She didn't choose James over Snape (if you can even decide to love someone) Snape as a love interest, to my knowledge, was never an option. If she hadn't fallen in love with James it doesn't mean she would have ended up with Snape. Snape fans should get over this, it was never a love triangle. As far as I know, I don't know if Rowling made things up outside of the books, I'm honest.

JKR did. [Here you are](http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html) Jaclyn: Did lily ever have feelings back for snape J.K. Rowling: Yes. She might even have grown to love him romantically (she certainly loved him as a friend) if he had not loved Dark Magic so much, and been drawn to such loathesome people and acts. As usual, it's more complicated than it looks, sorry...

yeah, once again it has nothing to do with james and everything to do with snapes own actions. he could have been with lily but choose dark magic and blood supremacists over her

For some reason, I knew JKR said something off the books. I will ignore how I ignored The Cursed Child and all of Rowling's other statements, such as the lycanthropy metaphor for AIDS

When did she say lycanthropy was a metaphor for AIDS?

I don't have the origin of the quote, but these are her words: > “Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.”

I'm relieved to see that didn't go the way I thought it was, though the metaphor is a bit problematic the more I think about it.

I mean , her stated intent IS true. When AIDS came out in the 80s there were extreme overreactions , superstitions , other crazy reactions. Still are , in some places in Africa.

I remember there was the news many years ago, then perhaps half denied by Rowling herself. It wasn't my intention to focus on the metaphor itself, but on the fact that Rowling outside the books... said things

I think it’s still on the Wizarding World website somewhere or as an archive, found it a couple weeks ago when looking for information about wizards and cancer for an RP I’m doing

Why does this bother you so badly lol. It’s normal for teenagers in puberty to have brief interests that quickly fizzle out (especially ones that are cringe and embarrassing), and she didn’t even say “oh yeah she was definitely into him”, she said “might have” in some distant future point. It’s really not that deep. If other fans being weird bothers you so bad that you need to block out the author’s innocuous statements about her own work maybe you need to disengage for a while

Because it seems like a wink to the fans to me. Don't worry about me, I've long since moved on from Rowling's Harry Potter statements lmao

Even at that it’s she might have…if he was a completely different person.

Wait, so the moment the author makes a comment you doesn’t fit your narrative, then all of a sudden you ignore it and treat it as non-canon?

It's not that it doesn't fit my narrative, it's that if you don't write it in the books it doesn't exist for me. I'm for the "death of the author", either you write it in the saga or it's your guesses. Like the authors who want to "explain the ending" to you, thanks but even if you are the author, I consider it your theory, I make mine.

I mean, by that logic, a bunch of stuff doesn't happen in the story. Harry never became Head of the Auror Department at 27, the Ministry was never de-corrupted, George never had a son who he named Fred, etc. Also, Rowling is presenting a hypothetical "What-If" scenario, not something that actually did happen.

I honestly didn't even remember Fred having a son. About Harry Potter becoming head Auror.. let's say I can survive even if I don't consider it canon. And anyway he wanted to become an auror in the books too, so it's a probable future also from what is said in the books. In fact, Rowling has her own perspective on what happened, it's right that she has it

Sorry, I meant George, not Fred.

Don't worry, I didn't notice he's the dead one either. I am old.

>Fred never had a son who he named Fred I think you mean George never had a son who he named Fred...

You're right, thanks! Already corrected it.

Except this was in the book. They were super close for years until he started hanging with people desiring to be Death Eaters and talking shit about muggle borns.

It's true... but it's also not true. It was in the book that they were very close, but that she could have fallen in love with him was as possible as Hermione falling in love with Harry. There were possibilities because they are two very close people, but I mean, then she fell in love with someone who she initially hated and with a completely different character than Snape. If the point is that perhaps there would have been the possibility of falling in love with him I can easily take a step back and say that it is true, no problem. But this does not change the fact that it was not a triangle and she did not choose James over Snape

I remember explaining this metaphor to friends before she said that; they acted like I was crazy

As you wish I find assuming Lily was not sincere in her relationship with Snape is not infamying Snape. It is for Lily. I'm not necessarily talking about romantic feelings at the stage they were at, but about real interest, love or not love. This kind of thing evolves anyway. Why would she stay with him for so long? If there is nothing why stay? After all, it's true he supports a racist ideology so what is she still doing with him?To copy in potions? Pity? It's not Snape who's being hypocritical in this case...

I don't think anyone denied that Lily had great affection for Snape, he was like her best friend

But he was the manipulative toxic ‘best’ friend. I never got the impression Snape truly loved lily, just loved how she made him feel.

I'm not sure about this. Honestly, despite being one of the greatest manipulators in the saga, with Lily he seemed half-submissive to me. Now, we don't know the relationship between the two of them well, but from the few scenes shown in the memories, he seemed very much like the typical guy in love who rarely contradicts the other person and does everything that is asked of him. The only thing he failed to do was not become a Death Eater. But I repeat that this is only an impression, there is no element to confirm it. So I just think he really loved her, she was the only person who showed him real affection. And this obviously can turn love into something potentially problematic

Lily might have fallen for Snape... if he was a totally different person.

It was probably a one sided thing. Snape clearly had feelings but I'm willing to bet that Lily saw him as a brother at best but most likely just as her best friend. Poor dude got friend zoned hard

Did she even know he had a crush on her? As far as we know, he never made his feelings clear or tried to ask her out or anything of the sort.

I feel like she had to have known on some level.

Snape was only attached to her because she was probably one of the few if not only who treated him normally.

Snape's pureblood Wizard mom married his Muggle father (almost certainly married for love) and they lived on the poor side of a Muggle town, so Snape was treated as an "inferior" by Muggle society because his family was poor, but he believed he was "superior" to the people looking down on him because his mom was a great Wizard. Lily was a Muggle-born Wizard from the rich side of the same town, so Snape latched onto her because they had "shared superiority", they were both superior beings, far above small Muggle notions like rich people and poor people, and Lily was suitable to be Snape's mate (unlike Snape's Muggle father, who Snape blamed for his lot in life, who had been "unsuitable" for his Wizard mother). At ten years old, Snape became furiously jealous towards James Potter, the first non-Lily Wizard he ever really met, and he was afraid that this Alpha Male was going to steal Lily away from him (even though there was literally nothing there). Snape thinks he's in love with Lily (at age ten), but it's not really love, Snape's psychological issues are deeper than that. The Sorting Hat sorts alphabetically by last name, so Lily Evans got sorted into Gryffindor, then James Potter, and then Severus Snape, who was furious that Lily was "following" James into Gryffindor, refused to follow both of them into Gryffindor and keep fighting for Lily's affections, he instead sorted into Slytherin, the plan he had all along, the house that told him he was a superior being. Snape's Worst Memory wasn't about the fight with James (Snape literally invented the spell that James had used on him, Snape was no stranger to these kinds of fights), it was about him calling Lily a mudblood, pushing her down and himself up on his "superiority" index, because he was a half blood, superior to her, and he had just lost a fight to a pureblood and was extremely frustrated with himself. Snape didn't want Lily's comfort, he wanted superiority to her, because he wasn't able to be superior to James. Which was to Snape's everlasting regret, because after-the-fact, after he buried his last chance with her, he realized that he wanted Lily at his side more than he wanted to assert dominance over anyone.

If you go on a whole novel of ranting trying to defend that rcist, deatheater-wannabe, muggleborn torturing, children-terrorizing, dark magic-obsessed psycho, I do too. Credit: accio.max for this argument on TikTok. Through Laela Dakota's fb-comment. "So, I noticed when people talk about James Poter they fall into two camps: - Either think he was a bully and therefore a bad person, - or you think he was a bully as a child but then grew out of it and became a good person. I would like to present an argument with that, James Potter was never a bully. Disclaimer: I'm arguing that he never bullied Snape. Whether he bullied other people might be a different conversation. Because, quite honestly? I'm really sick of people leaving in many posts that James bullied Snape and that's why Snape became a bad person. Not only os that not good excuse for the way Snape acted, I don't even think that it is true. So first of all, the idea that James Potter bullied Snape largely comes from ONE event. It's that memory on the lake after they take their OWLs where he uses Levicorpus on Snape, we see it two times in the books (OOTP page 640; DH page 675.) You can't extrapolate an entire relationship based on ONE event. And having a conflict is not the same as having a bully. So, the acene at the lake: We make a lot of assumptions based n this scene. First of all, because Snape was alone and minding his own business in this one particular instance, and James started the argument with him. We assume that's how it was: Snape was a loner and the Marauders ganged up on him for no reason. First of all, we hear from Lily that Snape HAD FRIENDS in Avery and Mulciber and that they were attacking muggle-borns with dark magic, and Snape tought it was funny. (DH page 673) And that started happening BEFORE the lake incident. So imafine you're in high school and you see some obnoxious jocks and some h*tler youths and they have a conflict. Which one of them is the bully? Probably not the jocks, even if they are kinda a-holes. Let's take a look on what actually happened at the lake cuz some of it was indeed kind of bad. However, Snape is the FIRST TO DRAW WANDS. (OOTP page 646) The first two spelles that James casts are to disarm Snape and stop him from attacking. The first spell Snape casts is Sectumsempra. That can be deadly. (OOTP page 647) James was being a d1ck, Snape was aiming to k1ll. The scene ends with James casting Levicorpus which is a spell Snape invented (OOTP page 648; HBP page 604) So either Snape used it on James or James saw Snape using it on someone else. Again, Snape and his friends were already practicing dark magic on muggle-borns. (DH page 673) So if we can agree that Snape was NOT a defenseless outcast kid, let's look at how James actually treated loner outcast kids: Werewolves are one of the most marginalized communities in Wozarding World. (PoA page 353; PoA page 423) And yet James welcomes Remus into his group, loves him like a brother and puts himself at great personal risk to be there for him (PoA page 354). Compare this to the kind of person Snape was while they were at Hogwarts: Snape is consistently prejudiced against muggles and muggle-borns. (OOTP page 648; DH page 665; DH page 668; DH page 671). He and his friends attack people with dark magic and thinking it's funny (DH page 673). He is trying to expose Remus, who did nothing against him, as a werewolf (DH page 673-674). Snape in process of becoming a Death Eater (DH page 675). Snape also tries to curse James at every opportunity (OOTP page 671). In conclusion: James was not a bully. He did not go after Snape for NO REASON. Snape was a bad person. And James didn't let him get away with it."

PREACH

YES THANK YOU. I brought up the sectumsempra thing (and how snape literally could have killed James w that spell) once and a snape defender literally said they were glad snape cut James and that James deserved worse 🙄 and another once said Harry deserved being violently shoved as a teenager by adult snape after the pensieve thing bc “he should have minded his own business and not pried”. I know it’s not all snape fans that do that but it’s super concerning the way some of them can’t acknowledge the awful things snape did that were not justified.  And I’ve never understood the people saying that “it was 4 against 1” when the other 3 marauders were literally not doing anything in the moment and it was only James Vs snape, and as though he wasn’t friends w all the death eater kids and bullying muggleborns w them and laughing about it. It’s not bullying to “bully” a bully or when it’s mutual, esp when said bully is a literal nazi and spouting hate and actively assaulting and bullying innocent people. Snape was not innocent at that point.  Snape was also the one the that started the rivalry on the train to begin with by calling James/his dad stupid “if you’d rather be brawny than brainy” and we know James despised dark magic, which snape was interested in and fascinated by. I saw a post once that articulated it really well, talking about where james was coming from as a hater of dark magic and evil i.e. voldy due to his environment and the stigma surrounding Slytherin house (and tbf, that was where all the death eater/Nazi kids or dark witches/wizards were being sorted so at a time of such fear where a dark wizard like voldy was gaining power, I don’t blame James nor Sirius for not liking Snape from the get go and continuing the rivalry, esp since snape went on to bully/assault muggleborns w his death eater friends like Avery and Mulciber and laugh about it. Personally, I wouldn’t have been able to be friend w someone who hurt my sibling either but I do get why young Lily might not have wanted to let go of her only magical friend (though I’m surprised she didn’t drop him sooner for being a hate spewing Nazi and bullying other people like her but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I do feel for snape for having been abused by his father but he was a bully before hogwarts even if it was just minor things w Petunia and esp during and long after hogwarts. 

Yes! Finally. Thank you. Wish I could like this more than once

>If you go on a whole novel of ranting trying to defend that rcist, deatheater-wannabe, muggleborn torturing, children-terrorizing, dark magic-obsessed psycho, I do too. I wasn't trying to defend Snape. The previous post said that Snape liked Lily because Lily was nice to him. I said that being a Wizard raised as a "Muggle without money" formed the first seed of Wizard Supremacy in his mind at an extremely young age, and Snape (through the lens of Wizard Supremacy) saw Lily as an object to be possessed, only regretting his actions after he lost her (literally his worst memory). And even after he lost her, his obsession with her stays in creepy stalker territory. And I am of the opinion that James wasn't a bully, that Snape and James argued when they first met because of Snape's Wizard Supremacy beliefs and because of Snape's unfounded jealousy and his paranoia that James was going to steal Lily (which became a self-fulfilling prophecy). James was fighting Nazis since before he hit puberty, and he was only a "bully" from the Nazi POV. Lily ignored James, and only realized that James was a sexy badass after they both grew up and their hormones kicked in and when she finally confronted the fact that her best friend was a Nazi, and stopped making excuses for Nazis, and joined the Nazi-hunters (where James already was).

> he was only a "bully" from the Nazi POV.  This is a great point and way to articulate it tbh, damn, he really was fighting nazis before puberty 

James was a bully. Lily says so, Sirius and Lupin say so, the report cards in HBP say so, and most importantly, the author of the book says so. > And that started happening BEFORE the lake incident. So imafine you're in high school and you see some obnoxious jocks and some h\*tler youths and they have a conflict. Which one of them is the bully? Probably not the jocks, even if they are kinda a-holes. If someone is minding their own business, and you're going to start shit with them for no reason, you're the bully, especially if you did so weeks after trying to murder. > However, Snape is the FIRST TO DRAW WANDS. Yeah, because they had a history of bullying him, just week priors, one of them tried to murder him. To argue Snape was in the wrong would be like arguing that a guy who has a history of being jumped by a gang, that when he sees that gang again, he's wrong for pulling out a knife to defend himself. Or a wife who has a history of being randomly beaten by her husband, and when she sees him approaching, and pulls out a knife because she reasonably assumes he's going to abuse her again. > The first two spelles that James casts are to disarm Snape and stop him from attacking. The first spell Snape casts is Sectumsempra. That can be deadly. Aside from the fact that we don't know for certain whether the spell Snape used was Sectumsempra (could very well be, but there was also a chance it was Diffindo), there's also the fact that James was approaching Snape with the intention of attacking him for no reason, Snape was using a (potentially) "deadly" spell in self-defense. > The scene ends with James casting Levicorpus which is a spell Snape invented (OOTP page 648; HBP page 604) > So either Snape used it on James or James saw Snape using it on someone else. Therefore it's okay to do it to others? > Werewolves are one of the most marginalized communities in Wozarding World. (PoA page 353; PoA page 423) > And yet James welcomes Remus into his group, loves him like a brother and puts himself at great personal risk to be there for him (PoA page 354). Aside from the fact that Lupin was in Gryffindor like James, which might be why James liked him, this kind comes of as "\[X\] had a minority friend, so he was clearly accepting of that entire minority group." > He is trying to expose Remus, who did nothing against him, as a werewolf Dude, Lupin was part of the group that bullied and abused Snape. Snape has every reason to want to get Lupin expelled. > Snape also tries to curse James at every opportunity The only person who ever says this are Snape and Lupin, James best friends and co-bullies who have a history of lying to make James look good. Not exactly the most reliable narrators. > James was not a bully. He did not go after Snape for NO REASON > Snape was a bad person. And James didn't let him get away with it. Yeah, that's not true. James did go after Snape for no reason. James started bullying Snape even before he knew about Snape's relationship with the Dark Arts, he tells Lily that he does it because "he exists", and Rowling stated that part of James motivation was that he was jealous of Snape's relationship with Lily. Even if Snape had not been into the Dark Arts, James would have still bullied him.

Snape hated his father has more to due with his father being a physically abusive alcoholic.

I don’t think it’s even implied she *knew* he had a crush on her. Not that it would change anything, I just think Lily would be floored to find out people think she’s in a love triangle with an old school friend she stopped hanging out with at 15 lol.

Poor dude? Snape was a pure blood supremacist while he was still friends with her. Why would Lily ever see him as a love interest when his other friends were extreme muggle haters?

Rowling did confirm that if he hadn't been drawn to the dark arts she might've loved him romantically

Key word even being might have not certain. It could have ended up as solely friendship anyway Snape just sadly ensured she'd never be in his life in any capacity

Most of the time it's not Snape fans who keep bringing this up. It's Snaters who keep posting shit like "see, this is why Lily chose James over Snape" when the problem of Snape fans wasn't this to begin with.

Myself as a Snape fan, I don't think Lily should have chosen him anyway. I interpret him as being *at least* partially redeemed later in life. Especially when he did the right thing regardless of whether he wanted to or not. He learned to be selfless for a greater cause. But I don't wish Lily had picked him. I think he needed to feel the guilt of her loss to become a better person. Edit: James, though... I hate that guy

So much to say on this- obviously agree, but starting with the obvious: Snape wanted to be in Slytherin from before he met James Potter, and held views that would lay the foundations for his DE days (‘she’s only a [muggle]’). James was a terrible person for bullying him but Snape’s journey was never James’ fault. And HP is very much about the choices we made. James and Severus were both products of their childhood - privileged as James was he had to grow up to shed some slightly damaging views about himself. And the other thing: if we had met James as a bully first and then learned how he’d changed in his sixth year enough to become head boy in his seventh year, he’d be the bad boy turned hero. The man worth waiting for. He’s no different from so many fictional heroes except that we met him as the hero who sacrificed himself for his family first, and then learned he was a bully. We hold our heroes to much higher standards than our villains. Lily didn’t hate James though and as much as I agree with you, JKR said Lily was a woman and had eyes (when describing her lack of hatred for James), so JKR seemed to suggest Lily was attracted to James, even when she was shouting at him. But yes, she waited for him to change. Snape didn’t. She didn’t stop being Snape’s friend because of the insult, but because Snape called ‘everyone’ of her birth that, why should she be any different? And because when confronted with it, Snape didn’t deny wanting to be a DE.

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‘Nah she didn’t’ Sirius or Remus when Harry says: she hated him. And that’s what JKR discusses in that interview. I found the quote as I slightly misremembered: MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen. JKR: Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying. [Laughter.]

I definitely think Lily always liked James, and she was playing hard to get. Common thing with young love.

I think she hated that she didn’t hate him. And I think she thought he was exactly as arrogant as she told him. And yes I think she felt attracted to him, but I think she was annoyed at herself for it.

Exactly this - she hated his behaviour but liked his underlying character.

"Remember, kids, it's always ok to be an abusive dick as long as you're good-looking."

Hmmm let’s see. James Potter was generally liked by his other classmates. There was no hint that of he bullied other people. Was loyal to a fault. Was good enough to be made Head Boy by the teachers. Saved Snape’s life. Snape was a blatant blood purist from the beginning. Called Lily a mudblood despite her standing up for him for years. Was shown to be practising dark magic on his classmate and was completely okay with it. Went out of his way to get the Marauders expelled and inconvenience them. But yeah James Potter is the abusive dick. I’m not saying James’ behaviour towards Snape was right but stop pretending that Snape was the epitome of an unproblematic harmless person. He was equally problematic if not more in other aspects.

> James Potter was generally liked by his other classmates. The only classmates whose perspectives we get that James were his best friends and co-bullies, Sirius and Lupin. > There was no hint that of he bullied other people. Dude, it’s straight up said that James bullies several other people. Lily says so, Sirius and Lupin say so, the report cards in HBP say so. > Was good enough to be made Head Boy by the teachers. Oh, you mean that, after 5 bullying and abuse, 1 year of not doing that good enough to be appointed Head Boy by a guy who covered up an attempted murder for his best friend, gave them no punishment, and then forced the victim of said attempt into silence while not applying the same standard to the perpetrators? Yeah, that guy seems so unbiased./s > Went out of his way to get the Marauders expelled and inconvenience them. How is trying to get people who are bullying you expelled problematic? > I’m not saying James’ behaviour towards Snape was right but stop pretending that Snape was the epitome of an unproblematic harmless person. He was equally problematic if not more in other aspects. Where, in any of my posts, did I say that Snape was unproblematic? He was, Snape was very problematic, there is no denying that. You’re the one who’s saying James didn’t bully or abuse people, and then trying to say “the victim deserved it”.

I think the point is that he was a kid and grew up?

I completely agree.

The fact is, there is NO hint given in the books which show that James was a bully to anyone else. He broke a lot of school rules but other than that he’s shown to be generally well loved. Not only was he immensely loyal, he risked his own neck to save Snape. While this does not excuse him bullying Snape, Snape himself does his fair share of messing with the Marauders. But while the Marauders drew a line somewhere. Snape and his friends are shown to use Dark Magic on fellow students and normalising it. In my opinion that’s way worse than anything James did.

I wished they showed more of James changing as a person. It would make Lily getting together with him make a lot more sense. I think she liked James the whole time, despite her saying he made her sick back then. I think J.K. even confirmed that. I just don't see myself dating my ex-best friends bully. I never understood it. It always confused me. Even if I was no longer friends with the person, I couldn't see myself dating the person that bullied them. And James threatened to hex her and blackmail her into going on a date with him so there's that. If they showed more of James, I probably would be able to understand a lot better.

Dude, imagine dating someone who publicly sexually-assaulted your best friend, and never apologized for it. Then again, given how often I've been on Reddit, especially Reddit on AmITheAsshole/AITA, I can believe certain people would do that and think there is nothing wrong with it.

I think you’d probably have fewer hangups about it said ex-best friend called you a slur.

Nah. I'm a Black guy who has been called the N-word, and I still can't see myself dating a hottie after seeing her physically attack and publicly humiliate and (potentially) sexually assault my ex-best friend, even if ex-best friend called me a slur.

What if that ex-best friend did more than call you a slur? What if that ex-best friend joined the KKK? Would you rethink then? Would I make you wonder if you ever really knew your ex-best friend? Maybe that bully saw something you missed?

I still wouldn't justify what happened to them, for multiple reasons. First, this would happen prior to them actually joining the KKK. Second, this would have happened regardless of them wanting to join the KKK. This would be like a known rapist going "See, they joined the KKK, so I was justified in raping them all those years ago!". Third, the perpetrator started doing long before he even knew anything about my ex-best friend, and even bragged when doing it that it was only because said ex-best friend existed, as well as because they were jealous of the ex-best friend. Fourth, the perpetrator has a history of doing this with multiple people, not just my ex-best friend. The action is less of a reflection of my ex-best friend and more of a reflection of the perpetrator and the type of person they are.

I still think she'd do it even if he hadn't called her a slur. She deep down already was attracted to James and the friendship they had was already crumbling.

I also wish there was more information about James' transformation. I've always been deeply curious about it.

I don't know about that. I mean I 100% agree that it would have been great to see that change (though there's little vehicle for it) And personally I agree I'd not have been able to let go of the person I'd seen them be once enough to get together with them. BUT that is just me and I actually only find it conceivable that she found him attractive after he quit being an immature asshole. I don't think she was attracted to him before even deep down.

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The thing is, there is no canon evidence that James changed for the better. All we have is Rowling saying it (after the fact, and outside of the text). Him supporting Remus financially and as an Animagus, while they do work in his favor, are things he was already doing, not things he did to win Lily over. Let me preface by saying that I’m not really a fan of Snape as a person (he’s a great character though, one of the best written in the series), but whether we like him or not, we get to know him and what makes him who he is. While I don’t necessarily dislike him, I have to admit that James on the other hand is not a character so much as an idea.

But the thing is, James and Snape bullied each other. I think the fandom tends to forget that it wasn't just one way.

Lily never loved Snape and by the time of the incident they probably weren‘t even that close as friends anymore. As Lily said, all of her other friends didn‘t understand why she was friends with Snape. He was into dark magic, liked Voldemort and called every muggleborn other than Lily the bad word. Pretty charming…

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>Lily’s friends were mostly muggleborns probably There’s no evidence for this at all. And why would it even matter? All her friends regardless of their blood status have no issues with muggleborns obviously. >but yeah, if Snape hadn’t done these disgusting things, then Lily might have really ended up with him. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest she ever had or would have feelings for Snape. This assumption that women must fall for their best friend (unless he make an egregious error) needs to die in a hole and never come back. Romance isn’t a natural progression of every close friendship, she clearly fell for James and Snape is unlike James in SO many ways even if Snape hadn’t turned out to be a death eater that used slurs about muggleborns. They don’t look alike, their personalities and interests and very different, James is popular and charming whilst Snape is not. If James is her type then she’s hardly likely to fall for Snape even if they remained friends.

J.K. Rowling literally said that had Snape not been attracted to the Dark Arts, there is a good chance Lily would have fallen in love with him. Also, you are aware that people can fall in love with several different types of people, right? A person can love an extroverted partygoer one time, and their next partner be an introverted homebody.

This would require Snape to be a fundamentally different person. And I think it's best to take what she says outside of the books with a grain of salt.

Not really, Snape could still literally be the same person, but no longer drawn to the Dark Arts, like he was later on in life. I mean, Lily fell in love with James despite him "growing up". And all it took was 1 year of it. And why would I take anything the author of the books says outside the book with a grain of salt, especially if it doesn't contradict canon?

Ok don‘t know from where u got this information. I don‘t see any reason why her friends should be mostly muggleborns. And you do know that men and women can be just friends? There is absolutley no evidence that Lily loved Snape at one point. Snape wasn‘t a good guy nor good looking or charming.

J.K. Rowling said that, had it not been for the Dark Arts stuff, Lily might have fallen in love with Snape.

Link? Never heard of this and it seems many people too

It's from a 2007 Interview with J.K. Rowling, and is on Bloomsbury Website: [http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html](http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html) **"Jaclyn**: Did lily ever have feelings back for snape" **"J.K. Rowling**: Yes. She might even have grown to love him romantically (she certainly loved him as a friend) if he had not loved Dark Magic so much, and been drawn to such loathesome people and acts."

There’s also some evidence to suggest that Lily and Snape’s friendship was already on the rocks by the time of SWM. When Lily sees the Marauders humiliating Snape, she’s fighting back a smirk. If they were super duper best buds until Snape called her a Mudblood…why would she be smirking? She wouldn’t be. She’d be aiming a kick at James’s crotch. Their lives had taken completely different paths by this point. Snape was already teetering to the proverbial dark side (he was developing those complicated curses) and Lily had already adjusted to the Wizarding World, made new friends and didn’t need Snape as much as she did when they were younger. Him calling her a Mudblood was the final nail in the coffin. Snape’s Worst Memory isn’t because “I ruined my friendship with the woman I loved because I lost my cool.” It was because “My true colors had been revealed to the woman I was obsessed with.”

So would Lily's little smirk at Snape being bullied because she is angry at Snape for still hanging out with the people she told him not to hang out with? I'm just trying to understand why she would find it slightly funny is all.

Personally? I think it’s because she saw Snape as the pathetic little loser he was then.

Remember, kids, sexual-assault is funny and ok as long as I don't like the victim.

If that is the case, wouldn't that not make her any better than James? So she didn't try to stop the mauraders' torment towards Snape out of the goodness of her heart, but only because she viewed him as a pathetic loser??? She never truly cared for him? And that's why Snape was angry at her and called her the m word because he was offended by Lily thinking of him in that way? Not going to lie, I'd angry at her too then if what you said is true, but I wouldn't have called her a slur though.

She stopped his torment because she’s a good person and what they did was wrong, she couldn’t hide a smirk and a sense of amusement because she’s 16 and not perfect. Still much better than James even if she shouldn’t really laugh at all.

Why would bullying ever be funny, though? As a victim of bullying in school, I could never do that. Wonder if she actually wasn't a nice of a kid as they made her out to be. Might have been one of those mean girl popular kids, but a watered-down/ toned down version of one. That would explain the slightly snotty remark to Snape saying, "My friends don't know why I still hang out with you." I get why she said it and why her friends question their friendship because he was hanging out with people who were prejudiced against muggleborns but was still a bit of a snotty remark

Bullying isn’t funny. But victims of bullying can also be shitty people themselves. Doesn’t mean they should to be bullied. But we are talking about teenagers here. I can understand that a sixteen year old that’s being discriminated against because she is a ‘mudblood’ is not that sympathetic towards someone hanging around with the extremists who have these views. Even if that person experiences bullying in front of her. Snape was a shitty person and a bully himself. Not just as an adult but also as a teenager. Did the bullying he experienced by James’ hand help to make him a better person? No. But it’s not an excuse and Lily wasn’t a horrible person because she laughed.

I can't fathom how anyone could find bullying funny. I really can't. It doesn't make her a horrible person, but it doesn't make her look good imo. Snape was about to be sexually assaulted, which is horrific, and imagine if Snape was a girl, there would be much more outrage over it.

You cant fathom any nuance? Especially regarding a teenage girl who may not always have a complete control of her emotions? Actions are what define people and Lily was the only person who stood up to James and Sirius during their harassment. That's all that really matters.

Teenager or not, I never found bullying funny, and no one else should either.

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> low level bullying and learning how to properly react to it, can actually help with growth IMO. ^ How every bully and bully enabler in the world rationalizes it.

Also we’re talking about bullying a teenage nazi here. I’ve never had sympathy for Snape.

So, as long as it's just a little bit of bullying, that's totally fine and dandy. Let's excuse it. Wtf. That's fine. I'd rather be 'naive' than a bully. I'd take that as a compliment, actually.

> Bullying can easily be taken too far, but low level bullying and learning how to properly react to it, can actually help with growth IMO. It's not like bullying is going to stop with high school. Unless you are planning to become a hermit, you will inevitably face bullies in life. It's best to learn how to handle it early on. Ok, but quick question, where's the line, then?

I’ve said this elsewhere but I really don’t think the term sexual assault should be used in regards to that scene even though it absolutely is sexual assault and should be considered as such if it were to happen in real life. My logic is that when this was written it would be considered awful bullying but not sexual assault and I therefore think JK Rowling had no intention of presenting James as someone who would sexually assault someone. A sexual predator like that is an irredeemable monster and not merely a nasty bully at school. James is supposed to be shown as having grown up from his awful school days and be forgiven by most based on his growth and actions. You don’t forgive someone who sexually assaults. If she were writing it in 2024 she would end the chapter differently, I’m 100% certain of that.

> You don’t forgive someone who sexually assaults. If she were writing it in 2024 she would end the chapter differently, I’m 100% certain of that. Do i have some tragic news for you.... People are absolutely forgiven for SA. All the time.

Because if you’re 16 and you’ve never been bullied then sometimes it’s funny, and that’s bad of you. She knew as much which is why she hid her smirk, she clearly was thinking “oh I shouldn’t laugh”. I think you as an adult who was bullied as a child aren’t in a reasonable position to understand what a kid who wasn’t bullied is like. She’s not perfect but she’s still obviously a better person than the actual bullies herself. Or are you so affected by your childhood that you think that not only bullies are irredeemable monsters but anyone who even was slightly amused by it? You don’t have to be a mean girl to fight a smirk, particularly when she is in the faces of the bullies making them stop whilst doing it. It is absolutely not a snotty remark that either - it’s a completely valid statement from her friends to her that Snape deserves to hear. They’re in the midst of a war intended to end in genocide of her and people like her and her best friend is absolutely in favour of that except in the case of Lily because he fancies her.

Sorry, I'm not blessed not to have been bullied and that I have empathy for bullied victims. Are you seriously shaming me for being bullied? Give me a break.

You can have empathy for bullied victims and still also be able to grasp how teenagers generally think and act. Lily’s actions were completely normal and not indicative that she’s “as bad as James” which is what *you* claimed. Your consistent lashing out defensively at the mere possibility that someone might disagree with you on the morality of teenagers concerning bullying is not indicative that you’re thinking rationally here either.

Thoughts don’t have moral weight, actions do. Lily stepped in when Snape was getting tormented, and that’s significant. If she privately thinks he’s kind of a loser, that’s her business. She didn’t say that; it’s speculation. And she didn’t laugh at him or even smile, her mouth twitched and Harry editorialized that she was holding back a smile but again that’s speculation and maybe even a bit of projection.  Lily did the right thing in this situation even if her reasons weren’t I love him too much to let him suffer and more along the lines of nobody deserves to be treated this way, not even a person I am somewhat contemptuous of. 

Lily honestly is not a great person either as shown in this scene, why was she holding back a smirk? Its the classic pretty girl falls for rich popular boy story, no need to portray Lily as some infallible saint.

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She was about to laugh, a hint of a smile on her face. She did ask him to stop, but it's obvious she had made an effort to stop herself from laughing. She subconsciously found what they were doing to Snape funny.

Who cares? She fought the smile and kept defending him.

She shouldn't have to be fighting a smile to begin with.

But she did, because kids can be stupid and find terrible things funny. But what's more important is she fought it and defended Snape. Let's not pretend she was openly laughing like all the other onlookers. Or act like the brief smile erases the fact she's standing up for him.

Yeah, how dare she not get with the bigot into dark magic?

I think their point was less about her dating Snape and more the fact that she was amused by him being bullied

Did i mention anything about her ending up with Snape? I find it strange that if she's suppose to be this wonderful flawless without fault yet the person she chooses in the end was a well known bully and tormentor of her previous best friend. So no other people were available? People read too much into this, Lily was a convenient plot device, nothing more,

Her ex best friend who turned out to be into dark shit and a bigot against people like her. Idk why people think she should have any loyalty to Snape.

Ahhh, yes. It really should have been a minority girl persuaded to date blatantly racist loser story.

I agree and I hate Snily as a pairing. It's not Lily shouldn't have gotten with James because she should have been with Snape. It's James was not a particularly good person and was downright terrible at times for the vast majority of his life and even when he got better he didn't actually completely stop being terrible, and Lily who was also maybe not the best but not nearly as bad as James didn't really have any reason to like James other than him being hot, rich, and popular. The only growth canon implies is that James matured enough to not bully everyone at all times but not enough to stop entirely. Without any more context her attraction to James seems really shallow which also makes her look bad. I think had they gotten together after both joining the Order and had James' attention to her in school been less intense (to put it politely) then maybe their relationship wouldn't come off so unsavory. Though really it lacks any substance at all.

Same, this is how I feel. I don't like SnapexLily, in fact, I don't like any of the Harry Potter ships. But her getting with James after so many years of what he did and only 1 year of him "not" bullying and abusing people makes it look like she was just waiting for an excuse to date him.

*Not bullying *most* people anymore but still some! My word, what side catch now that he's only cruel to a few people and not literally dozens possibly over a hundred. 🙄 Anyway, my blatant sarcasm aside it just occurred to me in more concrete terms that I am actually not really much of a fan of canon ships for HP either. There are a few I don't hate but I can't say I love them. Harry/Ginny, Lupin/Tonks, Lucius/Narcissa and the not actually canon Luna/Rolf and Hannah/Neville and Draco/Astoria come to mind. Was Astoria explicitly mentioned in the epilogue? I kind of think no but i can't remember and even if she was I feel like the epilogue is the least canon chapter of the whole series. All that to say I don't hate any of those but I wouldn't ever seek them out either.

> \*Not bullying *most* people anymore but still some! My word, what side catch now that he's only cruel to a few people and not literally dozens possibly over a hundred. 🙄 To give Lily the benefit of the doubt, Sirius kind of implies that James was doing it behind Lily's back, and that Lily didn't know about it.

Oh yeah. Granted she did know what he was like before he cut back, but yes she probably thought he completely stopped. My snark was more directed towards fans who act like James was a saint and became such a great guy than Lily though. I see comments about how he matured so much every day and it gets old considering he went from acting much worse than first year Draco to only slightly better than first year Draco.

Fair enough.

Yes, let’s villainize a young teenager for not liking a guy???

yeah youre right, it shouldve been the super edgy cool supremacist guy gets the girl story!

So she's not a great person because she fights a smile briefly. While she's the ONLY person openly defending Snape from James. Yeah great logic sport

Yeah, that’s true. However, it is shitty of her that she didn’t care what he was doing until it happened to her.

Lily does say she has been making excuses for his behaviour for years. It is easy to ignore shitty behaviour when it is your fried doing it.

I agree with you. Sorry this is awfully long, I have a *lot* of thoughts on the matter. Think of this as a character study of Snape, from the point of view of his love for Lily: It was always pity and kindness on Lily’s part. Snape was the poor, neglected, abused child in their neighbourhood, she played with him where Petunia wanted to shun him. Yes, they had something in common, their ability to do magic, and eventually that led to them sharing more experiences together when they went away to school. But it was mostly kindness, pity and a sense of “something that reminds her of home” for Lily. For a long time, she tried to turn a blind eye to Snape’s actions at school, probably rationalising them that as long as he was good to her, it meant he was still a good person at heart, and was simply, “temporarily in bad company”. If they’d had more similar interests and values as they grew up at school, it might have turned into something more. If Snape had realised what love meant, that it meant “growing together” and sharing values and ideologies, it might have turned into something more on Lily’s end. But he didn’t - he thought that as long as he wished Lily well and kept her safe, he could continue to seek attention and belonging from the death eaters. He just wanted to belong, in his youth, being the lonely child of neglect that he was. He wanted to be safe in the company of many powerful friends - how could Lily’s affection alone keep him safe? That choice cost him dearly - when he reviled people of Lily’s blood, and when that spilled over into calling her a Mudblood, to save his injured pride and redeem himself in the eyes of his powerful friends, she saw that he was blinded by his new “values”. And she didn’t want to protect him one more time, it was too much effort. And so she mourned the loss of her friendship, and moved on. Her choice hurt him to the quick but he couldn’t blame her, she was an inviolable angel in his heart, a belief ingrained deeply from his childhood. And so he looked around for anyone else to cast the blame on. James was the convenient choice. This also explains the disproportionate hate Snape has for James. From Snape’s “unhealed trauma” point of view, James was the one who took Lily away from him, not his own actions and choices. And so he hates James with all the pain and hurt he’s ever felt in life, hate and pain that should have been reserved for his neglectful parents and everyone in society that shunned him all his life. He thinks that if only James were gone, Lily would still come back to him, that he still has a chance to make her love him. The problem is just that James is secure, arrogant, rich, with loving parents… not his own values that he doesn’t want to examine too deeply. Just like RAB, he may secretly have had cold feet about some of the actions Voldemort was taking. But he admires the man, his skills, his Legilimency. He sees him as another abandoned child who overcame his circumstances and grew into great power, become inviolable. They both are damaged people who have never learned to love. And so he sees in Voldemort a father figure, and so forgives his flaws as a child would. Naturally, when Voldemort presents an opportunity to kill James and spare Lily, he takes it. Snape’s feelings at this time echo those of Merope Gaunt, who thought that if she kidnapped Tom Riddle and Love Potion’ed him, he would eventually come to love her. Similarly, if he just kills James and forces Lily by his side under threat of Voldemort, he could eventually win her back again. But the plan fails. And he sees that his powerful friends have no interest in protecting those he loves dearly. And he is disillusioned with the death eaters, and Voldemort. (Still admires his skills, though). And he decides to join the Order of the Phoenix to take them down. It’s his penance, his way of getting revenge on those who killed Lily. When Harry arrives at school, Snape thinks he is like James, hates him for his similarities to his father. He’s looking to find reasons to hate him, and on day 1, when he couldn’t see any potions genius in a child, he decides he has nothing of Lily in him. When Harry fights Voldemort, Snape always thinks he’s fighting “as James did”. Remember, James was in the Order too, and Snape had seen him fight Voldemort thrice, from the other side. (…born to those who thrice defied him…) He even helps Harry by giving him the sword, but only as a member of the Order of the Phoenix would. Only when he sees Harry performing the ultimate sacrifice and returning to save the school, does he realise that Lily does live on in Harry, after all. And so he tries to explain all his pain, all his trauma, all his guilt, with his dying breath. He was seeking forgiveness for all the wrong turns he made, to whatever bit of Lily who lived. He died in Lily’s arms, as far as he was concerned. And I’m sure he saw her on the other side. TL;DR: it was Snape’s trauma that caused Lily to move on from him. She only pitied him, it was never love, though it possibly could have, had he overcome his trauma at school.

This is brilliant and really should be the top comment though I think I would like to add that he also finds blaming James so easy partially due to the hanging resentment for years of humiliation (though the lily thing remains the primary reason) but also because deep down he KNOWS it's his fault but he can't voice that fact so as you say he does his penance while blaming James to avoid having to fully come to terms with the fact he'd essentially killed the woman he loved and the only person to truly show him kindness. I also disagree about purely pity and think it was the love of a friend for quite a while but began to turn somewhat more to staying out of pity (knowing he had nobody who truly cared) the deeper he got into the dark arts until the mud blood incident. Where she realized their friendship was broken beyond repair and that she could no longer turn a blind eye out of the (platonic) love she once bore him and the pity she felt now.

> And so he sees in Voldemort a father figure, and so forgives his flaws as a child would. Naturally, when Voldemort presents an opportunity to kill James and spare Lily, he takes it. > Snape’s feelings at this time echo those of Merope Gaunt, who thought that if she kidnapped Tom Riddle and Love Potion’ed him, he would eventually come to love her. Similarly, if he just kills James and forces Lily by his side under threat of Voldemort, he could eventually win her back again. Yeah, there's only one problem with this part, even before Voldemort had gone after the Potters, Snape had already gone to Dumbledore because he did not trust Voldemort to spare Lily. And when asked, Snape ultimately chose to have even James and Harry protected, as long as it meant Lily was safe, which meant that his plan was never to get together with Lily, only to keep her safe.

This is a great analysis! 100% agree

Some people seem to refuse to believe James grew up but are fine with Snape no growing up and bullying students.

The thing that’s always bothered me about the Lily/Snape discourse is the underlying idea that Lily somehow owed Snape her love because they were friends first and because he "loved" her. Except no. No one owes anyone else love, and i *hate* how often women/girls are subjected to this nonsense. Snape and Lily didn't end up together because Lily didn't want him. We don't need more than that. My dislike for Snape stems from him never being able to accept that this woman just didn't like him that way, James or no James 😑

I think Snape’s victimhood as a student is somewhat overstated by fandom. I really don’t think he was quietly minding his own business and not causing any trouble, even if you discount his friendship with Mulciber and Avery and the apparently vile dark magic they were practicing.  In Snape’s Worst Memory, James uses levicorpus against him, and we know Snape invented that spell. He confirms in HBP that James used his own spells against him. So how did James learn those spells if Snape invented them? I think we have to infer he saw Snape use them against other people OR Snape used them against him or his friends.  If we take the sectumsempra incident out of the context of their relationship, Harry absolutely seems like the aggressor and a brutal bully towards Draco, but in reality they were fairly evenly matched rivals who almost never did each other serious harm and Draco was almost always the instigator. You need context to really understand a relationship. We don’t have much context for Snape and James except that they hated each other, and James’ hatred for Snape was driven by his disgust with the Dark Arts.  The text even implies that he knew or strongly suspected Lupin was a werewolf before the Prank. The marauders inferred it. Hermione inferred it. And Lily tells Snape she’s aware of his theory about where Lupin has been going, which suggests he’s been running his mouth about Lupin being a werewolf. Maybe when he went into the Shrieking Shack, he figured he could handle it or he would be able to just get a glimpse and confirm his suspicions then get away.  All this to say, young Snape was Messy as hell. Lily wasn’t equipped to handle his shenanigans, and she was right to decide that because he eventually got her murdered! 

> We don’t have much context for Snape and James except that they hated each other, and James’ hatred for Snape was driven by his disgust with the Dark Arts.  No, it wasn't. We see James hostile relationship with Snape begin from the moment they meet on the train. In addition, James tells Lily he bullies and abuses Snape because "he exists", and J.K. Rowling confirmed that another factor was because he was jealous of Snape's relationship with Lily.

My point is that we see a handful of moments out of seven plus years of interactions. I’m not saying James was innocent and not a jerk. He was terrible to Snape.  I just think they were terrible to each other, and it wasn’t as one-sided as it’s often portrayed. When Snape was at school, he was inventing Dark spells and planning his career as a Death Eater. It’s hard for me to begrudge James his hostility toward that, considering the fact that Voldemort was on the rise. The way James chose to handle the situation was terrible, and he shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. I just honestly can’t fault James his disgust even if I don’t like what he did with it.  Even the confrontation on the train wasn’t just aimless bullying. Snape was talking about how he hoped he and Lily would end up in Slytherin together. Slytherin is notorious for its affinity for dark magic and obsession with blood purity. And yeah some people would rather leave than live in that environment for seven years! It makes sense to me! James wasn’t just being a snide jerk for no reason like Malfoy was when he said the same thing about Hufflepuff.

> I just think they were terrible to each other, and it wasn’t as one-sided as it’s often portrayed. When Snape was at school, he was inventing Dark spells and planning his career as a Death Eater. It’s hard for me to begrudge James his hostility toward that, considering the fact that Voldemort was on the rise. The way James chose to handle the situation was terrible, and he shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. I just honestly can’t fault James his disgust even if I don’t like what he did with it.  Based on what? There is literally nothing that indicated that it wasn't as one-sided as it was portrayed. And this is not me saying it is not possible, but there is very little, if anything, to suggest it. As for James hostility, James was that way even prior to, and regardless of, knowing Snape's affinity for the Dark Arts, from he met Snape on the train, as well as because he was jealous of Snape's relationship with Lily. And this is not even getting into all the other people James did bully. James wasn't doing it out of some moral indignation, so let's just drop this false pretense that he was. He was just being an asshole because he could, and thought it was funny to hurt other people. Even if Snape had no interest in the Dark Arts, James would have bullied him. > Snape was talking about how he hoped he and Lily would end up in Slytherin together. Slytherin is notorious for its affinity for dark magic and obsession with blood purity. And yeah some people would rather leave than live in that environment for seven years! It makes sense to me! James wasn’t just being a snide jerk for no reason like Malfoy was when he said the same thing about Hufflepuff. And Snape's reason for wanting to be in Slytherin could have very well and likely been that it was his mother's House, and that James was insulting his mother's House. And hey, if we're going by the logic of "it makes sense to me" to justify being a snide jerk, it also makes sense to me that Malfoy said what he did about Hufflepuff. They're not exactly the most known or accomplished House in Hogwarts. They're generally often perceived as the people who were not good enough for any of the other 3 Houses. Malfoy's comment, therefore, makes sense to me.

Enhhhh Slytherin has a reputation for being dark and bigoted, not just for being kind of unimpressive. I don’t think those are comparable.  I don’t think you can say James was bullying Snape before he was aware of Snape’s affinity for the dark arts because the first thing he ever hears Snape say is that he desperately wants to be in Slytherin which is infamous for its affiliation with the dark arts! That is the beginning of their relationship.  I don’t think we’re going to get any closer to agreeing tho, so I’m ready to drop it if you are 🤷🏽‍♂️

I’m not ready to drop it. It doesn’t matter what Slytherin’s reputation, Snape could have very well wanted to be in Slytherin because it was most likely his mother’s House, the same way James wanted to be in Gryffindor because it was his father’s House. And there are also some people who would rather belong in the House of cunning and ambition, then in a House that is widely seen, even in the context of the story, as the House of leftovers. And it’s still a double-standard that attacking someone minding their own business after saying they want to be in a House means you’re a snide-jerk, but when another person does the exact same thing, it justified.

Whatever you say pal

Lily didn't love Snape in that way and by the time she got with James her friendship with Snape was over.

Lily didn't choose james over Snape because Snape was never an option for her. She never had any romantic interest in Snape.

Oh, but don't you know? It was all James' fault! If he hadn't been such a terrible bully, poor dear Sevviekins would never have been in the situation in the first place! If Lily hadn't threatened his pride and made him feel emasculated by coming to his rescue, he would never have been FORCED to call her that vile name in a momentary fit of pique. It's all Potter's fault! (Complete and total sarcasm, obviously)

You're being sarcastic but some of the most hardcore Snape apologists genuinely believe this lmao (they also make Lily's being called a racial slur Lily's fault)

I don't agree that Lily ever hated James regardless of what Harry saw in the pensive. I think she was a teenage girl who didn't understand her feelings. If anything, she hated that she liked him.

it was never a choice, it's not a love triangle. James and Lily loved each other. lily had no obligations to a bigot who discriminated people like her 💀

I genuinely haven't seen that many people with the take that it was James's fault that lily didn't end up with Snape. Most of us who have a kinder view towards him accept that it was his choices that led to their separation. The relationship was clearly on the rocks before the worst memory. James and lily didn't even get together till a little under two years after the incident Now I have a very low opinion or James (mostly as someone that suffered bullying). He was gunning for Snape the second the boy mentioned he wanted to be in Slytherin. (Trips him on the train and calls him snivillus). I think lily could have done better (and I don't mean Snape)

Exactly. As a Snape fan who doesn't like James that doesn't inherently mean I think Lily should have ended up with Snape. I don't. I'm not even convinced Snape felt romantic love for Lily for one, but Lily had every right to end her friendship with Snape for another. I think all 3 of them (plus the other guys) made a lot of bad choices as kids. Granted, James and Snape made worse choices than Lily. The difference is James had all the resources he could have wanted at his disposal to make better choices and actively chose to be the worst version of himself anyway. Lily also had a lot of resources though not as many but at least made only a couple bad choices. Snape had 1 resource available to help him make good choices: Lily. He had a ton of reasons to make bad choices though: abusive home, extreme targeted harassment and bullying at school, lack of support from staff, influence of other Slytherins. He's still responsible for his choices. He's still at fault for going along with the DE and calling Lily a slur. But his choices are at least understandable and seem more like a product of his life rather than who he is at his core as a person. It's not lily's responsibility to "fix" Snape and she doesn't owe him her friendship. I take issue with the relationship between James and Lily because it seems shallow and weird given James' obsessive behavior. I also have issues with the idea that Lily should have been with Snape if she wasn't with James. It's not a this or that situation. Realistically, I would have preferred a story where she grew up and gained deeper understanding and then married someone else entirely. Maybe eventually becoming friendly with Snape again though not as close after he had a change of heart, joined the order, and made sincere amends for his faults. Obviously James and Lily had to get together for the canon to happen, but it could have been much better done so it didn't seem so gross. James could have been written less creepy and a commonality of substance could have brought them together after he matured more.

Fair plus we just get Remus and Sirius's word that he got better and the fact that James was willing to sacrifice himself for his family. We never see or hear what better meant. Did he apologize to most of his victims? Granted we also don't have much of a vehicle for that given this is a story about HARRY but still it does feel off even if she had broken it off with Snape that she'd go for someone that was such a bully (to others besides snape) even if he reformed. Honestly it might have been better if the rivalry had just been with Snape. Not that it would have made the bullying ok but then it would at least have been isolated and more of a back and forth. But we have proof in the detention cards of him getting other students.

Yes. The hints all add up to a nasty picture about James which leads to him being a bizarre choice for Lily. He has strong anti-slytherin biases before even going to school and thus lacks a proper motive for them. He harassed a student instantly for it. He was very creepy and weirdly obsessed with Lily from the beginning for no discernable reason. He forms and leads a gang. He sets a werewolf loose on the school every month. He bullies and harasses SO many students. He sexually assaults Snape. He felt he was above the rules. He's spoiled, rich, pampered, self absorbed and attention seeking. Not to mention his main target is obviously poor and already not doing well (so he goes for low fruit like Malfoy going after Neville but worse because Neville was neither poor nor without status. We aren't given a good character for comparison to Snape. Maybe Luna kind of? But a constant targeted and cruel harassment towards a character who is an outcast, awkward, poor, and abused). We know he thinks harming others is funny. We know very little else about him other than he was handsome, loyal to his friends (which is admirable and his only positive quality we see), good at Quidditch and Transfiguration and eventually brave enough to join the Order. Had JKR presented this totally differently then it wouldn't be as much of an issue. Had Snape been his only target as you say. Had his "pranks" actually been harmless and untargeted instead of harmful and targeted. Had he not taken a special interest in Lily until later on. Had Sirius and Remus (an already unreliable source) talked more about a good reason Lily began to see James differently. Had he genuinely matured into a good man who felt bad about what he did. But the without any of that it's just a bizarre pairing. And that really has nothing to do with Snape at all.

Hard agree even the short story she wrote for charity with him and Sirius being chased by cops (while amusing in some ways) shows he really hasn't grown up that much.

While I don't consider that canon per se, I also agree that it doesn't help how I view Sirius and James at all. Especially James. They really didn't come off as responsible, considerate, or mature in it. Just reckless, full of their own hubris, without compassion, and immature.

> lack of support from staff The Headmaster staff straight-up covered up a murder attempt on him then forced him into silence while not applying the same rules, much less dishing out any punishment, to his attempted murderers.

Yes, yes he did. I was putting it in a very understated way. We don't now if they got off scot free for it just like we don't know if Sluggy invited Snape to his club or not. Either way he had 0 real adult support. I honestly blame Dumbledore for almost everything bad that happens in the books. On the one hand, he often couldn't know what his actions or lack there of would lead to. But on the other he leaves a baby with abusive people in November, covers up an attempted murder on a student, sets on fire the very few things a child in an orphanage has, let's bullying rub absolutely rampant in his school, doesn't insist on a trial for a member of his vigilante group despite being in a prime position to do so, does nothing about a cursed job, hires incompetent teachers, and does nothing for children who are being abused at home of which we know of 4 even though we have a tiny sample size.

> We don't now if they got off scot free for it just like we don't know if Sluggy invited Snape to his club or not. Considering we don't get anything indicating they were punished, we don't really have any reason to believe that is the case.

That's not proof either way really. We know they weren't expelled or invistigated by aurors. It is very unlikely they were suspended as that would likely have been mentioned amd also a proper reason would be needed and Dumbles wanted it hushed up. So the likelihood of an appropriate punishment is very low, I'll give you that. We know detentions had the misbehavior logged in the records but it is possible that they were given a ton of detentions for other reasons on the books. It's also possible they were taken off the quidditch team at least temporarily. Neither is enough of a response to attempted murder though.

Said headmaster was the one why facilitated the place to transform. He would probably be in trouble if people knew there was a werewolf at school. Anyway, Sirius was the one who told Snape, so he would be the only one to be punished.

Brillant analysis, both Snape and James were obsessed over her and I think she shouldn’t ended up with someone else, neither are good people

You can be friends from childhood with someone of the gender you are attracted to without ever falling in love. She didn’t end up with Snape because there is no canonical evidence that she liked him that way. No one owes anyone else to reciprocate their feeling and not every two individuals that are of each other preferred gender will fall in love solely based on that reason

Agreed. Imo she should’ve ended up with someone entirely different than either of them, both were obsessed over her. James in the books was good looking, famous, headboy and rich so that helped him

At the end of the day, Lily's abhorrence of the dark arts is what sealed Snape's fate. She kept making excuses for him because she felt like she knew the real him, not the version he tried to be with the blooming death eaters. When that friendship ended, and she realized her and James's priorities and values aligned, I think that's probably when she started to open up to him.

You know the reason why there are so many James haters. It's because he's a Jock who got the girl just like in real life. He's popular and a bully in his school. But he grew up and started to fight for those who couldn't. Snape fans seems to think he's some sort of saint because he's bullied. But no he's a horrible person who only ever obsessed with one woman Lily and even took his anger on Lily's Son. I personally like Snape Character in books he's pretty complicated and everytime I opens the book and will start to hate him and at the end understand him as a anti hero.

The problem with Snape is his monumental victim complex. Never in any capacity has he viewed himself as anything but wronged by the world, and all of his vitriol and utter nastiness is perfectly justified in his own skewed opinion. He came from a broken home with an abusive father? Perfectly good reason to join up with magic Nazis who are targeting his only childhood friend. He had a schoolyard rival who bullied him (perish the thought that he ever reciprocated such behavior)? Well, guess I'm a bully now, too, only my victims are helpless children who are effectively trapped with me for seven years and incapable of meaningful defense or retaliation. Oh, what's this? My childhood love fell for my bully and got herself killed? Better spend the next seventeen years pining after her and growing more and more bitter while taking it out on a child who had absolutely no control over the circumstances. So what if he doesn't actually act anything like his father, he looks like the man, and that's reason enough to utterly and completely detest the boy, especially because he has my crush's eyes, which only serves to remind me of what a horrid and loathsome man l've become. Better whip out that age-old bully standby: "Life...isn't..fair. No, Severus, life has actually treated you perfectly fairly. You've created your own misery, and now you've chosen to wallow in it.

Sorry, what is SWM?

Snape’s Worst Memory

Ohhhhh, thanks!

Excellent meme! 10 points your house lol

She didn’t ‘choose’, she was never romantically interested in Snape. Even if she was, him being a wizard Nazi and calling her a slur has gotta be off putting for anyone

While James was initially a prick he eventually grew out of it and acted accordingly before Lily.Snape on the other hand must have grown worse..still allied with future Death Eaters much to dislike of Lily

I’ve read a lot of comments here, and as I understand - many people have same opinion as me: Snape never was an option - yes, he became Lily’s best friend and supported her, but he never said about his feelings. He started confronting with James and Sirius and this put him on a same level as Marauders - Lily wasn’t happy with all this bullying and dirty tricks, and asked Severus many times to stop, but he made his own choice… so pity.

Yeah, Snape wasn't the one starting stuff with the Marauders. The biggest thing he did was follow them around to try and get them expelled because, you know, they were bullying him.

I also wish people would stop with the “poor Snape she should have loved him back” nonsense for another reason. I, and every other potter fan I’ve spoken to who was with a domestic abuser that was a “sensitive, misunderstood” man, all recognize that’s exactly what Snape is. A manipulative abuser who uses the tragedies in his life to excuse and justify his horrible to downright evil behavior. Who cannot see how his actions are anything but valiant hero behavior when he finally chooses to sort of apologize and do a half-right thing (save Lily’s life, but let a baby and her husband that she dearly loves die?). Who will retaliate in rage and let his true feelings show when you don’t behave exactly like he wants you to (even as just friends, with calling her mudblood). This is a real world documented personality type of domestic violence perpetrator, and what we see of teen/young adult Snape is exactly how they usually begin. But lily stayed friends with him despite so much bad behavior, because she actually cared about him and felt loyal to him and wanted to believe he really was the child she knew underneath. But he had chosen to be something else long before she stopped being his friend. His plea to Dumbledore and his treatment of her innocent and orphaned child is proof that he was obsessed and possessive of her - he didn’t love her.  Lily is lucky that she never fell for him. The closer you get, the more you feel it’s not his fault and he doesn’t really mean it, the more the abuse escalates, and the harder it is to ever get away. 

Right, why the hell should anyone choose a talented wizard who loves her and ready to fight the war against magical ntzis over one of those ntzis who was obsessed with her AND dark magic and terrorized muggleborns... have no idea.

I'm just here tryna figure out why Lily chose James over literally ANYONE else. Like sure he stopped being a complete prick by 7th year but still seems like a bit of a low bar for a girl like Lily and it's not like she HAD to choose between James or Snape. Their whole relationship just seems kinda sheo - horned in to when this dude had try to coerce her into a relationship just a year or two before by dangling her best friend at the time in the air saying he would stop if she went put with which would seem like a massive deal breaker for any girl in the real world regardless of snapes obvious sins. It all just seems like sloppy writing on JK Rowlings part to me personally.

I don’t really agree with this. James is described as a smart, talented wizard who is funny, popular, mischievous, good at quidditch, charismatic/social, and dedicated to fighting the dark arts. Seems like a pretty good choice for Lily who seemed similar but nicer.

I mean, yeah, James is all that, but for many years, he spent viciously bullying, abusing, assaulting, threatening, sexually harassing, and at one point (potentially) sexually assaulting someone, specially someone who at one point was her best friend. That would be like a girl seeing this talented guy beating up, threatening, blackmailing, violently sexually-harassing, and potentially even sexually-assaulting her several people at her school, including her best friend, for a whole of 6 years, which is the entire time she has known him, and then, just because he stopped doing those things for 3 months, she suddenly decides he's boyfriend material.

I agree with this. Like I get he grew out of it, but personally I hate bullying so much that I would prefer to be with someone else. And the little we did see of James was pretty off-putting.

You know nobody these days say Lily should not have picked James. Snape was definitely wrong and and the books made it known very [plain.It](http://plain.It) is as you said quite easy to tell.

Uh ya think?

What does SWM stand for

“Snape’s Worst Memory,” the chapter in Order of the Phoenix in which Harry sees Snape’s memory of being bullied by James, and culminates with Snape calling Lily a Mudblood.

What even counts ad 'dark arts' anyway, and what really separates it from the other non- taboo forms og magic openly tolerated by the wizarding world. Google says it means magic intended to cause harm but that cam be literally anything in the wrong hands. Memory charms for example seem like a complete violation of human autonomy, it's SOOO hypocritical

It's an overused term nowadays, but Snape is the textbook definition of an incel... He has obsessive controlling urges around Lily to the point where he will accept literally no other partner but her. And for that he seems to believe that he's somehow owed her allegiance and her love. And even after she chooses another, he still pursues her and hold out hope that she'll somehow 'come around' to his way of thinking. To the point where he asks Voldemort to 'save her for him' (which the latter actually tries to do), and then goes to Dumbledore with his first intention being to just save Lily, and saving James and Harry are an afterthought. And then spends several years bullying the child because every single time he sees Harry it reminds him of her, and his childhood bully... Fantastic guy to name your kid after...

Totally agree. James is a much better person to be with, he’s fun, smart, social, not bigoted, etc. A reclusive, spiteful, dark magic life with Snape would have really sucked for someone like Lily. I hate the idea of them together and I think for a lot of people who ship them they think Snape deserves her because he loves her. From her perspective, he was her friend and they grew apart. None of that implies that she should be together. Incel vibes for sure.

Why does it have to be this James vs. Snape argument all the time? Truth is we didn't actually KNOW James or Lily, just got snippets of their life and what people told us about them.

I agree with much of what you said. I don't think Lily was even interested I'm dating until later in her Hogwarta career. She was very driven with her studies, considered by many to be the Hermione of her generation, though even more focused on studies it would seem. Perhaps if Snape had continued to be a friend to her rather than letting his own issues with his father lead him down the DE path, maybe she would've eventually seen him as a romantic interest like she did James, but unfortunately Snape is the one who kept driving a larger and larger wedge between he and her. James on the other hand started out as a dick. But as he grew up, he became better, started seeing how all their pranks were mean and, in Sirius' case with Snape, dangerous and started becoming more responsible. We see James join the Order and selflessly work against the DEs and Voldemort to protect people, especially his friends. The man who would die for those he cares for, that's the man that Lily chose. It wasn't a choice between Snape and James, she simply went about her life and fell for a good and caring man.

Or, hear this, might be a radical idea, BUT, she didn't have romantic feelingss for Snape, but had them for James! Crazy thought, right?

And so... That's it? There was nobody besides a barely reformed bully and guy who called her a slur? She chose as she chose because James attracted her and she doesn't owe it to anyone to choose the morally correct option

It's hardly morally dubious anyways

Not the point

Maybe Snape was just ugly

I thinks that snape was also ugly so lily just saw him as a friend rather than a love interest, so even if he didn't turn to the dark side i don't think lily would have married him

He could be handsome and not into dark magic. It would still be ok for Lily to think of him as a friend.

Yes but let's not be hypocritical. If you are handsome you got more chances that people are attractred by you. If snape would have been describe as handsome i'm pretty sure lily would have fallen in love with him till the moment he revealed his affiliation to the dark arts. It's a book you cannot represent all the different nuances a real life has. So when someone is handsome there is always someone else feeling attraction to them 

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Lmao the person you replied to never said she cut ties because he was ugly, just that she might not want to be with him romantically. You seem unable to grasp the concept that she didn’t have to either cut him off or date him, just staying platonic friends is perfectly acceptable.