, also relatively impulsive and framing Winky and the risk of getting caught don't seem like ideal conditions to attempt a horcrux ritual (her body also untouched at time of her apparently lengthy investigation).

- The diary had to be the first horcrux, he wears the Gaunt ring 6th year (?) in Slughorn’s memory, and wore it often enough 5-7th year that Slughorn recognized it years later when Dumbledore wore it. Tom wouldn't openly wear a horcrux at school, and with the large gaps between other horcruxes, making two within ~2-3 years is very extreme (a bit unclear what the purpose of the Slughorn conversation is; it reads to me like Tom hasn't made a horcrux yet, idk if the Slughorn memory could be from late 5th year in midst of the attacks, or that he created the diary/the memory's also from early 6th year)

- Dumbledore's also wrong about LV's plan to use Harry's death for a horcrux, and Frank Bryce for Nagini. LV had no other significant object at the time he was vanquished. He uses Nagini post-rebirth, likely acquired close to the rudimentary body's creation (not even part of his plan until Quirrelmort failed to get the Elixir), and she's only emotionally significant because of her role in it (See how he speaks to that basilisk vs. Nagini - clearly any old snake wouldn't work). Possessing Nagini is useful to him, but I doubt he would pick a mortal creature if other options were available (which begs the question about Harry becoming a horcrux, idk about that).

Frank's another impulsive murder, and it seems very risky to create a horcrux in his temporary body when he's weak and not even fully resurrected, and any scenario means letting Wormtail in on Nagini as a horcrux, and he loathes Wormtail. And it makes most sense that LV was motivated to turn Nagini into a horcrux when hearing about the diary from Lucius post-GoF, after his rebirth.

- Likely in 1981, LV still hoped to get access to Gryffindor’s sword once he won the war and took over the Ministry and Hogwarts; but then the sword was imbued with basilisk venom in CoS, making it thereafter unusable as a potential horcrux container.

- The design of the diary is so fascinating and creative.

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Harry saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a minuscule television screen. His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward; the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.

Probably Tom stored his memory for each separate day in the diary (so maybe it's limited to memories from Jan 1, 1943-Dec 31, 1943, matching the dates in the diary?), so the design is adjusted (inspired?) by the diary as the container. Harry falls into the memory like a Pensieve - I wonder if Tom saw the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office, snuck into it like Harry, was inspired; he may've been curious about the object vs. the memories stored in it, or both. The imagery of eyes as windows to the soul, Harry lifting his green eye to the window, appears again in Merope's locket horcrux.

Sentimental Objects

- The whole using sentimental objects for horcruxes for grandeur is just so strange, ‘cause it doesn't stay consistent in either direction? Harry cleverly points out that the diary wasn’t special at all, and Dumbledore replies nonsensically, “The diary, as you have said yourself, was proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin; I am sure that Voldemort considered it of stupendous importance". Which... that's the soul piece/memory inside the diary, and that applies to any of his soul pieces, claiming he's Slytherin's heir. Tom even had the Gaunt ring by the time he created the diary, so it's definitely not like he didn't have other options available.

It gets even weirder when you get to Nagini - again, a mortal creature feels like a last resort, due to needing the sentimental connection (though maybe he somehow made her immortal too, idk).

- He's not tied to the sentimentality of the location in every case either: the Gaunt shack, Hogwarts, the Cave as symbolic Gaunt house (two of them sentimental but not grandiose). The Lestrange vault may primarily be about trusting it to Bella and as the most secure location she had access to than about Gringotts; the diary likely given to Abraxas (I doubt he'd keep two in the same location, so just somewhere else the Malfoys store stuff, maybe in the Manor itself); Nagini's either with him or sent on missions wherever.

Accepting this theory, this means his first horcrux, without any requirement, he chose for its creativity and usefulness. Of course he'd still want the Founders' heirlooms - he'd absolutely want the locket, and most likely he'd try to acquire the diadem, cup, and sword too, but he might not necessarily use them as horcruxes.

As for why he created a horcrux like that without intending to possess someone... idk, he is an Artist, look at those protections around the locket.

- Given the prevalence of magic that's based in or affected by emotion in some way, you'd really think a horcrux, meant to contain your soul for eternity, would need emotionally significant objects ("it warns Dark wizards how strong they have to make the enchantments on them"). There was a post that fixed the Fidelius plothole (or, well, one of many Fidelius plotholes) re: Bill as Secret Keeper for Shell Cottage, and why the Potters couldn't be SK for Godric's Hollow - the Fidelius charm is complex magic with different variations, methods, ways of interacting with a dwelling’s specific wards which may have different limitations etc. etc., so potentially they just didn't have access to or knowledge of the specific method to make a resident a SK at the time, or one was invented since 1981, etc.

Something like that could be why Tom's first horcrux is an ordinary diary and yet the others are all grandiose, sentimental objects - he didn't have the information it was recommended until after creating the diary (esp. as horcruxes are complex and banned and obscure, and researching them is A Task - I HC that Tom found several books on horcruxes amongst the "thousands and thousands of books" in the Room of Hidden Things). Also possible he did know but thought it wasn't that important (he does just ignore the whole "you shouldn't split your soul more than once" rule, so), but once he decided on multiple horcruxes, thought he better not risk it and/or found more convincing research after; Or that there was a different method to use sentimental objects that Tom didn't have access to until several years later, etc.

- Him not using a meaningful object could be why the Diary soul piece was unstable enough to escape its container. The container's like a permanent house to the soul, it makes sense that the piece of soul needs to feel at home inside the object where it lives; so the emotional significance helps in "binding" and "sealing" the soul inside the container more strongly, and without that link to sentiment and the positive association, the soul fragment is more likely to feel unhappily trapped, to crave escape - much like Tom wants to escape the orphanage and his Muggle heritage. (and fits how the rest of his horcruxes are related to familial connection and home)

- It’s not necessarily required, the same way that i.e. LV manages to resurrect himself in GoF despite one-third of the ritual being off: flesh of the servant, willingly given. There’s likely aspects that help that ritual work better too - a significant date, site of brewing, etc. So there are methods that work better for the horcrux magic and make it stronger and ones that are faultier.

- The diary’s from a Muggle variety store (Harry immediately clocking "he must've been Muggleborn" just from the street), it even has the name he wants to shed - T.M. Riddle - written on it. It could be some combo of that plus the unique nature and unpredictable effect of the diary being as communicative as it is, etc.

How horcruxes affect someone is of course very ambiguous - I dislike the theory that it makes him inhuman and feel things less; if anything, the Voldemort we see is more capricious, feels things more intensely (i.e. starts laughing maniacally when he's happy). The whole "they're evil because MURDER" is clearly bullshit - even from the few canon examples, it's evidence the amount of magic that requires life sacrifices to "power" that magic is probably pretty vast (and inevitably at a certain point in history that wasn't illegal or considered remotely unethical - and even in present day some families clearly get away with i.e. Muggle hunting).

The Diary As Weapon?

Tom intending this as a weapon makes no sense for several reasons:

“I knew it wouldn’t be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn’t going to waste those long years I’d spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin’s noble work."

- Tom's clearly lying here - because he's a horcrux, who wasn't exactly going to reveal to Harry, btw I'm a horcrux! We know he first told Harry an entirely different reason for the diary's existence - to expose the truth about the Chamber ("Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read [...] I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts."). And he likely gave Ginny yet another story for why it exists.

- We know the diary can do stuff other than possess - it writes back and shows memories, etc. He also picked the number seven for a reason, specifically wanted a seven part soul. He's also just as upset about the diary's destruction as other horcruxes.

- Diary!Tom doesn't kill any Muggleborns, only petrifies them while attempting to kill Ginny and Harry. If he was truly invested enough in "finishing Slytherin's noble work" to put a fragment of his actual literal soul in danger, he at least would've killed some. Unlike the real Tom, Diary!Tom doesn't even have any fear of punishment or expulsion to hold him back there.

- At the time he created the Diary, he planned to be DADA teacher, had that hope for ~2 years, so if he wanted to open the Chamber, from his POV he could've just done it himself, without wasting a horcrux for the mission. He also had plenty of opportunity between 1943 and 1981 - nearly 40 years - to use the diary for that purpose (his interview with Dumbledore, when he placed the diadem horcrux in the RoR and cursed the DADA job, was an ideal opportunity).

- By 1981, LV's rise to power is nearly done. Upon his return (with far fewer followers, more focus on capturing Harry, etc), they take over the Ministry in 2 years and outlaw Muggleborns from attending Hogwarts. So other than it being bizarre to want to open the Chamber when he's gained that much power and knows he's about to take over the school anyway, idk who the Heir of Slytherin was going to petrify or kill when all the Muggleborns were legally barred from entering the castle.

- Oh, and by late 1979, there’s the prophecy, that's not inclined to make him risk any of his safeguards to immortality. Also, you really can't tell me that 50 year old Voldemort actually wanted someone interacting with his 16 year old cringe teenage self for any length of time. He has to know it'd be a terrible idea (and well, clearly, it was.)

- The main hole in this is Lucius believing the diary was enchanted to open the Chamber, which is... a weirdly specific thing for him to think. Going with the HC of Tom entrusting the diary to Abraxas as a teenager, theoretically Abraxas could've told Lucius if he came across the diary instead of saying it's a horcrux, but again, a weird and specific thing to tell him.

Harry couldn’t explain, even to himself, why he didn’t just throw Riddle’s diary away. The fact was that even though he knew the diary was blank, he kept absentmindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to finish. And while Harry was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he’d had when he was very small, and had half-forgotten. But this was absurd. He’d never had friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that.

People theorize this is built into the magic of the diary, also why Ginny had a pull to write in it; and likewise a temptation enchantment on the Gaunt ring as the reason Dumbledore put it on.

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.

[...] 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.

She's magically powerful and skilled, as I discussed here:

Your mother,” Slughorn added, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. “Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught.

(HBP)

Don't forget Slughorn taught Tom Riddle and all his followers. He knows talent. Him saying Lily is one of the brightest students he has ever taught means a lot.

2. We know she wasn't just pure goodness; she had cheek and spunk to her:

“Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl.I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too.”

(HBP)

3. She is prideful:

She turned, nose in the air, and marched off towards her sister.

(DH)

The "let me" quote you brought up is part of it. Part of why she reacted the way she did is that she is prideful. She isn't going to be "allowed" anything; she does things she wants, and she isn't going to let Snape step over her free will — rightfully so, might I add, in this case. I'd be angry too. I mean, Snape is trying to tell her who she can and can't see, as if he has any say about who she is allowed to hang out with. It is a slip on his part, but a slip that says a lot about how he sees Lily as his in a way. His best friend he is possessive over since he doesn't have other friends like her. I can understand both of them here, and I think both of their reactions are reasonable given their situations and characters.

4. We actually know Lily has a mean streak. We actually see it in action:

Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, “Let him down!”

(OotP)

This is the line I referenced when I mentioned she might have a cruller sense of humour sometimes.

Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce.“You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you.” Petunia turned scarlet.

(DH)

5. We know her wand wood, which does tell us a bit about her personality and skills:

You have your mother’s eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work

(PS)

Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, and I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.

(From Pottermore)

This wand wood indicates she has a lot of hidden insecurities and fear, but also a lot of potential (It's also Ron's second wand wood). So, I think portraying Lily as having a bit of a temper, prideful, with a lot of insecurities, and a need to prove herself fits her wand wood well.

6. She was almost instantly placed in Gryffindor. The hat barely deliberated with her sorting:

He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, “Gryffindor”

(DH)

7. She is staunchly anti Dark Magic by her 5th year:

“. . . 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?” “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all—” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny—” [...] “I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. “They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice.

(DH)

But we see here that even though she has a clear moral objection to dark magic, she still hangs around Snape, knowing he found a dark magic attack on another girl funny. She is clearly able to overlook some injustices out of love and loyalty. She does it for Snape; I don't see why she couldn't do the same for James.

8. I don't think she would've orgiven Snape easily, even if he stopped hanging out with the Death Eaters and swore off Dark Magic:

“I’m sorry.” “I’m not interested.” “I’m sorry!” “Save your breath.” It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “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. [...] “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?”

(DH)

She didn't look interested in his apology, regardless of what he said — which I can understand. At that point, anything he could've said to appease her would've been a lie. Like Lily says, he calls other muggleborns 'mudbloods', she isn't willing to be his exception.

I don't think she owed Snape forgiveness, and I don't think she is a paragon of kindness and forgiveness she is often painted as. Snape calling her a mudblood just proved where he stood to her. It wasn't the only thing that ended the friendship (see the quote above about Mary), it was the final straw for Lily.

9. To balance all this, I don't need to give Lily her actions that, without them, there wouldn't be a book series to talk about:

“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!” “Stand aside, you silly girl. . . stand aside now.” “Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—” “This is my last warning—” “Not Harry! Please . . . have mercy. . . have mercy. . . . Not Harry! Not Harry! Please—I’ll do anything—” “Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!”

(DH)

She was brave, impulsive, and loved her son fiercely. There is a reason the hat sorted her so quickly.

So, where does all of this leave us?

I first want ot note Lily doesn't know the full extent of James's antics after they start dating. She doesn't know what happened with Snape, James and the Shrieking Shack:

“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

(DH)

She doesn't know what happened or why he was there. Her reaction is very reasonable considering what she knows is that Snape went snooping due to his obsession with the Mauraders (a reasonable fixation on his part, considering their bullying of him), and James saved him from something. She doesn't know he was saved from Lupin or that he was there because of Sirius. And James kept hiding the worst of his behaviour from her, even into their relationship:

“And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin. “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)

So, it's clear there was a change in James, and he made sure Lily would see his better sides — and he has them. He is not a bully towards Sirius; he cares for his friends and defends them fiercely. He is brave, charismatic, funny, and he opposes Dark Magic. He is stupid in his flirting with Lily we see in SWM, but I don't think he is abusive towards her, or that he used a love potion the way Harry considers. I mean, we see Harry ask himself (and later Sirius and Remus who are biased sources) the same questions you brought up:

Harry tried to make a case for Snape having deserved what he had suffered at James’s hands — but hadn’t Lily asked, “What’s he done to you?” And hadn’t James replied, “It’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean?” Hadn’t James started it all simply because Sirius said he was bored? Harry remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had made him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over James and Sirius. . . . But in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all happen. . . . 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)

“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.

(OotP)

All this paints Lily as someone who did forgive James. Who dated and later married him of her free will. They had their tensions in their marriage; we see it in James sneaking away when they are in hiding and hindering Lily's attempts to bond with her sister after graduation:

The first meeting between Lily, her boyfriend James Potter, and the engaged couple, went badly, and the relationship nose-dived from there. James was amused by Vernon, and made the mistake of showing it. Vernon tried to patronise James, asking what car he drove. James described his racing broom. Vernon supposed out loud that wizards had to live on unemployment benefits. James explained about Gringotts, and the fortune his parents had saved there, in solid gold. Vernon could not tell whether he was being made fun of or not, and grew angry. The evening ended with Vernon and Petunia storming out of the restaurant, while Lily burst into tears and James (a little ashamed of himself) promised to make things up with Vernon at the earliest opportunity.

(From Pottermore)

He clearly didn't change completely — he was still a little arrogant, a little mean, and very much saw himself as a jokester even after school. But I think he did change.

The Mauraders went to school during the height of the first war with Voldemort — war affects people in many ways. It's very plausible James did mature due to what was happening around him. Even likely. People can change. The problem is, we don't see enough of James post-changing. At least, not any good ones. We don't get moments with him where he is more humble. There is a short scene JKR wrote in 2008 of James and Sirius post-graduation, of them escaping Muggle policemen, both he and Sirius still act like little shits there:

"No helmet!" Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. "Exceeding the speed limit by-by a considerable amount!" (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motocycle could travel.) "Failure to stop for the police!" "We'd have loved to stop for a chat," said the boy in glasses,"only we were trying--" "Don't get smart-you two are in a heap of trouble!" snarled Anderson. "Names!" "Names?" repeated the long-haired driver."Er-Well, let's see. There's Wilberforce…Bathsheba…Elvendork…" "And what's nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy OR a girl," said the boy in glasses. "Oh, our names, did you mean?" asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage."You should've said! This here is James Potter, and I'm Sirius Black!" "Things'll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little-" But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staying past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical, fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets. [...] The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers. "Thanks very much!" called Sirius over the throb of the engine."We owe you one!" "Yeah, nice meeting you!" said James. "And don't forget: Elvendork! It's unisex!"

(Context of when it was written and I found the full story here)

I think it's a cute little scene, and I find them funny in a dorky sort of way here (which, Lily clearly did too). I think both of them are in-character for this point in their life, and when the DE appear, they do get more serious. But, they still act quite arrogantly — like nothing could really hurt them. James going out of hiding willy nilly when under the Fidelius Charm is further evidence that some of his arrogance remained. He doesn't think anything would actually happen to him.

So, there is a place for interpretation here — how much James actually changed is open to interpretation.

Lily's reasoning for marrying him is also open to interpretation. I personally think she has a cruler streak — she almost smiled when Snape was lifted upside down. It's clear she did find James funny/charming even before he mellowed out. Snape's need to tell her they aren't that great is proof that he saw her potential interest there. The fact that she blushes when he brings up how wonderful everyone thinks they are could indicate that an attraction was already there, and Lily was just waiting for an excuse to say yes to James.

I also talked about this a bit before (here and here), but it seems the wizarding world doesn't take violence as seriously. Any physical condition that can be fixed with a flick of a wand, isn't regarded as severe. So, that could 100% play a part here too.

I think Lily could've been a very kind person and still have a few blind spots. Especially since her friendship with Snape has always been weird. They don't have common interests besides magic; they seem to represent safety for each other, but how close they were really is up for debate. You can argue how well they really knew each other.

So, yeah, you can deffinetly read Lily as not a perfect paragon (and canon will support you), you could argue James gave her a love potion (though, I find this less interesting), you could argue she didn't really like Snape that much, you can read it as her giving James a chance out of kindness and a wiligness to belive people can change, or her liking him before and just waiting until she could pursue him guilt free — there are different readings that could make sense here, I think. Which is fun.

The characters of Snape, James, the other Mauraders, and by extension, Lily, changed quite drastically around book 4 (the three-year summer). Since in the first 3 books, and in book 5 and onwards (4 is somewhat in between), we get two distinct and very different versions of these characters that can't really reconcile with each other without some headcanon work.

So, just like Snape and James have different characters that need to be reconciled for fic and fanon, so does Lily. And this is a space you can have fun and play around with, depending on how you want to portray Lily and her relationships with James and Severus.