Lily Evans' Wife🌸

Sirius asks a perfectly reasonable question: why is Snape teaching Harry instead of Dumbledore? And he's right. Sure, Dumbledore was afraid Voldemort would spy on him through Harry (which I don't consider a good enough justification), but assigning Snape to teach him was one of his stupidest decisions. His excuse made me so angry: that he forgot some wounds run too deep. Damn it, Dumbledore, you know perfectly well that Snape hates Harry with every fiber of his being. He may "protect" him, but at the same time he does everything he can to make Harry's life miserable. Of course he was never going to teach him properly. And Harry could never relax in Snape's presence or feel safe around him. Occlumency requires clearing your mind of emotion. Harry already struggles to do that on his own, and then he's forced to learn from someone who humiliates him during every lesson and mocks his memories. Didn't Dumbledore see this outcome coming? It's hard to let go of your emotions in such a toxic environment. If Occlumency was really that important, Dumbledore should have done everything he could to make sure Harry was actually able to learn it (and maybe properly explain why he needed it in the first place). He should have asked McGonagall, for example. Maybe she wasn't a master Occlumens like Snape, but I'm sure she knew something. It would have been better for Harry to learn the basics than nothing at all. Or Flitwick. Yes, he wasn't in the Order, but Dumbledore could have asked him. After all, he asked Firenze to become the Divination teacher even though he knew what it would cost him (which was pretty awful in itself). But I'm getting sidetracked—back to Sirius.

He warns Snape not to mistreat Harry during those lessons. Once again, someone finally steps in because of Snape's disgusting treatment of Harry. As I've said before, none of the adults had ever stood up for Harry before; they all turned a blind eye to it. But not Sirius. He understands the situation perfectly (he knows how Snape feels about him and James, and he saw how Snape treated Harry in Prisoner of Azkaban), and he tries to protect his godson, including by giving him the mirror. And Harry does the same in return, refusing to use that mirror, no matter how much Snape torments him, because he wants to protect Sirius...

And then there was the duel that almost broke out because Snape insulted the two people Sirius loved most...

I love him. 💔

snape’s memory of the marauders is biased because it’s HIS memory and he doesn’t like them

one of snape’s students biggest fear was him

snape bullied students based off their parentage and their looks

snape still held prejudice against muggles and muggleborns

snape was happy for james and harry to die in favour of lily surviving

James was more than “a little too aggressive” in his pursuit of Lily. He relentlessly bullied her best friend, and at one point even tried to use this as leverage to get Lily to date him (he’d stop the torment, if Lily would agree to a date). Lily herself calls him out on how he is a bully, saying he walks down corridors, hexing anyone who annoys him just because he can. When they get together in 7th year, it’s because he supposedly has stopped his bullying ways, but continues to bully Severus in secret behind her back. That is canon. That is said by Sirius and Remus, after Harry saw “Snape’s worst memory” and was appalled at how fucking horrid his father was.

And, why is it that James constantly bullies Severus?

JK herself said: “James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James’ behaviour towards Snape.“ 

So. Because Severus Snape was Lily Evans’ best friend, and a guy, James worried that he was a rival for her affections, and from day one targeted him for bullying. Because how dare Severus even think he has the right to talk to her, when obviously James is the one she should pay attention to.

The only character we see not respect Lily’s rejection is James Potter. This is canon. He doesn’t ever take “no” for an answer. He refuses to. He resorts to lying to her in order to finally get her to date him.

Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.

1- There is absolutely no evidence in canon that James ‘relentlessly’ pursued Lily. That is fanon. Sure fanon has that trope about James repetitively asking Lily out and almost stalking her. In canon we only see James ever ask Lily out ONCE. In Snape’s worst memory. The rest of the time we see Snape having to tell Lily that James fancies her and there is no evidence she even knew about it before that, then we have Lily actively defend the maradaurs to Snape asking him why he was so obessed with them :

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p540 bloomsburry edition )

“… 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 around 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?” Lily ha reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all -” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny -” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill -” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold “Why are you so obsessed with them, anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “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”.

Now, what does this scene tells you. First for someone who supposedly didn’t give as good as he got and was only the helpless victim of James, we learn that : 1- Lily doesn’t understand why he is so obsessed with them and can’t see the resemblance between the marauders and the very real, blood supremacist, dark magic using bullies that Snape was hanging out with and found funny. 2- Snape was very clearly trying to out Remus and actively trying to prove his case; so please do tell me, if this isn’t reason enough for James to hate Snape then what is? Not only did Snape actively try back when he was 15, but he DID out Remus years later because he couldn’t let go of the past when Remus was being nothing but cordial with him.

2- Which brings me to my next point, the idea that Snape was an innocent victim and not a bully himself is utter bullshit.

Let’s look at another excerpt from the books shall we:

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p542, Blommsburry edition)

“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. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean -” “- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

Now what does this tells us? This tells us that unlike what the Snape apologists often love to pretend, Snape wasn’t an inactive by stander in the wannabe-death eaters sessions of muggleborns bullying. He actively took part in it, he actively threw slurs at them. Lily herself mention that and Snape doesn’t deny any of it.

Not only that but we also know that Snape invented Levicorpus, which we later see James use, how do you think James learned it if not because he had it used against him? We even see Snape use Sectusempra on James; Sectusempra, aka the spell capable of cutting someone open and leave them to bleed to death. This is the kind of experimentation Snape did with Dark Magic, so spare me if I don’t buy the “poor innocent Snape” narrative. He was a bully at school, going after muggleborn with his band of magical equivalent to the Hitler youth. But aside from that, please do tell me more about how Snape was innocent and never gave as much as he got when even LILY calls him out on his bullying of Muggleborns and admitted herself that she couldn’t excuse him anymore.

“Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.”

Excuse me? We should admire him because he backed off after HE threw a slur at her and still tried to talk to her when she didn’t want to, even saying he would sleep in front of the common room if she refused to have that talk?

And above all, we should think Snape is such a great guy because he bargained for her life? WHAT? Snape - may I remind you - was the reason why her life was even in danger to start with! Snape is the one who sold a BABY’S LIFE to Voldemort without second thoughts and only backed off when he realized that the baby in question was Lily’s. And not only that but he only partly backed off because he didn’t give a shit about what would happen to Harry and James, AKA the man she loved and HER SON. Dumbledore himself called him out on it:

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

I genuinely cannot believe my eyes that some people are trying to paint this as a selfless act on Snape’s part. If it had been Neville he would have let him die without blinking, just like he was ready to let Harry die, a ONE YEAR OLD BOY and the son of the woman he claimed to love. I do not doubt that he loved her, but his love was entirely and completely selfish and none of what he did was for her. He did what he did for himself and to feel better about what he had caused. Snape was not a good person. Snape was bad guy who did the right thing for the wrong reasons. All his life he remained the same bitter bullying douchebag, he bullied kids as a gorwn ass man, he never got over it unlike James.

The point of Snape isn’t “good is not nice”, the point of Snape is “you don’t have to be a good person to do the right thing”. “Good is not nice” is in fact the point of James. Was James an immature “toerag” (as Lily colourfully put it) when he was 15? Sure he was, but his heart was always at the right place which is something we cannot say of Snape. And he grew out of it, which is another thing we cannot say of Snape.

The fact that James bullied Snape isn’t the only thing we know of him. We also know that James welcomed Sirius in his home when the later had nowhere to go, we know that James accepted Remus for who he was and became an Animagus to help him, we know that James befriended three outcasts without caring about how uncool they were, from what family they came from or what disease they had to deal with, we know that James was ALWAYS disgusted with pure blood supremacy as evidenced by his reaction when Snape calls Lily the m-blood in front of him. We know that when Snape was busy joining the Death Eaters fresh out of school, James was joining the Order and fighting against Voldemort from the start (a war that as a pure blood he could have stayed entirely out of). We know he defied Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale, we know that he died throwing himself between Voldemort and his wife and child without even a wand to try to give them time to escape. James was a good person who wasn’t always nice and grew out of his bullying way.

Every characters aside from Snape always describe the Marauders as this generation Fred and George (who by the way also did a number of questionable things, such as shoving Montague in the vanishing cabinet, feeding Dudley their toffees or turning Neville into a bird). Were they always nice? No. Did they bully Snape?  Yes. Where they still good people? Yes. James included.

I am irritated by the vitriol some people sling at Lily Potter. 

Did you all forget to read ‘The Prince’s Tale chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?  Or did you skip these parts:

“… 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?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all —” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny —” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Lily.

“I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.”

He watched as Lily joined the group and went to Snape’s defense. Distantly he heard Snape shout at her in his humiliation and his fury, the unforgivable word: “Mudblood.” The scene changed… . “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. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends — you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?”

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “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?” He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole… .

Lily had defended Severus all throughout their friendship even though she got some hate for it.  She tried to sway him to leave his death eater friends. She tolerated some of his wrong doings and made excuses for them.  She gave him more chances than he ever could hope, more than she gave James Potter and the marauders.

But the difference is, Severus took for granted those chances, took for granted Lily’s friendship and thus cut himself from her.

Doe (Snape and Lily) form strong connections and stay together for long periods of time, and even for life.

Stag, on the other hand, get into (non literal) pissing contests with other stags and compete aggressively and violently for doe, mate for 1-3 days during breeding season while the doe is in heat, and then run off when the doe no longer wants to participate in sexual intercourse, and will run away from or fight the stag when he attempts to breed.

Not enough sand.

Yes, I like the Marauders. Yes, they were bullies and they tormented Snape. Yes, I still like them. Also, I hate Snape for being a nazi and a child abuser. And no, I don't think he has enough charisma for me to like him regardless.

Other immoral characters I like include Lestat, Claudia, Louis, Armand, Daniel, Kaz Brekker, and many others. You know why? Because I don't need my favorite fictional characters to be morally superior, I need them to be interesting.

And I think the Marauders are infinitely more interesting than Snape because I find that Snape is a ill-constructed character who falls under the stereotype of a right-wing incel. I find the writing of him uninspired, morally shallow (written for shock value instead of presenting a real moral challenge) and of poor taste.

I also think that most Snape analysis in his favor are infantalizing, victimizing, dependent on villanizing everyone else, relying on moral relativism, have a terrible habit of denying Snape's agency as an adult and a man, and, to be honest, quite prone to fake progressive views while protecting conservativism and misogynistic thinking.

Also, yes, Snape was a victim to the Marauders. Guess what? That doesn't make him morally superior at all (suffering isn't redemptive) and it sure doesn't make his fans morally superior to Marauders fans.

What I hate, though, is Snape apologists behaving like they need to prove his moral superiority over the other characters instead of just accepting that their fave is a bad person. Worst yet is to see them behaving like they have the moral high ground over Marauder fans because of which character they like.

In GoF:

Ron: Hey Ginny, make you should go with Harry!

Ginny: Nah, I already have a date

In Ootp:

Ginny becomes more confident and calls Harry out on his shit

Ginny has a bf

In HBP:

Ginny has a bf

Harry has sexual dreams about her and fantasizes about her and is jealous of her bf

She breaks up with her bf and HE kisses her

Yet she’s labelled the pick me girl by this fandom 🙄

Meanwhile Snivellus:

obsessed over his ex bff that he called a racial slur

tells Voldy about the prophecy hoping he’ll finally be his special little boy 🥰

finds out the prophecy is about his ex bff and asks dumbledore to save her only, and when he calls him out, he’s like fine save them all

gets his bff and her hubby killed, making her son an orphan

uses the first opportunity when he sees her son to insult him, because how dare he look like his father (who Harry didn’t even know what his father looked like until he turned 11)

spends all of his time finding ways to make hjp life miserable

breaks into his ex bff son’s house, and steals a pic of his ex bff and her signature in a letter that rightfully belonged to her son

has a patronus that’s same as his ex bff meaning he’s been obsessing over a dead women for 16 years

shows memories to her son, to show that everything he did was in the name of love 🤢

asks her son to look him in the eyes before dies (lowkey creepy af)

Yet his love is labelled romantic and so sweet by the same fandom, and they claim Snape is definitely not a pick me boy… 🤯

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!

Just been thinking about Lily Evans, as one does and found myself thinking, that I wanted more from her ending her friendship with Snape and so, this was born. Glad I got this out.

One thing I really wanted to make clear is that Lily isn't completely innocent. She remained friends with Snape despite knowing how he was treating other muggleborns and by god did I want to acknowledge that because as much as I love and worship the goddess that is Lily Evans, I can't help but side-eye her for that. I get not wanting to end a friendship that so very clearly means so much to you but…there are limits and I felt like she allowed him to pass those limits without any hard boundaries. So without anymore fuss, go on and read