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bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove · 6 months

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A Happy Christmas - R.Lupin

Summary - Remus and his wife have a tradition they follow every Christmas Eve, wrap the remainder of their children’s gifts and pull an all-nighter to get some extra alone time together.

Word Count - 821

Warnings - Female Reader, Potter!Reader(No physical description given), use of Y/N, Not sleeping (Let me know if I missed any)

Author's Note - Welcome to day 9 of 25 days of fics! I know that this one is later than usual and I apologize. I'm super sick at the moment with a bad head cold so I'm trying! I hope you enjoy!

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It was Christmas Eve, snow was falling, the fireplace crackling and the children were sleeping. Now Remus never thought he would have a life like this because of his furry little problem but he was happy that he was proven wrong. Y/N Lupin, once Y/N Potter, had been his wife for nearly 10 years, the two of them getting married right after graduating Hogwarts. James was always their biggest advocate and number one supporter no matter what.

They usually spent Christmas together, at James and Lily’s house so the kids could all be together. Being with family was the most important thing to Y/N, she always had someone with her when she was running errands or doing some housework. She was never alone so of course she wanted to spend the holidays surrounded by loved ones. James offered to host because, simply put, his house was bigger and could hold more people easier, thanks to professionally playing quidditch.

All of the adults in the house were still awake, rushing around to get last minute gifts into the house or wrapped up with pretty paper to be put under the tree and torn open a few hours later. James and Lily had just finished up putting Harry’s things under the tree before calling it a night and going to bed themselves. This left Y/N and Remus alone and awake, wrapping the last of their childrens’ gifts.

They could do it with magic but both of them preferred the muggle way, wrapping the gifts by hand. That's why it usually took them twice as long to get everything wrapped and put away. This was their routine every Christmas Eve: wrap the presents together, put them under the tree and spend some quiet time together, knowing everyone was sound asleep.

As they finished putting the gifts under the tree, they took the time to just hold each other and watch the snow fall outside the window, just enjoying each other’s company. Y/N also never thought that she would have a life like she does now, she never thought that Remus reciprocated her feelings. She never thought she was good enough for him but to him, she was more than enough. She was the love of his life, the one person that he would protect with every fiber of his being. Once the kids came along, he knew that he would never give this life up for anything. He would kill for his family, he would sacrifice himself for his family because he knew that they would do the same.

They watched as the sun began to rise, the birds chirping outside, the footsteps of the kids running down the stairs followed by James and Lily’s lazy ones. When James took notice of his sister and his friend, he smiled sleepily knowing exactly what had occurred. “You two never went to sleep, did you?” He asked the pair.

“No, we stayed up watching the snow. Lost track of time. Happy Christmas James,” His sister responded, smiling right back at her big brother.

“Happy Christmas Y/N.”

“Mummy, daddy, can we open our gifts now?” The youngest Lupin boy asked innocently as he hugged her leg.

“Go on then, they aren’t going to open themselves,” Remus teased as he ruffled his son's hair.

With the proper go ahead, the three children tore into their gifts, paper flying all over the place. The parents huddled together, watching the delight in their children’s eyes as they took in all of their new toys and clothes. Little Harry was especially excited to see his very own broom gifted by his aunt Y/N and uncle Moony. This was the life that they wanted to live and enjoyed every second of it.

“Happy Christmas my love,” Remus said quietly to his wife as he handed her a small wrapped box.

“Happy Christmas Remmy,” She replied, handing him his gift. The two of them opened them together as the kids all giggled in the background. Remus had given her a gorgeous necklace that held two interlocking hearts that held their initials. Y/N had given him a new sweater, one he had been eyeing up the last time they went out to the shops together. “There’s something else under the sweater,” She hinted to him.

So he took out the sweater to reveal an ultrasound picture. “You’re kidding? Please tell me this isn’t a joke,” He had a wide smile on his scarred face, excited at the fact that they were bringing another kid into the world.

“It’s not. We’re having another baby!” She exclaimed, James and Lily immediately ending their conversation as they overheard. Remus engulfed his wife into a tight hug, lifting her off of the ground as he laughed happily.

The whole house was overjoyed with the news, everyone smiling big and giving hugs wherever they could. It was a typical Lupin-Potter Christmas.

#remus lupin x reader #remus lupin #james & peter & remus & sirius #moony #moony wormtail padfoot and prongs #james potter #harry potter #prongs #james potter x sister!reader #remus john lupin #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x y/n #marauders #the marauders #marauders era #remus lupin imagine

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rewritingcanon · 9 days

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what do u think of the portrayal of harry and ginny in the cursed child (i feel like it's so out of character, especially for harry) also that he works at the ministry and that ginny gave up her quidditch career (same goes for harry)

alright ive had this in my inbox for so long because i wanted to do this ask justice so i really hope that anon is still around to read this. in saying that harry was ‘out of character’ in hpcc, i assume you’re talking about how he was a bad/flawed father, as MANY fans have argued the same. so i will address that first and then i will talk about ginny and hinny’s careers.

disclaimer: when i say “you” im not talking specifically about anon but about fandom.

harry potter vs fatherhood

harry’s whole life resolved around being the chosen one and the prophesied saviour of the wizarding world. it was either being The Hero or being the unwanted, abused and scorned freak living with the dursleys. when thats your home life, then you tend to cling on to anything that is an escape from that— and in harry’s experience that was hogwarts.

if you really think about it, hogwarts was very nasty to harry as well. he was always getting picked on or bullied or in some life threatening danger that he got blamed for half of the time— but because it was better than living with the dursleys, his mind idolised it as a safe haven.

harry also reflects this idolising behaviour onto parental figures, especially paternal figures. he doesnt actually know his parents, only has an ideal of them in his head that was constructed as a coping mechanism to the abuse and neglect he went through at home. he projects The Perfect Father onto every one of his paternal figures (i think the only exception to this is arthur but i mayyy be wrong)— sirius and dumbledore are the biggest ones that come to mind, even though sirius only knew him for two years, and dumbledore would manipulate and use harry for the betterment of the world, which is unlike a parent who would put their child’s needs first (harry did not recognise these issues at length at the time as he was used to the idea of self sacrifice and probs understood that it came with the territory of being The Hero). harry even projected his father onto himself in PoA and nearly died from it.

in saying this, its reasonable to argue that there’s a disconnect with harry and the idea of what a good father actually is. this is challenged in the books itself (with SWM, harry seeing that james was not the Perfect Man he built up in his head), but this is challenged the most in the cursed child.

throughout the play, harry acts as the personified ideal he grew up with. easygoing, confident, wise— when in reality he is the opposite of those attributes and albus can see right through it (ginny says this to harry in the play, i would find the line but alas, im on the train rn). hes not easygoing or confident— he’s fearful that he doesn’t know what hes doing or how to be a father, and hes scared not knowing makes him a bad father. hes acted out in fear multiple times— the biggest moment is when he bans albus from seeing scorpius to keep him ‘safe.’ he has constant nightmares about his trauma as a child when living with the dursleys and not having the stability or love he craved. his ‘wise’ advice is not applicable to his children because he is harry potter, The Hero, and they are just normal kids. this is why albus and harry get on each others nerves so badly— because they are constantly stomping on each others sore spots by accident. albus doesn’t appreciate the facade that harry tries to uphold, and harry doesn’t understand why— because he’s projecting that ideal onto all of his kids, and if it works for james and lily (presumably), why doesn’t it work for albus? harry would’ve done anything for a father figure like himself!! there must be something wrong with albus!! (🙄)

now The Blanket SceneTM is very controversial and pissed off a lot of longtime fans into denouncing the entire play as canon. ive talked about it at length and since theres more to discuss in this post, i will shorten it down as best i can for you:

as a way of bonding, harry tries to give his precious blanket to albus. he believes albus may be more like him and may be able to understand the sacredness of the present unlike his siblings.

unknowingly, harry is still projecting his ideals onto albus. the blanket is only so extremely precious to him because it represents his parents, who he still views in an idolised light. therefore the blanket is the ideal.

albus scorns this ideal so he scorns the gift. however, because hes a confused and possibly depressed fourteen year old, he doesn’t communicate the rejection of this in a healthy way and basically insults the blanket by calling it old and mouldy and comparing it to james and lily’s presents, which outwardly could make him seem like a brat.

by attacking the blanket, he attacks harry’s parents and the ideal. and harry is very sensitive about this

albus then accidentally triggers very central fears surrounding being an orphan and being a father when he says “i wish you werent my dad”

harrys first thought is that albus wants him dead. at this point, hes stopped listening to albus trying to explain himself as he’s already triggered, so he’s acting in complete defence when he responds “sometimes i wish you werent my son”

this was said with the intention to hurt albus, it was a mindless act with one goal. saying this is out of character for harry is ridiculous, because he’s done the exact same thing in the books multiple times to the people he loves.

another important note: these characters trigger each other accidentally. the intent to connect is there, but there are deep seated issues on harry’s side that was never confronted leading to these issues. and as albus is a young angsty teen who does get bullied and is a little self-centred (again, very normal for a 14yo), he can’t really communicate these issues to harry effectively (harry being dismissive of the bullying (that he believes is normal for hogwarts students) albus goes through doesn’t help the situation either), leaving harry stumbling in the dark and further emboldening that The Perfect Father he imagined as a child may not exist.

ok that wasnt very economical but anyways! those are the issues! what happens next is harry spiralling and confirming those fears, being forced to confront them and deal with them, and then the steps toward healing his relationship with albus.

im not defending how harry treated albus (dismissing his bullying, lashing out, the enmeshment abuse) but offering insight and trying to explain that he was certainly in-character. i think people simply had an emotional reaction to seeing their loved character being very realistically flawed, and decided they didnt like it without doing much analysis as to why harry was acting the way he was. trauma is very complex, and theres no expiry date for it if you simply refuse to confront it or heal.

a lot of harry’s journey with interrogating the Perfect Father concept was to confront and acknowledge his inner child. he has to recognise his childhood for the childhood it was without the flashy titles or impressed ideals. the confrontation with dumbledore is the pinnacle of it— harry idolised dumbledore as a central father figure, and he realised when confronting the portrait that his relationship with dumbledore was much more complex and nuanced than he originally thought. suddenly dumbledore ceases to be an ideal, and harry sees him for the man that he was: conflicted, more uncertain in his own choices than he let on, heartbroken and self-sabotaging.

when harry presents himself at the end of the play to albus, he presents himself as human— an escapist, unsure in his decisions, insecure, and scared of the dark, small spaces and pigeons. and albus appreciates the flawed, real version of harry. those expectations and ideals that albus struggled to uphold in the face of harry’s projecting simply disappear, and he finally feels like he can adequately be harry’s son just by being.

another less obvious moment that shows this, is how harry and delphi mirror each other. delphi is the more extreme version of this— she is completely deluded in her worship for a father she never knew, so desperate for the love and respect shes built up in her mind that she’s dedicated her life to it and feels empty without the ideal to go off of. its why harry defends her when albus asks him why they shouldn’t just kill her— because hes the only one who understands the pain of being an orphan, living in an abusive household, dreams of ‘what ifs’ and what it can do to a person.

whats important to take away is that harry and albus love each other immensely, which is why they are able to turn over a new leaf at the end. it speaks of incredible strength on albus’ half, and i really want to stress that albus LOVES harry, because i see so much content about him straight up butchering or slandering harry when that is sooo not them!! if albus saw the way some of yall were misinterpreting his relationship with his dad he’d be livid. whether or not you would do the same in forgiving harry is irrelevant— albus has always wanted to have a good relationship with harry and the same goes both ways. people hurt each other, sometimes egregiously so, but when one promises change and is serious about it, than chances are there will be change. this is especially so in the case of family.

ginny weasley vs age

what is paradoxical is how self-centred harry is, despite also being very willing to sacrifice himself for other people. albus possesses a self-centredness similar to him. harry is so caught up in his own world and comparing it to albus’ situation, and vice versa. ginny is normally the middle man who can see both harry and albus for what they are and the individual worlds they inhabit, and tries to communicate effectively between them. the play mostly revolves around harry and albus, so what i’ll have to say for her will not be as in-depth.

short answer: ginny matured with age. she is probably the most mature character alongside draco, although draco does let his emotions get in the way at times (funnily enough i think this is why ginny and draco get along so well in the cursed child and are able to recognise each other for who they are). she was very brash and courageous and wonderfully chaotic in the books, but she was also blunt and impatient, which is not something thats presented in the cursed child. instead, she is VERY patient and communicates extremely well, being able to navigate both harry and albus without prodding their weak spots like they do to each other.

she offers her own experiences to albus as her own experiences, not projecting them onto him as an unequivocal truth. this can be seen in how she opens up to him about how she was exploited by tom riddle, and she lets albus draw his own comparisons to himself and delphi without pushing his experiences into a box.

her relationship with harry is interesting, because she is the only one who sees him for him and the only one that harry’s not bothered by when she makes honest judgments on his actions. he’s only okay with her seeing him for the flawed man he is. she doesn’t make him feel defensive, nor does she make him feel demonised for not knowing how to parent albus, or for messing up with him (though she does call him out when he is in the wrong, something her younger self would be quick to do too). one of the most heart wrenching scenes is when ginny blows up at harry and really screams at him about albus being missing and him being self-centred about it, making it out to be about himself and his issues surrounding fatherhood. despite this, harry does not get defensive— which shows that he trusts even her negative judgments of him because she knows him so well (very very similar to the library scene with scorpius screaming at albus over his self-centeredness as well btw).

she still possesses key qualities from her younger self, she’s just ironed out the rougher ones as she’s grown— she’s still impossibly brave, fiercely loyal, extremely devoted to those she loves and also very logical. you can tell harry and albus are more emotional than she is, which is part of the reason why she is able to construct her points so effectively. she puts her logical thinking to good use in emotional situations. i think people are forgetting that people aren’t typically going to be the same as who they were as teenagers.

why has ginny been able to grow so much in comparison to harry? because she’s recognised what she went through as a teenager and made peace with it. you can see it in the way she freely offers her own experiences about it. she’s been able to build on top of what she went through in a healthy way, and was able to experience real, healthy change. and she is so much wiser and kinder for it.

hinny vs their careers

first i’ll talk about harry because i think i have more stuff to go off of with him.

we’ve already established that hes The Hero first and foremost. after he fulfilled the prophecy and saved the world i dont think its such a stretch to argue that he may have needed another similar purpose to latch onto, and that being an auror granted him that. quidditch was fun for him, but it couldn’t give him the same purchase that being an auror could. heroes dont play quidditch, they save the world. the same could be said for neville and ron, who were also aurors at first. was it the healthiest road to go down for harry? i dont think so, but considering his characterisation in the cursed child, i think it works. ron ended up quitting to be a father, neville ended up quitting to focus on his real passion (herbology), and harry continued to cling onto The Hero image he’s used to presenting. yes, the ministry was impossibly corrupt and worked against him in his youth, but to harry that could’ve served as more of a reason to change the institution from the inside. this, i imagine, was most definitely the case with hermione, who was always an idealist.

that being said, i don’t think continuing being an auror is such a great idea post-hpcc. he at least needs a break in order to continue his job in a healthy manner and not misconstrue his identity with it.

in terms of ginny, i don’t believe she’d still be playing quidditch in her 40s. if you think about real athletes, very few of them continue playing professionally in their 40s (i think the average age is 34 but i may be wrong), especially after birthing three kids. we dont know much about her retirement, but there are many reasons one can assume ginny retired for, kids and/or age being the most reasonable deduction. its not so much a question of characterisation but more about the reality of having to give up your passion earlier than most if its sports.

despite retiring, its clear ginny is still very passionate about quidditch as shes still working within the field, just not playing the sport professionally anymore.

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1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam · 9 months

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Imagine being such close besties with someone that your entire world knows about it. Just. Sirius Black and James Potter being so close that literally nobody questions that Sirius was the Potters’ Secret Keeper, even when he immediately went after Peter in a very public way, instead of laying low like any sane person would do after they were just revealed a traitor and their precious Lord died (although, they did think Sirius went mad, so it makes sense in a way). But of everyone in the Order, no one once questioned the Potters making Sirius their Secret Keeper, despite his prejudiced family, despite the Prank, despite any number of ways in which Sirius wasn’t perfect. Everyone in the Wizarding World still saw Sirius and James, and thought, “yeah, there’s no way it was anyone else, even if the betrayal makes their friendship seem so much less deep”. There was no reason for Remus to question it because he watched James and Sirius be the best of friends for a decade, he knew Sirius was Harry’s godfather, he knew James would have trusted no one more, that Lily loved Sirius and thought the world of him. There really was no other choice for the Potters, to anyone.

Which makes Peter being Secret Keeper that much more awful because it was such a genius move! Sirius was actually so smart to try this twist, to suggest making Peter the Secret Keeper. He knew everyone knew how close him and James were, how close he’d always been to the Potter family, he knew they’d come after him and Sirius would’ve DIED rather than betray his friends, his godson. He would’ve died to protect Peter too, so that nobody would know who the Secret Keeper really was. There was no reason to suspect Peter when there was Sirius Black, known Death Eater hater and unendingly loyal to his friends, RIGHT THERE. If Sirius really HAD died, he would’ve gone out thinking his friends would still be safe bc once Voldemort discovered he wasn’t the Secret Keeper, it would’ve jumped to Remus or even an older Light member like Moody or Dumbledore. Sirius damned himself knowingly, before ever finding out that Peter had gotten the Potters killed.

Sometimes I think about how Sirius managed to convince James and Lily to use Peter instead of him. They both must’ve known that Sirius would be killed immediately once it was determined that he didn’t know the Secret, so Sirius must have used Harry against them, said that they needed to do ANYTHING to keep their little boy safe, even if it meant Sirius offering himself up as a target, a sacrifice for their safety. Sirius must have thought he was so smart, because he found a way to keep his friends and godson safe, even though he wasn’t the Secret Keeper, and he didn’t put them at risk by trusting “potential spy: Remus Lupin”. He must have argued with James and Lily for ages about it, convincing them that it was the right decision, some misdirection to keep them safer for longer, another line of defense between their little Harry and the monster who wanted to destroy him.

It’s already wild to me that Sirius even held enough power/voice in this discussion to even suggest Peter as Secret Keeper. Like, the level of trust James and Lily must’ve had in him, to entrust their lives AND their son’s in Sirius’ plan? Nobody can ever say that Sirius wasn’t loved and trusted to the ends of the earth by James and Lily. They wanted HIM because there was nobody they trusted more, even with how reckless Sirius is shown to be, even years later. Trying to imagine Sirius in Azkaban all those years, knowing he basically handed his best friends over to Voldemort with that plan? Hell on earth, literally. He speaks on it maybe once to Harry in the entirety of the series, and it’s so clear that he is completely derisive about the plan. He despises the fact that it was his plan that got his best friends killed, that caused Harry to lose his parents. He blames himself (and Peter), but he had over a decade to sit in prison and think about the what ifs of that plan, to remember that it was his idea that killed James and Lily.

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morsmordream · 10 months

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my random HP family headcanons that i firmly stand by

(not canon compliant)

creature blood was remarkably common in the older family lines that existed before modern-day laws. it is rather rare that these families produce true creatures themselves, even half-blooded creatures, but the blood can often manifest into family gifts. for example, creature blood is how the slytherin line have their ability to speak parseltongue.

the black family are world-renowned in various fields. they’ve produced countless scholars, and some of the finest duellists of each generation. but the family specialty, that everyone learns, is curse-breaking and it’s inverse. there’s a terrible item in the family vault that could kill you if you touch it? contact the blacks. you need an object enchanted to persuade someone into supporting a wizengamot bill? contact the blacks. expensive as their services may be, it’s always worth the money. customer satisfaction guaranteed.

the black family have held their reputation for dabbling in the darkest of arts, even black magic, since their very beginning. their family name comes from their reputation of practicing black magic. this is separate from dark magic, and is a dead art today. whilst books exist in the darkest corners of very few family’s vaults and libraries, the sacrifices required have deterred anyone who picked them up for centuries. a branch of black magic involves the summoning of beings from beyond our world, ‘demons’ as they are often referred to. the summoning of a shape-shifting demon, and subsequent procreation with, is a potential reason why only the black family have metamorphmagi in britain today- though this claim is unproven, and no longer proudly claimed by the family itself.

the malfoys have veela blood, especially these days. it was a rather scandalous affair when abraxas malfoy married a french witch, amelie bonnacord, who had been adopted into a notable pureblood family and happened to be a veela. the malfoys already had distant veela ancestry, making abraxas resistant to the veela allure. their children, lucius and lydia malfoy, were therefore half veela, and her grandchildren, including draco malfoy, a quarter veela. the veela allure seemed to work differently with men, and little was known about it as men born to those with veela blood was rare. the malfoys spend most holiday seasons in france, visiting family, and all speak fluent french.

the potter family never have been, and never should be seen as, a sparkling beacon for light magic. as necromancers by blood, no matter how much time passes since their amalgamation with the peverells, they naturally lean towards darker magic to facilitate practicing the art. not every potter has dabbled in their family gift, it’s not a requirement, but the ancient books in the family vault cannot be destroyed and will always return to the vault after a necromancer passes.

a few centuries into the past, the potter family migrated to india before a couple of branches returned to britain in the early 20th century. fleamont potter and his cousin, charlus potter, were the first potters to be born on british soil for centuries. fleamont potter married euphemia patil, a half-indian british witch, and had james potter. james potter, upon marrying lily evans, had harry potter- who was half indian.

the lupin family have a long history of naturally born werewolves, hence their family name. as time went on, and laws changed, werewolves born into the family would assimilate into packs instead of living as wizards with a dark secret. with time, fewer and fewer werewolves were born into the family, and the werewolf blood appeared dormant. remus lupin became a werewolf through an attack from fenrir greyback- the first werewolf in the family in several generations. his condition did not pass onto his son, but it is possible that remus being a werewolf may awaken the possibility of future werewolves in the lupin line in generations to come.

the weasleys hail from an old irish clan, one which they no longer practice the traditions and magic of- deeming them outdated in an age where they are deemed ‘blood traitors’ for their love and acceptance of muggleborns. the family magic is largely based around the elements, and is only really practiced by bill and charlie- though fred and george dabble in it from time to time. due to turning their backs on tradition, the weasley manor wards refused to grant entry to those in the family who did not practice their family magics- which is why they live in the burrow instead.

the weasleys fall from grace is infamous in pureblood circles. before the first war, they were actually a rather wealthy family. arthur weasley’s auror wage was enough to live off with two less children, and their vault was plentiful. molly added to their income by authoring books on household charms and tutoring pureblood daughters in etiquette. unfortunately, molly encouraged arthur to funnel money into the order of the phoenix to help with the war- they were not active participants, rather financial backers. by the war’s end, the family vault had been halved, they had two more children, and molly had quit authoring books to raise the children. she soon quit tutoring too, turning her back on other pureblood families due to her paranoia that anyone who hadn’t aided the order in the war were all dark and thus contributed somehow to her brothers deaths. soon after, arthur left the aurors and moved to head the misuse of muggle artifices office at molly’s insistence, due to her persistent paranoia- this time that something horrible would befall him as an auror. this caused another significant drop in the family’s finances, gaining them their reputation of being a poor family with more children than they can clothe.

the nott family are descended from viking clansmen in norway, and the majority of the family are still based there today. they’re very proud of this heritage, and every child born into the family is trained extensively in hand to hand combat from a young age. the nott family additional pre-schooling education also includes the language of old norse, nordic history, ancient runes, and runic magic. the england-based branch of the family add norwegian on to this as well.

the gaunt line, and subsequently the slytherin line, are only extinct in britain (the cursed child is not canon to me idc about delphini). a branch of the family, descended from one ominis gaunt, live on in france and have long abandoned their practices of inbreeding. the branch or branches of the family that remained on british soil rapidly squandered all that remained in their vaults by the turn of the 20th century, leading the family to financial and societal ruin with only their heritage and a few heirlooms remaining intact.

the lovegood family are rather notable as one of the few remaining seer lines in britain. pandora lovegood, upon marrying xenophilius ollivander, found her own seer ability passed down to her daughter luna. many overlook their seer lineage and focus more on the family’s eccentricity, forgetting that true seers rarely speak in plain language- they cannot always just speak the truth of what their visions show them, they must relay what they have seen in a way that makes others search for the answer. it’s not that hard to understand when you actually try it.

#harry potter #hp fandom #hp headcanon #dark harry potter #hp drabble #harry potter headcanon #harry potter drabble #harry potter fandom #the ancient and most noble house of black #draco malfoy #luna lovegood #house of gaunt #weasley family #remus lupin #theodore nott

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hollowed-theory-hall · 1 month

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How does the protection magic that Lily's sacrifice placed on Harry work? On that note- how do the blood wards placed on the Dursley household operate?

Like- does the latter act as a notice me not/ fidelius of its own? Protecting Harry's location from other magicals? (It would have been easy for another Longbottom tragedy to occur after all) from what I remember the blood wards have no affect on the protection cast by Lily's sacrifice, and instead sort of extend the effect to the household???

Also on the topic of the protection- we saw the end Quirrel met. And... I just wondered- why didn't this sort of reaction extend to all the people - the Dursleys included- who laid their hands + spells on Harry with the intent to harm? By all means the blood wards should have fallen the moment The Dursleys tried to physically harm Harry. Can't see a protection powered by Lily's intent, extending to people who mean her son harm.

Unless of course the magic and the wards are targetted at Riddle specifically. Which brings the question- why didn't it set on fire/ harm anything considering even the traces of Riddle's presence/ influence. Eg. The people with the death Eater brands, the horcruxes, the soul shard inside Harry himself??

Ugh. Just so many questions.

Ps. Could the blood wards have been transferred/ worked in a residence comprising of the people Harry considered as his family and who reciprocated this sentiment? (based on the importance of intent to keep the spell going)

Wow, @ana-lyz, just like with the veil and death asks, I just started drafting a post about Lily's blood protections and what Dumbledore says about them. So...

Lily's Love Protection and Dumbledore's Blood Wards

Alright, strap in...

Okay, so let's start by seeing what we're told about the blood protections and whether we can gather something cohesive that makes magical sense out of it.

We have Voldemort's statement on this piece of magic:

“...I wanted Harry Potter’s blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago . . . for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too. . . . “But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy’s future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy’s protection as long as he is in his relations’ care. Not even I can touch him there. . . .

(GoF, 657)

Notice there is the lingering protection from Lily's magic and the ancient magic Dumbledore invoked. These are, I believe separate spells.

Dumbledore's statements:

“But why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?” “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”

(PS, 215)

“But I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated — to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative.” “She doesn’t love me,” said Harry at once. “She doesn’t give a damn —” “But she took you,” Dumbledore cut across him. “She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you.” “I still don’t —” “While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years.”

(OotP, 835-836)

Here again, Dumbledore mentions the ancient magic he made the decision to protect Harry with as a separate thing from the lingering protection from Lily.

And (as per this post) the Dumbledore Harry hallucinates statement:

“He took my blood.” said Harry. “Precisely!” said Dumbledore. “He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily’s protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!”

(DH, 598)

And then we have what happened to Quirrell:

Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face — “AAAARGH!” Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain — his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him from doing a curse. Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off — the pain in Harry’s head was building — he couldn’t see — he could only hear Quirrell’s terrible shrieks and Voldemort’s yells of, “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!”

(PS, 212)

What we know from this

Well, from the above quotes we can divide the magical protections on Harry into 2 different spells as I mentioned above:

Lily's sacrificial love protection - the intention magic Lily cast by protecting her son. This is the magic that blocked the Killing Curse and killed Quirrell.

Dumbledore's blood ward - this is the spell Dumbledore cast that (supposedly) protects Harry in his relatives' home. Voldemort says Dumbledore invoked this magic, and Dumbledore also mentions it's a ward he left that built upon Lily's protection, but it's not a spell Lily left.

So, what can Lil'y Sacrificial Love Protection do:

Makes the Killing Curse not kill Harry.

Returns the Killing Curse back to the sender.

Continues to hurt that initial "sender" whenever he tries to kill Harry.

What about Dumbledore's Blood Wards what do they do:

Nothing.

Dumbledore and Voldemort say this magic exists but it never does anything. We never see it active, it never protects Harry from anyone, neither his relatives nor Death Eaters. So, we don't know what it's supposed to be doing since it doesn't do anything in the books.

Voldemort says it won't allow him to touch Harry in his relatives' house.

How I think these spells actually work

I'll start with Dumbledore's Blood Wards:

I simply don't think this ward actually exists.

Dumbledore isn't very consistent with how this protection works. He says Harry needs to return for a bit to live with Petunia for the magic to work, but if that's all the requirement, why long weeks? Couldn't he return for a shorter time? And each year he spends a different amount of time at Private Drive? Couldn't he always be sent back just for the minimal required time? At first, the ward was about love but then it isn't, he says this: "While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort."

Harry didn't think of Private Drive as a home:

Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he’d already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than Privet Drive ever had.

(PS, 123)

“I believe he had several reasons, though he confided none of them to Professor Dippet,” said Dumbledore. “Firstly, and very importantly, Voldemort was, I believe, more attached to this school than he has ever been to a person. Hogwarts was where he had been happiest; the first and only place he had felt at home.” Harry felt slightly uncomfortable at these words, for this was exactly how he felt about Hogwarts too.

(HBP, 431)

Harry never considered Private Drive and the Dursleys his home. Hogwarts was his first home.

If there is no love and it isn't a home, even if Dumbledore did cast a blood ward based on Petunia and Lily's sacrifice it won't actually be active. But personally, I don't think this ward actually exists.

Dumbledore needs a reason to keep Harry with his relatives.

Dumbledore needs Harry malleable, low on self-esteem, and lacking in a support network. Because he knew since October 1981 (but probably before) that he'd likely need Harry to die. He suspected Harry was a Horcrux from practically day 1:

Under a tuft of jetblack hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. “Is that where —?” whispered Professor McGonagall. “Yes,” said Dumbledore. “He’ll have that scar forever.” “Couldn’t you do something about it, Dumbledore?” “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in handy...

(PS, 13-14)

And being raised by the Dursleys ensured that when the time came, when Dumbledore needed Harry to die to destroy Voldemort, Harry would be willing. Because Harry would not put much worth in his own life. Because of that, I think it's not outside the realm of possibility Dumbledore would lie about this ward to have an excuse to keep sending Harry to the Dursleys.

(Sure, Dumbledore would've preferred not to kill Harry if it could be avoided, but he had been preparing for the situation since October 1981)

It's not like he did anything to better their treatment of Harry until book 6, when he needed Harry to start trusting him more...

And like I mentioned above, even if the ward was there, it would not be active because Private Drive was never a home for Harry. And after year 4, when Voldemort took his blood, any protection from any blood-related magic would be moot. Because Voldemort would not be counted as a threat by the ward.

So Dumbledore sending Harry back to the Dursleys after he knew the wards he left (if they were there at all) were gone, proves to me Harry's placement at the Dursleys was never about the wards to begin with. Because if the blood wards are gone, literally anywhere else around wizards who could protect Harry would be safer than at the Dursleys, even when thinking of Death Eaters and Voldemort as the only threat. If they came to find Harry at Private Drive, nothing would've stopped them (except Harry himself).

I could guess wards like this, if they actually were active, would have been an extension of Lily's protection and stopped Voldemrot from being able to enter the Dursleys' residence. From what's said, it seems this ward seems to target Voldemrot specifically, and no one else. But, as I mentioned, I don't think it's really there.

Lil'y Sacrificial Love Protection:

I mentioned in the past how intention and emotion mean a lot for magic in the HP universe. Lily, a witch who we are told repeatedly was powerful, intelligent, and talented, could very well cast a powerful protection out of her love and intention to protect her son. That is 100% possible with what we see magic is capable of and how magic seems to work.

That being said, the fact this never happened before suggests to me Lily did something different than just having a very strong wish for her son to survive. Dumbledore says it's because she had a choice, and in a way it is, but not because Voldemort gave her the option not to die, but because she chose to die instead of Harry.

I'll try to explain it, bear with me.

“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, 297)

This is the "spell" Lily casts — the incantation. This is her wish moments before her death: "Not Harry, kill me instead," that's what she says, that's her promise, that's her wish, that's the magic.

Lily's protection only works on Voldemort because her spell essentially made a bargain with Voldemort (that he didn't agree to). that he'd kill her instead of Harry. Once he killed Lily, he couldn't kill Harry because that was the protection she left him, and Voldemort won't be able to kill him because she died in his stead.

That's why we don't see the same thing happen after James dies to buy Lily and Harry time, why when others die to protect someone they aren't protected from the killing curse. What Lily did is a combination of a few extraordinary circumstances coming together:

She's an incredibly powerful witch (shown by her childhood magic that was very controlled and advanced (not unlike Tom Riddle) and Slughorn's boasting)

She loved Harry dearly. Loved him enough to power an accidental spell.

Chose and intended to die instead of her son. She had intent when making her plea, intent required for any spell.

So what essentially happened is that Lily created a situation where Voldemort physically can't kill Harry because Lily died in his stead. If, for example, Quirrell touched Harry without intending to kill him (like he did when they shook hands in Diagon Alley or when he pulled Harry to stand in front of the mirror) the protection won't activate. All it does is stop Voldemort from killing Harry because he already killed Lily in Harry's stead.

So, Voldemort, as I mentioned in the past, wants to kill Harry, this is his only ambition in the 2nd war. So he takes Harry's blood into himself so the protection won't work anymore. And we see it doesn't in the woods when Voldemort casts the killing curse and it doesn't rebound back on him (which would've happened otherwise).

This love protection from Lily doesn't require anything to stay active. It was cast because Voldemort killed her and Harry doesn't need to do anything to keep it active. Staying with the Dursleys wasn't for the sake of Lily's spell but for Dumbledore's ward.

As for Lily's spell not protecting Hary from anything else, like I mentioned, the bargain was that Voldemort would kill her instead of Harry, it would only protect Harry from being killed by Voldemort. If Voldemort just asked a random Death Eater to kill Harry it still wouldn't have worked, but that won't be because of Lily's love magic, but because of Harry pretty much always being the Master of Death.

Basically, Voldemort was doomed because he had no chance of killing Harry. Ever.

But what about when Harry died in book 7 and said he cast the same sacrificial love?

Well, I don't think Harry cast the same sacrificial love. His feelings and intentions were completely different. In his case, I think he just took the mastership of the Elder Wand so it wasn't performing as well for Voldemort afterward.

Conclusions

There are actually two different and distinct spells referred to by the characters when it comes to the protections Lily left for Harry.

The first is Lily's Sacrificial Love Spell which worked like a bargain. She pleaded with Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry and after he killed her, he could no longer kill Harry because he was protected.

Voldemort taking Harry's blood does indeed circumvent this spell and allows him to kill Harry in the woods (if temporarily).

The second is the Blood Ward Dumbledore talks about that is supposedly placed on the Dursleys' home. This spell was invoked by Dumbledore and is not part of Lily's spell.

It's supposed to build on and strengthen Lily's protection from what's implied.

this second spell would've stopped its activity the moment Harry stopped considering number 4, Private Drive his home (which happened quite young, as he doesn't remember ever considering it a home)

Personally, I don't think this blood ward ever existed, but even if it did, it was moot from the get-go and never done anything.

Voldemort taking Harry's blood in year 4, circumvented this ward too.

Basically, Dumbledore kept Harry at the Durselys less because of the wards and more because it suited him to ensure Harry would become the martyr he needed him to be (something I should write a full post about eventually).

#harry potter #hp #asks #ana-lyz #harry james potter #lily potter #harry potter meta #hp meta #hollowedtheory #albus dumbledore #lily evans

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florsial · 3 months

Text

It's been a while since I looked at flowers so here are Marauders era characters as plants:

James Potter: Sunflowers since he's commonly associated with the sun. Or delphinium for positivity and a big heart!

Sirius Black: Ivy, the common ivy, or English or European ivy. It's a symbol of loyalty and fidelity. Fits enough for me.

Remus Lupin: Wolfsbane. Believed to repel werewolves, and it's used in a potion in the Wizarding World. But if we want a less angsty plant there is also the tropical white morning glory. It's also known as a moonflower and symbolizes the ability of beauty to emerge in dark times, and is used to provide hope.

Peter Pettigrew: Burgundy dahlias for betrayal, for obvious reasons. But also purple hyacinths for a desire for forgiveness. Cuz I'm hell bent that Peter was regretful of what he did in canon

Lily Evans: I'm not gonna give her lily, that seems a little too obvious lol but, peonies! They symbolize love, honor, happiness wealth, romance, and beauty. Which yk, works well in my eyes

Mary Macdonald: Poppies for remembrance of the death and consolation. It's based on the headcanon she obliviated herself sometime before to during the first wizarding war because everything was getting too much for her. Also, poppies are used to create opium, which relieves pain. It's pretty sad ngl, that hc always gets me.

Marlene McKinnon: King Protea, it's very sharp-looking flower that symbolizes strength and resilience. Not much info is given about Marlene during the war except her entire family was wiped out, but given her personality in fanon. I imagine she put up a hella good fight. I would give this to Dorcas but I have another one for her.

Slytherins! (Including Pandora!)

Regulus Black: Thorns! Rose thorns mostly, but just thorns in general. From what I read, rose thorns show adversity and sacrifice. Regulus had the misfortune of being born into a family with shit views and never having a morally correct input his entire life and he basically sacrificed his life to bring down the Dark Lord. Thorns are always ways for a plant to deter herbivores from eating them, take that as you will!

Barty Crouch Jr: Bleeding hearts, cuz yeahhhh, everlasting love? Unrequited love?? Tragedy compacted into one. His daddy issues too?? Him pleading for his dad to love him?? HIS MOTHER GIVING UP HER LAST MOMENTS FOR HIM??? EVAN AND REGULUS???? CMON CMONNNNN

Evan Rosier: Venus Fly Trap for persistence. This man was not willing to end up in Azkaban and took Moody's fucking nose with him. Venus fly traps are also known to die right after digestion aka eating a fly so it fits! (I LOVEEE carnivorous plants)

Dorcas Meadows: Laurel leaves for victory and achievement. Specifically, laurel leaves in a wreath. I think it's neat since she was powerful enough that Voldemort had to kill her himself. Mf was takin them out one by one until Voldy decided she was too op. LOVE HER FOR THAT

Pandora Rosier: Not the most hottest flower (lol), but the amaranth, while it could also mean everlasting last love, but it also means hopelessness or hopeless love. This only really works if you see Pandora as a seer. Something I think is interesting is the fact that fate is fate, it's sealed and final, and there is never a way around it. If you try to get around fate, you walk right into it because you never a chance. Pandora as a seer would've saw her friends and classmates dying and can't do anything about it because fate is sealed from the very beginning. It's hopeless.

#marauders era #marauders #regulus black #james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #barty crouch junior #evan rosier #pandora rosier #lily evans #mary macdonald #marlene mckinnon #dorcas meadowes #the marauders era #the marauders #flowers #dead gay wizards #dead wizards from the 70s

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momo-t-daye · 7 months

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"Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget it must be taken under conditions of need and valor-" the portrait recited, an echo of Albus Dumbledore, a recording unspooling predetermined plans. It wasn't Albus Dumbledore, it was paint and canvas and curated memories and trained habits, it was a simulacrum that could only ever offer false connection and empty comfort.

Minerva thought it was a mockery of remembrance, hanging the portrait of Albus behind the desk Albus had once occupied. She had refused to enter the Headmaster's office a second time as staunchly as she refused to look at Severus with anything but hatred now. It was torture. Every parroted guile and canned expression of concern and impersonation of Albus' intelligence was another knife twist in the knot of grief and guilt that had replaced his heart in the last terrible year.

It was continuing on, another reminder that Severus mustn't let Potter see him, mustn't let Lily's son know of Severus' allegiance lest the child become a liability before he could be a sacrifice.

"I know," Severus said, curt, hoping to skip past the pre-recorded reminders of all the promises he'd given to a dead man.

He didn't need the portrait to press a hand against some invisible wall as though it wanted to reach him, he didn't need it to make that expression of determined concern Albus used to make when Severus had marched off to another terrible meeting with the Dark Lord for the sake of the Order and keeping the boy alive and as safe as they could.

Yet despite the mimicry of care, it wouldn't even tell him why he had to get the sword into Potter's possession; perhaps Albus hadn't trusted his own portrait enough to imbue it with that knowledge even as he had trusted it to continue to haunt Severus.

It was a ridiculous dedication to his little mind games, like that note on the inside of the firewhiskey label, as if Albus had feared that, left to his own devices, Severus might go and haunt himself off Dumbledore's plotted path with grief over his own wasted loyalty and rage at the fate sewn under Harry Potter's skin and memories of his once best friend. As if Severus wasn't an expert at closing his mind and shuttering his heart and ignoring furious wailing of his own ghosts.

The portrait was still talking, another formulaic warning to take caution while accomplishing Albus Dumbledore's plans.

"Don't worry, Dumbledore," Severus said, speaking more to himself, his disappointed devastated selves, than the portrait, "I have a plan..."

For Unofficial Snapetober 2023 prompts "Ghost" and "Remembrance" The idea of haunting ones own self/of seeing the ghost of your past self seemed like it would be suitable for Severus- Sev is different from Severus is different from Snape is different from Professor Snape etc. etc., right? I mostly work with traditional media and do a little bit of digital tidying up to try to get the colors on the screen to look like the colors on paper, but I had a bit of fun figuring out how to put the ghosts of past Snapes (young Sev, Teen Sev, and Professor Snape) haunting Headmaster Snape into the picture. I painted each of the ghosts separately- in dark orange over black inked lines- and then inverted the colors once it was scanned and put those as semi-transparent layers on top of the separate painting of Headmaster!Snape in Dumbledore's office (...I am not very good at drawing backgrounds inside of a building where furniture and walls have too many straight lines, let's just put the characters in the woods with trees and lots of nice wavy wobbly lines...). Also! Have you all read "Stronger than a Butterbeer" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786743)? It's such a precise gut-punch of "the absence of Severus" that haunts me so I just had to make a reference to it.

#Severus Snape #Snapetober 2023 #Albus Dumbledore #Headmaster Snape #ficlet #my art

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saintsenara · 8 months

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12, 14, 16, and 22 for Snape asks please

I am most interested in your view of Lily as a character. To me, she never really seemed to live up to the hype I see? Like, I get the point that she's supposed to be Harry's mother and is supposed to be seen as the one who can't do any harm because of the sacrifice and all that. But I don't know whether JK purposely or intentionally put, like, the worst flashbacks to portray her as angelic(?). If I remember correctly, she wasn't even talked about as much as James by Remus or Sirius, they had to add things about her in the movies.

I can't ever see Lily as a good friend to Severus. To others, maybe, but I feel like it was different with Severus. More like a complicated one that was give-and-take, including Severus. Severus, an abused poor boy from Cokeworth, who knew about the wizarding world and Lily, a girl brought up in a happy family, who knew nothing about the wizarding world. Severus was able to get a friend while Lily gained knowledge of the wizarding world. But the one thing that cements this view of mine is the line where it says that Lily looks as if she was about to smile when Severus was being flipped over. Plus, I don't care if anyone says that she tried to defend him, but girl couldn't even use her wand or take points off as Prefect?? Girl was literally making a show, or whatever you want to call it.

Sorry about the rant, but I'm all for a good friend Lily in fics but when people say she was like that in canon? Maybe at times, but not when it mattered. I'd love to hear your opinion though.

thank you for the ask, @be-at-peace05!

[snape ask game here]

12. if you had to choose a golden trio era student to be snape's friend, who would it be and why?

while i don’t subscribe to the idea that he’s his godson, snape’s affection for draco malfoy does seem to be completely sincere. malfoy is also possessed of the sort of intellectual curiosity which snape obviously values (for example, how he figures out how to repair the vanishing cabinet - it’s genuinely impressive, and the fact that this is what he might be doing is certainly something which doesn’t occur to anyone in the order) and, while there’s no doubt that snape probably has as little interest in hearing him whine about everything as lucius does, i can see them having some genuinely fulfilling chats about potions. after all, malfoy gets an outstanding at owl, he must be good at the subject and he does seem to be interested in it.

14. what do you think is snape's favourite potion to prepare?

veritaserum. you just know he was chuckling to himself the whole time he was whipping that fake batch up for umbridge.

16. were you ever a snater? how and when did you become a snover?

i’m also extremely theatrical and fond of chemistry, so snape was always my boy.

i’m also capable of understanding the genre conventions which govern children’s literature and which require him to act as he does, so even when he was being a cock to various children we were chill.

22. do you think that lily was a good friend to snape?

well… this is the big one.

and the answer is no - but.

i always think it’s worth, before discussing lily, doing some quick acknowledgement of her narrative role in the story, which is a major contributing factor to why she feels a bit of a flop in person compared to the way she’s built up by other characters.

lily’s characterisation in canon is primarily hamstrung by two things. the first, as you note, is that her sacrificial role within the story requires a certain degree of perfection - not least because the harry potter series borrows heavily from the genre conventions of christian literature. lily is the analogy for the virgin mary - as we see when her purity of spirit succeeds in inflicting the first defeat on the satan-coded voldemort which will then be fulfilled by harry-as-the-resurrected-christ in the final stages of deathly hallows. obviously, a marian symbol is denied the complexity of other women - and that’s without even getting into the fact that the series has an extremely limited view of what ‘good’ motherhood is.

the second issue is that the text needs to keep lily’s centrality to the mystery hidden for as long as possible, not least because it needs to obscure snape’s true loyalties - and the role lily played in triggering them - until the very end of the seven-book series. this is the reason why sirius and lupin only speak about her once (after harry sees snape’s worst memory - and, even then, they’re mostly talking about james) and why harry’s self-conception is rooted entirely in his father - or in characters like sirius who are stand-ins for james - until half-blood prince, when the narrative begins to suggest that his mother is much more important than harry has previously given her credit for.

[the best way to illustrate this is to note that harry doesn’t give a shit in order of the phoenix that snape calls his mother a mudblood. his primary concern is that his father was a bully and that sirius aided and abetted him - when he thinks about lily, his concern is only that she doesn’t seem to like james, and his worry that his father forced her into a relationship. he doesn’t raise the fact that snape called lily a mudblood with sirius and lupin, and he doesn’t mention it to anyone else. but he cares - viscerally - about the slur at the end of half-blood prince, once the narrative is explicitly trying to convince the reader that snape is an unambiguous villain.]

these narrative necessities are a heavy burden for the canonical lily - and so i think she deserves some grace when it comes to how we analyse her behaviour in the snapshots of her as a real person we get in canon.

because of course she’s not perfect. why should she be? teenage girls are allowed to be less than flawless people - even towards their best friends.

[as an aside here, i think we have to be very careful - in our reading and our writing - not to replicate the contempt that jkr has for women who don’t fit her narrow view of ideal female behaviour. jkr loathes bitchy, girly, flighty, butch, rude, vapid, ugly women - just look at anything she’s ever said about pansy parkinson - and she tends to write her heroines - ginny and hermione chief among them - as that perfect not-like-other-girls storm of exactly pretty and clever and popular and brave enough to be worthy, but not so pretty as to be vain or clever as to be haughty or popular as to be slutty or brave as to be villainous. lily gets this treatment - and i think this drives the tendency of readers who dislike the way she behaves in canon to be hyper-critical of her characterisation. but the issue with this is that it’s also confining ‘good’ women to narrow boxes - while, all too often, allowing male characters a complexity their female counterparts are not permitted.]

which is to say: no, lily isn’t a good friend to snape. but he’s not a good friend to her either.

the issue that the two of them have is that they each relate to the other as though the other is the version of them that they’ve constructed in their head. they never take each other as they actually are.

it’s clear in canon that lily never moves beyond seeing snape as the child - devoted only to her - whose role was to teach her about the wonderful world of magic, and who acted primarily as a tool of her own self-actualisation. this is the reason why she can’t understand why snape is so concerned about fitting in at hogwarts - above all, why he wants to be friends with mulciber and avery - or why she never realises that he wants to be reassured of her affection for him versus the marauders, or why she doesn’t take what happens to him at the marauders’ hands seriously until she is made a part of it by james, or why she doesn’t understand snape’s relationship to his own social class and its role within slytherin. she simply doesn’t conceive of him as someone who exists for himself or who has a life of his own - he exists for her.

and snape thinks the same - he sees himself as the person who gave lily the wizarding world and, therefore, as the person who gets to dictate how she understands it. this is the reason why he can’t understand why she pushes back on his defence of mulciber’s use of dark magic (since he - in a very voldemort-ish move - clearly thinks that applying boundaries to what magic can and should be studied is gatekeeping), or why she doesn’t agree with him that the death eaters will help him, or why she’s upset when he’s rude to petunia, or why she leans into the performance of class expected from muggleborns (sucking up to slughorn, taking her pureblood husband’s name) in a time of increasing sectarian tension. she exists for him.

this assessment obviously makes them both sound incredibly cruel, but actually this is the way that childhood friendships often go. it’s very easy to see how the fact of being the only two magical children in cokeworth was validating for both snape and lily, and how this formed a tie between them which was very fierce but very brittle - which was never going to do anything other than shatter as they grew older, especially as they became aware of things like social structure, political affiliation, and sexual desire. it’s cruel of lily to laugh at snape’s poverty - absolutely - but it’s also the way that lots of teenagers who haven’t entirely grappled with their own relationship to society behave, and it’s also true that acting up in front of a boy you fancy is a time-honoured tradition which can also cause you to be quite cruel. lily isn’t nice by any means when snape is being attacked by james and sirius, but she doesn’t have to be. she just has to be human.

there are two final points which i think it’s worth being aware of:

the first is that snape evidently stands out as one of the few visibly working-class students in the castle [so much so that i have a meta in my drafts about whether or not hogwarts is a selective school] and the fact that he is obviously targeted for his poverty is cruel, and i understand why it makes many fans want to defend him - particularly given the fandom’s fondness for glorifying aristocracy and wealth.

but lily is also an other in wizarding society. i think it’s often not taken as seriously as it should be by snape fans just how terrified she must have been for her own safety, particularly from the later 1970s onwards, when all the evidence of canon is that voldemort is about to win. the wizarding world is set up to exclude her just as much as it is snape, and while we can and should be critical how her response to his poverty is unfair, we have to do the same for his outright refusal to acknowledge that she is subjected to discrimination on the basis of her blood status.

the second is that we don’t actually know if lily was a prefect - she was head girl, but james managed to become head boy without having been one. the person we do know was a prefect was remus lupin. if we’re criticising anyone for failing to intervene, it should be him.

#snape ask game #severus snape #lily evans #asks answered

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