Charmed, Jinxed or Hexed

Eventually I will have links here to various stuff I post. For now, I am middle-aged & short, have hazel eyes and straight hair and inhabit a country south of the equator. I have been in fandom for multiple literal decades and believe very strongly in "fan and let fan" alongside "don't like; don't read". Use the back button, the mute or block or whatever and get on with your life, don't wank yourself into hysterics. I write fic and meta (semi-coherently I hope) here and there, occasionally draw (badly) and despise the use of "ai".

I am queer.

Love is when you want the other person to be happy.

Obsession is when you want you to be happy.

We have only relatively brief glimpses of Sev in his childhood but threaded through all of them is his submission to Lily's wants. When she gets upset or angry with him, he scrambles to change it. He censors his opinion of Petunia because it was not what Lily wanted.

Later, when he missteps in using the words "I won't let you -" to teenage Lily, and she slaps him down (not that she or we know what he was trying to say), Severus immediately backtracks. He isn't trying to control her here, he is trying to please her. Given the topic of the conversation, the gist of what he trying to communicate is that he doesn't want her to be deceived and endangered by James&Co, right after the werewolf trick that a) exposed the truth of Remus's condition, b) showed that Sirius at least had no hesitation in putting Severus in extreme fear for life, c) that Severus interpreted as James being in on from the beginning, and d) that Dumbledore would not effectively reign them in. And Lily was dismissing it all.

Finally, when Lily ends their friendship after SWM, Severus leaves her alone. That is the clincher to me; were he obsessed with her, he would not have let it go. An obsessed person would have prioritised his feelings & wants over her wishes - something Severus never, ever does.

Hence, it was love. Not a necessarily healthy love; but it began when they were children. He was lonely and neglected and the little kindness she gave him was far far more significant to his developing psyche than it would have been had he not been so starved for positive attention. And yet, he still put her wishes and happiness at a higher priority than keeping (or regaining) her as a friend.

1. Polyjuice or Imperio. Collect Harry from Kings Cross as Vernon or have Vernon drop Harry off on a dark and spooky road in the middle of the moors.

2. A gentle little memory charm and the Dursleys think they're totally different people with no nephews ever and they're moving to Australia. Right now!

Hindsight is, many say, much less flawed than foresight. So looking back at the school-age Tom, Albus perceives signs of Tom's future dark lordship. But at the time? No. He didn't see them.

At the orphanage, it is true the matron suggested Tom had done some inexplicable bad things but she had no solid evidence and anyone who routinely had the task of inducting muggleborns would have encountered cases of muggles interpreting a child's accidental magic wrongly as malicious, and scapegoating of the "weird" child by others. Albus could simply have interpreted Tom as bragging, lashing out in self-defence and unfairly scapegoated by the other children, not as an evil dark lord in the making. (Indeed, I think that is actually true but look for my future Tom headcanons post for details).

Albus was, throughout his life, a user. He helped people... for a return. He lifted up and covered up for and protected many - Hagrid, Remus & Harry being 3 excellent examples of his aquisitions. Minerva is likely to be another and arguably, all the order members were. Snape was too but he wasn't groomed at school, he was only aquired as an adult, after the prophecy incident. Aberforth called this pattern of Albus's out in DH; it was very real.

So what was Albus thinking with regard to this pretty and remarkably talented child? Why, that he could be a useful pawn of course. Albus intended to groom Tom into another Albus Dumbledore follower.

But Tom didn't co-operate. Instead of seeking Albus's approval after the scare and scold when they met, Tom refused Albus's escort to Diagon. No matter, Albus thought, Tom will struggle through on his own and be happy to accept the next time help is offered. And then at school, Albus "never seemed to like Tom as much as the other teachers" (diary Tom in CoS)... Indeed. You were supposed to see that and then try to please Albus to get him to like you, Tom.

(Also, we have another memory in CoS of 5th year Tom encountering Albus not long after Myrtle died and there is no hint whatsoever of suspicion on Albus's part.)

Next, after graduating Hogwarts, Tom asked for the DADA job. Albus blocked him... Tom, Tom. Albus wanted you to turn to him for help. But Tom did not take the bait that time either, and Albus didn't see him again for 20years.