What if James and Lily didn’t know that one of them could be Secret Keeper? But then, someone would tell them, right? Wrong.
Dumbledore essentially raised Harry ‘like a pig for slaughter’. And with a real pig the process begins as soon as it’s born. Dumbledore was head of the Order, right? And he knew the details of the prophecy.
What if Dumbledore deliberately had this information kept from the Potters? After all, by trusting anyone with a secret you increase the odds of somebody finding out. Someone like Voldemort.
Lily and James choosing an external Secret Keeper allowed Voldemort to find them and mark Harry as the Chosen One, bringing about his own eventual downfall. This couldn’t have happened if they’d have known they didn’t need Peter.
And Dumbledore knew it.
holy sh- that makes a lot of bloody sense.
I also firmly believe that Dumbledore knew Sirius wasn’t the secret keeper
I always had a feeling that the idea Sirius had of picking Peter instead, was subtly suggested by Dumbledore
Hermione yelling at Harry for not blocking visions of Voldemort from his mind is eerily similar to every time someone told me to “stop being anxious!!” or “don’t be sad!!“ and “why can’t you just snap out of it?!”
and also i think hermione wants harry to ‘try and make it stop’ because she can’t do anything about it herself and she feels bad that he has to go through that, and that she can’t understand how it feels, and thats also the case when people/relatives tell you to stop being anxious
i love hermione because she never lost her voice. so many 10 year old smart and bookish girls are called “know-it-alls” all the time and end up shutting up because they’re made to feel like they shouldn’t talk, correct boys people when they’re wrong or show their knowledge. hermione was never like that. she never stopped speaking up. and i thank her for that
jkr justifying the fact that harry didnt name his son remus because he was leaving it for teddy is the most frustrating answer ever, what if he doesn’t want kids? what if he has 5 girls ? what if he doesnt want to name his child after his dead father he doesn’t remember because it’s, you know, painful? what if it’s possible to have the same bloody name twice in a family?
Give Harry to me, Hagrid, I’m his godfather, I’ll look after him.
Ah, let me count the ways in which fandom interpretation of Sirius Black infuriates me. One day, I’ll write an essay, but as I don’t currently have the time to pen a thousand-page epic -
This is literally the moment that possibly defines Sirius the most, and it’s the one that everyone forgets.
Everyone knows the story - Sirius arrived at Godric’s Hollow, saw the Potters’ bodies, and tore after Peter Pettigrew in a blind, thoughtless, reckless rage.
Um, except he didn’t.
He tried to take care of Harry. He tried to get Hagrid to give Harry to him, and when Hagrid refused, he tried to argue.
What, you think he was planning to tear after Peter with Harry tucked under one arm? Of fucking course not. It didn’t change that he wanted to kill Peter, that he probably would be happy to find and kill him later - but he wasn’t planning to murder anyone, to throw his life away, to even sit in a dark corner and drink himself to death while holding a goddamn baby.
This is Sirius’s godson, the person he promised his dead best friend he’d protect, and whom he now loved more than anyone alive. He’s asking for the kid so he can take the kid, and that means devoting himself to a lifetime of raising, nurturing, being patient, being parently, changing nappies and nursing fevers and a million other VERY. RESPONSIBLE. THINGS.
Do we know how good Sirius would have been at doing that? Hell no.
But what we do know is the most important thing - that he was willing to try.
Hagrid cites Dumbledore’s orders and won’t give Harry up.
So it’s really only once everything is really gone - that Sirius’s responsibilities and attachments are nearly all truly severed - that he decides there’s nothing else to do but go after Peter.
(N.B. This is probably something that other people have said before me, and better. But I just wanted to get it out.)
As much of a fan of Harry Potter as I am, one thing has always reeeeeally bothered me about the worldbuilding.
Quidditch.
From a game design perspective, Quidditch is fundamentally broken. In fact, it seems to be a lot like Monopoly, in that in Wizarding culture it’s so traditional as to be sacrosanct, but the actual rules design sucks.
(Now, it’s been pointed out to me that Quidditch’s brokenness is JK Rowling’s intentional reference to the ridiculousness of cricket, which seems fair — and even if it wasn’t, one of the themes of the books is that Wizarding culture is traditional and stubborn to the point of self-destruction, so keep in mind that I’m not blaming JK Rowling, but rather the culture that she created, for the badness of the rules of Quidditch.)
Why is it bad? Because basically, the Seekers are the only ones that matter. Except in a few offhandedly mentioned corner cases, the Seeker that catches the Snitch wins the game, because otherwise your team has to be 300 points behind in which case you have no reason to want to catch the damn thing at all. The Keepers and Chasers barely matter at all, and the Beaters are pretty much only there to keep the heat off their team’s Seeker.
The thing that’s really frustrating, though, is that it’s such an easy fix. The secret to making the game fair, while keeping its essential flavor and increasing everyone’s usefulness? Make the Snitch worth zero points. It still ends the game, Seekers still exist, et cetera. But the Snitch isn’t worth anything, points-wise.
Now, with that one tiny rules change, how it would play out is this: The Chasers, Keepers, and Beaters are still trying to score as many points as they can. But for Seekers, the game is very different depending on whether your team is ahead or behind in the points. If you’re ahead, you’re trying to grab the Snitch and end the game before the other team catches up. If you’re behind, you’re running defense, distracting the other Seeker and keeping him/her from grabbing the Snitch until the rest of your team has a chance to catch up.
Suddenly, everyone’s important to the overall skill of the team, but the Seekers still control the pace of the game, it still has the same quality of “bam it’s suddenly over”, and now the game is more interesting for everyone including Seekers.
Dear sir or madam: I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
This is a fantastic fix.
One other point I’d make about Hogwarts’ Quidditch Cup—there are too few teams and far too few matches.
While the House teams would still add points to the House Cup standings, adding club teams and/or House ‘B’ squads would up the ante for the Quidditch Cup. And, given that only 28 people are playing Quidditch in the books, how are England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales preparing the next generation of International Quidditch players without Hogwarts training them up?
So, I’d add club teams and make the students choose who they want to play for—certainly, Griffindor’s best would probably play for the House team, but what if there were other options?
Finally, the six match Hogwarts’ Quidditch ‘season’ is absurd. At the very least, the season should be doubled for ‘home-and-home’ series. Jo has the teams training all the time, but the teams only play three matches a year? It’s ridiculous. I get that from a writer’s point of view, it ups the tension for each match, and she spends way too much time in the first few books covering the matches that doubling them would be silly in terms of how many more chapters she’d need to write. I get that.
But from a sport perspective, none of this made sense to me, and @abalidoth’s solution is perfect.
I love these moments of Sirius’s thoughtfulness toward Ron Weasley, a boy who he basically only just met and barely interacted with.
Was this what Sirius was like when the Order members all started having their babies? Was he the one carefully tracking what was going on with everyone’s kids?
“Frank, I know Neville keeps losing his pacifier, so I charmed this one so it will permanently hover over his head when it’s not inside its case.”
“Molly, I know Percy’s front tooth has been getting looser and looser, so here’s a Sickle to put under his pillow. I’m sure it’ll be happening any day now.”
“James, I know Harry is having trouble sleeping, so I handmade this mobile for his crib with tiny wooden sculptures of everyone he loves. Me, you, me, Lily, me, Remus, me, the cat, me, Peter, and me.”
“something flickered in black’s shadowed eyes.”
i have always had so many feelings about this particular line and im so glad someone talked about it
HE’S SO RELIEVED AND HAPPY TO KNOW THAT HARRY HAS FRIENDS WHO WOULD DIE FOR HIM JUST LIKE THE MARAUDERS WOUDLVE DIED FOR EACH OTHER
can we just talk about the time that Lupin was recovering from a full moon and Snape taught the DADA class and made all the students write essays on how to kill werewolves for Lupin to read when he got back I hate Snape so much it’s not funny
Lupin gets back and he feels like crap and suddenly his best friend’s son is writing an essay about how to kill him like that is so fucked up
Bear in mind that an ex-Death Eater does this tosomeone who was in the Order, risked his life fighting against said Death Eaters and lost his best friends to the Death Eater’s genocidal leader, for the sole purpose of screwing him over, and as far as we know he experiences no consequences whatsoever for doing so.
And if that wasn’t enough, he made them write those essays hoping some of them would realize Lupin’s a werewolf. And one did, but Hermione is a fucking DECENT HUMAN BEING and said nothing. Apparently the ‘insufferable know-it-all' can keep her mouth closed, when it’s for something important. Just like Snape didn’t do at the end of the book.
I’m getting mad, so here’s something I’ve realized while reading The Order of the Phoenix again. (Please keep in mind that my books are in Italian and some concepts might be hard to explain, I apologize for my English mistakes)
In chapter 14, when The Trio talked with Sirius, he said that two years before Dolores Umbridge had written a law against werewolves that made it almost impossible for Lupin to find a job.
Now ask yourself this question. Why two years?
What had happened two years before? During Harry’s third year? Oh, right. The Magical World had discovered that one of Hogwarts’ teachers (someone who was in constant conctat with their children) was a werewolf. Does that ring any bell?
But that’s not all! If we take a look at chapter 15, in the Daily Prophet article we can see a familiar name: Remus Lupin.
In a newspaper. Where everyone can read it. “The werewolf Remus Lupin”. No wonder he couldn’t find a job! And it’s not the first time the Daily Prophet has written about him, as it’s stated in the article itself. There must have been a huge scandal when it had all come out.
So basically, when Snape decided he couldn’t bear not having what he wanted (for example, SIRIUS BLACK GETTING KISSED BY A DEMENTOR) and spilled the secret, he didn’t only tell the whole school. He didn’t only tell the kids’ parents. The told the whole Magical World.
He told the whole Magical World that a man who had kept his condition secret all his life was a werewolf.
And the Magical World responded with a law against werewolves.
So, basically, Snape didn’t only ruin Remus Lupin’s life. He ruined the life of every single werewolf in the UK.
i talk a lot about how my favorite missing moment in the hp series is the one referenced when harry mentions umbridge and sirius says “you should hear remus talk about her” but like, here is the reason for that.
remus spends the whole series speaking so cautiously, hesitating before he talks, choosing his words so carefully; something i think about a lot is the rarity with which he uses contractions in his speech, i.e. its always “he will” instead of he’ll,” etc. what that says to me is that he speaks slowly, he thinks before he talks, he is measured and careful in his speech. everything he says out loud he has already gone through in his head.
and there’s a reason for that, yeah? he does this on purpose, he does it because he has to maintain this exacted control or else people are going to be afraid. if he loses it, it is going to scare people. anger from remus – a raised voice, an aggressive movement, anything – is going to be perceived as corroboration of every stereotype and prejudice that he encourages people to resist with his constructed performance as a Good Werewolf. he can’t afford to trust that he can drop that emotional wall, because the reality of it is, maybe he can’t. maybe he drops it and people say “here it is, here is the proof that he is a monster, and now we must do what has to be done to monsters.” and so through the entire series, remus is characterized largely by his restraint: what he does not say, what he does not show, what he does not let himself feel.
twice harry (and the reader) sees remus lose control: when dumbledore dies (triggered by grief) and during their fight in grimmauld during deathly hallows (triggered by shame, fear, anger, self-loathing – a lot of things). extreme situations and emotions are the only things that shake him, right, thats when he breaks, that’s when he drops that shield: when he himself is so broken that he does not have the strength to keep it up any longer.
but here is the point in the long-winded rant where i wrap myself back around to the point:
whensirius says ‘you should hear remus talk about her,” there is (to me, anyway) a clear implication that when remus talks about umbridge, he’s pissed. he’s angry. he gives himself permission to be angry around sirius and that is important to me because it means that he trusts sirius. he trusts that sirius knows who he is, and he trusts that around sirius he does not have to maintain this constant charade of being a Good Werewolf. he can be angry, and sirius will think no less of him.
there is trust there, and that’s important to me, to know that remus does trust sirius again. it’s not a shipping thing or whatever, it’s just, the fact of the matter is that remus does not perform this self-protective act around sirius. that means there is one person who remus trusts himself with, and he needs that, and he deserves that. and i’m glad that it was sirius, for a very short period of time. i’m glad that they had one another back again, that they both had somebody who understood them fully again.
and that’s my piece about it, y’know, i don’t expect everyone to care that much about this one-off line, but for me it’s important. take it or leave it ya feel me?
lily and petunia is such a complicated relationship.
It is so easy to boil it down in fanfiction to Petunia is jealous and cut Lily out of her life but, really, do you think it was that simple?
Lily proves over and over again in the books that she has bite when she’s angry, that she can hold a grudge, that she doesn’t take crap, and that she’s not afraid to provoke her sister.
I love and adore Lily but I don’t think for a moment that it was one-sided.
Petunia was upset/jealous that Lily was a witch, and she might have made her choose, but Lily may have resented Petunia for hating something that she couldn’t help, but there is so much more to the story.
It was years of resentment on both sides, neither one understanding the other, arguments and things said that shouldn’t have been said, things unsaid that should have been said. It built up and congealed into these messy layers of resentment and mistrust and anger and hurt. Petunia did her fair share of name calling, but I’ve no doubt Lily did, too. And while Petunia was bitter and jealous, I’ve no doubt that Lily was antagonistic and proud. By the time Petunia got married and Lily was done with school, and by the time their parents died, neither could penetrate it, and I don’t think either of them wanted to.
At the end of their relationship they both had their own lives, their own worlds, and it was a mutual breaking apart, rather than one pushing the other out of their lives completely.
This is all speculation but I think-based on what we know about both of them-it’s what makes sense.
Thoughts?
i’m a firm believer that snape emotionally abused lily and in doing so, the very first thing he did was isolate her from her petunia. but i think, at the time when it occurred, lily was a willing participant because as a little girl who idolized her big sister, she was suddenly special and i think she liked that snape made her feel that way.
when the evans family discovered that lily was a witch, petunia suddenly became second best, and that’s a rather sympathetic situation. i mean, lily became wondrous, unworldly in their parents’ eyes and that’s extremely difficult to compete with. when looking at their relationship pre-snape and pre-hogwarts they were friends and playmates and probably didn’t even see each other as competition. but then suddenly lily is magical and therefore special and there’s nothing that petunia can ever do that will live up to that. her accomplishments aren’t ever going to be as grand or impressive, her stories never as interesting. lily almost has an exotic quality to her that their parents eat up with pride and fascination.
but petunia reacts horribly to this. she doesn’t want to be jealous because if she is than she will have to admit to herself that lily has something worth having/wanting and that she is missing out on something that she couldn’t even help about herself. so instead she has to elevate herself by calling lily a freak and embracing normalcy because lily, in her opinion, will always fail at being normal and it’s something that she at least can achieve.
but i don’t think lily really helped matters. like while i don’t think any of this is necessarily her fault, she didn’t exactly try to include petunia. i think she just expected petunia to be satisfied with being a muggle and be happy for her. i guess she didn’t realize how left out petunia felt or how much she was ignoring snape’s faults because he was this fascinating connection to her new world. but at the same time he was calling petunia “ordinary” and being generally cruel and prejudice towards for not being “special.”
so i think lily, in not realizing how much all of this was affecting/hurting her sister, was deeply hurt in petunia’s resentment. so i think she probably tried to show her how cool magic was by showing her tricks/spells that she learned (which led to not only petunia being more jealous, but negatively lashing out. and then she also got a letter from the ministry so generally bad idea). and once she got older, she probably started to tease/antagonize petunia a bit until she broke off her friendship with snape and probably looked back on the past with some regret. from pottermore we see that she was genuinely upset when the dinner between her, james, petunia, and vernon went horribly and she was probably hurt that they didn’t come to her wedding and then she was sending letters to petunia up until harry’s birth so i guess she was trying to patch up their relationship in some way. but at the same time, she also thought it was funny when harry broke the vase petunia sent. so maybe there were times when she missed her sister and times when she felt like “well i don’t need her anyway and the gifts she sends are probably ugly on purpose.”
i’m sorry that was long but their relationship is ridiculously fascinating and complicated and i won’t even get into how petunia projected her feelings of being second best/inadequate onto her own family by forcing harry into her position and making dudley a spoiled monstrous brat.
I agree with absolutely every single thing you just said.
I’ve been in an emotionally abusive relationship, which is quite frankly why I’m so horrified with snily. I know I’ve said that the romanticism of this kind of love by teenage girls is so appalling to me, but the reason I find this kind of obsessive, domineering kind of “love” so horrific is because, you know, I did, too. And I fell for it and in with a guy who wanted me all for himself. And the first thing he did, although I didn’t realize it at the time, was to isolate me. And how did he do that? Undermine the relationships I had with my family and friends. He started with my closest relationships and worked backwards. Siblings first, then parents, then family and friends. You know what? It works. It’s not a solid thing you can reach out and touch. It’s subtle. A million inferences, actions, comments-the gist of which is the only person you need is me. And it’s horrible because that’s not the way it’s presented. It’s presented as a mutual thing-you’re the best thing in my life, aren’t I the best in yours? You’re my number one? Aren’t I yours? Aren’t we the same and we understand each other perfectly and no one else understands you quite as well as I can.
BAM. This is exactly what happened with young Snape and young Lily. Now let me say that nine year old Snape-I don’t think he realized what he was doing. His only model for love/relationships was his parents which is, let’s just say, a fucked up relationship, definitely abusive, and this is what he knows. He was inherently selfish, yes, and he couldn’t see past himself enough to even consider Lily’s point of view-that she would want her sister in her life. He thought that she was special, and he watched her, he wanted her, even then, and that’s where it starts.
I could write a twenty page essay on snape and lily’s emotionally abusive friendship and a psychological profile of snape because, let me tell you, I LIVED WITH IT FOR MORE THAN FOUR YEARS and I’ve done more research than most people and can hold my own against a pychologist because I’ve dealt with so many in reference to ex. Basically, if anyone tells me it wasn’t just that, an abusive relationship, they don’t know what they’re talking about. But that’s not this post. :)
I digress, so back to Petunia.
At this point, Petunia and Lily are, if not the closest, close. Each other’s playmates. They weren’t at the park with their girlfriends from school-they were there with each other. So they played together and felt comfortable enough with each other to confide-Lily wanted to share her magic with Petunia-opening and closing the flower. And back then, it was different, it really was. You didn’t have games and phones and everything else to keep in touch with the world-it was your sibling or nothing. If you didn’t have immediate neighbors-your best friends were your siblings. And you went outside and played. This is what they did.
So regardless of whether or not they were BFFs forever, they were close, close enough that Snape picked up on it and sought to undermine this relationship. Snape, rather than Petunia, is the one Lily is spending her days with. This boy that they both turned their noses up to at first, Lily’s chosen him over her, and that has to sting. And Petunia knows that Lily’s different-she’s seen what she can do, and she realizes it must be true. So she spies on them-I think, really, to see what’s so special to shut her out. Jealousy and curiosity combined. And then she pulls an Elphaba and jumps out and Snape attacks her with a branch. Lily knows, because she confronts Snape. Petunia knows it was intentional, too. And what does Lily do? She forgives him and continues their friendship. I understand that Lily didn’t want to lose her magical friend, who was in many ways her key to the magical world-a position Snape knew and pressed to his advantage, something an abuser does, by the way-but I also understand the WTF factor Petunia must have been feeling.
Then the letter comes and it’s all true. Lily is this special, wonderful thing that Petunia doesn’t have, you know? I’ve been an older sibling, intensly jealous of my shinier, prettier, start athlete little sister. I get the resentment and anger that can build there.
Also, Lily leaves her. And I think what’s more unforgivable is that Petunia can’t go with her. And Lily mocks her for it. Not actually, but that must have been how it felt. So goes away for ten months and comes back. Petunia is alone with her parents for ten months of the year, doing the chores, being the only daughter, and then Lily comes back with these fantastic stories and her parents are so proud and I completely understand her jealousy. I do.
And Lily has to feel resentment that Petunia just won’t let it go, get over something she can’t help, but she’s also going to bristle at every barb, not letting it go, and fight back. I can just see their relationship slowly turning antagonistic, strained visit by visit, and train wreck that none of them really know how to stop.
There is so much here that I want to go into but maybe the next reblog, lol. But YES to all of it.
They obviously, in the end, still cared about each other. Petunia wouldn’t have taken Harry in if she didn’t, on some level, care and Lily wouldn’t have kept the vase and still been writing letters and everything else. They still cared, but it was too difficult. I’d like to think if they’d grown up a bit more, they’d have grown out of it and reconciled. Again, their respective husbands didn’t help the situation-Vernon wasn’t at all tolerant of any abnormalities and James wasn’t going to put up with Vernon’s prejudiced bullshit.
Ugh, my babies. I have sisters and step sisters and sisters in law and sisters are my favorite kind of relationship and I have so many thoughts and feels about these two.
i’m so sorry that that happened to you lindsey! emotionally manipulative people make it really difficult for people to escape their trap and i’m so happy that you were able to, because that kind of abuse always has the potential to escalate. but i’m so proud of you for getting out; i can’t imagine how hard that is.
but that’s exactly why i do not understand how people look at snape and lily’s relationship and see something beautiful and romantic in ~unrequited love~ instead of the toxicity of abuse. i certainly agree that snape wasn’t doing it with intention - i’m sure that as a young boy he had no idea what he was doing - but that doesn’t change that he was, and it amazes me how so many don’t even realize it. especially since he had that little pull that would bring her back (“i thought we were friends - best friends”). it was so toxic and the first step was the isolation. and i think he played such a huge part in the severing of lily and petunia’s relationship, although i cannot blame him entirely or say that only one sister actively participated in this estrangement.
one thing i am curious about though, is what made petunia stop making an effort, because i honestly believe that she did. for one thing she didn’t go to james and lily’s wedding, but then she also threw harry’s birth announcement into the trash without even looking at it. that was the last bit of contact between them before lily’s death and it’s a little curious that she had turned away when lily was seemingly trying to make an effort.
i often wonder if their parents’ deaths could have played a part in this. while JKR has confirmed that their deaths had nothing to do with magic, there is a chance that petunia wanted to wipe her hands clean of her old life, to move on completely with a fresh start, and her plans didn’t include lily. in a way, because of her magic, lily was the stain in petunia’s life, the only thing that kept her from being completely normal (which was a lifestyle she had completely embraced and clung to because she’d convinced herself that she didn’t need magic and she was better off without it and a nice normal life could be just as wonderful and fulfilling). i’m sure vernon fed into this (i don’t want to blame him completely because i want petunia to take responsibility for her actions, but i do believe he played his part because he rejected all things abnormal and absolutely validated all of her feelings). i can just imagine the two of them sitting in their spotless parlor, drinking champagne, being the picture-perfect image of what they think is normal and the “dream” and just going back and forth about how completely abnormal james and lily are and all of the freakish things that they must get up to together (although they probably only did this once and once only because it’s best not to talk about such things and rather pretend that these imperfections in life simply do not exist - much like how the black family would wipe members off the tree and somehow manage to forget unless a good threat was due for certain stragglers).
but i bet she wanted to get on with her life: marry, raise a family, tend to her garden (that was completely void of any lily flowers because lily? lily who?), age gracefully, and then die after having a completely normal life where nothing out of the ordinary happened and she can be undoubtably satisfied. but then there’s a baby on her doorstep, a baby that is most definitely her nephew and her sister and brother-in-law are dead.
dumbledore’s letter must have explained the circumstances and how dire it was that harry live with her in particular because when they were going to kick(?) harry out in OotP dumbledore sent a howler that stated “remember my last.” so she must have known why it was important that harry was in her care. and it must have hurt that this had all come about because of lily’s death, but at the same time, petunia chose to neglect and abuse harry. and i truly believe that was of her own agency. vernon intensified the situation and certainly egged her on, but she never stopped him or herself from causing harm to her sister’s son. and i think that’s because of some deep, deep resentment that drove her over the edge. petunia as a child was sympathetic, but as an adult, her actions are inexcusable.
i mean could you just imagine her all upset how she has to take in her nephew and care for him and explain to all of the neighbors why she suddenly has an extra baby from a sister she never mentioned like the absolute nerve of lily, how dare she die? (to be honest she was probably too distraught to allow herself to probably grieve and instead forced all of those feelings into anger and resentment because that was easier to deal with and hating lily was preferable to missing her - doesn’t make it right, but it’s a possibility)
and even in death she feels at the mercy of her perfect sister and that little boy is going to be just like her isn’t he? not only annoyingly perfect but a freak and he is a stain on her normal life and stains must be wiped clean so she will stifle him and all of the magic he could possibly have (because she probably wonders if she could have stifled the magic out of lily early on if she hadn’t been so mesmerized by her abilities). so she tries to make him as ordinary as she had always felt and dudley-kins doesn’t need magic to be special and here you will get 20+ gifts and we’ll give harry none hahahahaha who’s second best now?!?!?
(i think i just went mildly insane when writing all that)
but any who, i think when lily had the intentions of patching things up with petunia, she probably didn’t think to resolve all of their issues, but instead just thought that things could go back to as they were so petunia had all of this pent up anger and resentment that exploded onto harry. i don’t think petunia was at all innocent in the situation (and frankly ended up being the most wrong after beginning as the one that was wronged) but lily didn’t help things. but i kind of feel like for the most part lily meant well? not always but i think her heart was in the right place for most of the time but things just got out of hand.
Thanks, love, but it’s really okay. It took several “attempts” and, ultimately, my family driving down with a uhual to rescue me, but I was able go get out. It was hard, though, I was deep in his clutches, we had our narrative and it was difficult to break. It took enough bullshit and, ultimately, one big thing to happen to get me to realize what I ought to have realized a long time ago-that he was rotton egg, crazy, and not worth saving. Lily was the same with Snape. Little Snape didn’t realize what he was doing, but it is what he was doing, and 16 year old Snape absolutely knew what he was doing when he pulled the same thing-trying to avoid responsibility, deflect her accusations and return instead with his own, and undermining the relationships that her perceived as a threat to his relationship with her. Manipulative, abusive tactics. I get such a chill when I read those because JK took them verbatim from abuse/survivor handbooks, I swear. I have zero sympathy with the idea that Lily ought to have given him another chance-she never should have given him a chance when he proved he was capable of hurting her sister, but that’s how those things go. It set a pattern that she couldn’t break until she was 16. Anyway, that is what little Lily was dealing with, and her relationship with Petunia was the fallout. There were other factors, of course, but the fissures started here.
Petunia and Lily-so fascinating. Like there was jealousy and anger but it was so much more than that. I absolutely believe that her parents’ death, or whichever parent died after Petunia’s wedding, had something to do with it. Do you remember when Harry says he’s glad the Dursley’s never found out about his parents’ gold, else they’d be all over it? I honestly think something of that nature happened-some kind of issue with Vernon wanting to control the way the estate was handled, manipulate Lily in some way, or it was an argument about the things, or it was at that point that Petunia decided she had enough and wanted to move on with her life.
I absolutely think that’s where they were-I think it was just too painful for Petunia to keep that wound open if she didn’t have to, and if her parents were dead, there was no need, you know? She wanted a lovely, clean house and an orderly life and a completely, perfectly ordinary little world she had complete control over and so she swept what she couldn’t control, or what hurt, into the dust bin. And while Petunia is culpable, Vernon is too, in contributing to this mindset. The opening lines of the book are, you know, he’d yelled at several people and so he considered it a good day. They aren’t particularly kind people, negativity breeds negativity, and I think that being with such a negative person only enhanced those feelings of bitterness and resentment in her.
And I think Lily, for her part, while she tried, was just too exhausted at the end of the day, you know? She’s with James and they’re fighting full time for the Order and there’s a war and, quite frankly, it’s too much to think about actively, so she’ll write a letter and tries to correspond but it’s too much. It’s clear in the books that of the two, Lily is the sweeter girl. So I think Petunia’s mindset was more good riddance and Lily’s was more whatever, then, if this is the way it’s got to be then so be it. I definitely agree that Petunia was the more spiteful of the more, more likely to provoke and name call, but I also think Lily didn’t back down and probably had her own resentment issues to deal with.
I can’t even begin to talk about the way she treat Harry. I think Dumbledore said it best in HBP when he comes to pick up Harry. He’s talking to Petunia, more than anyone else, and she knows it-she won’t even look at him. That is really, more than anything, when I have the most respect for Dumbledore. She treated him abominably-Vernon was cruel, yes, but so was she in so many ways, both in what she allowed and didn’t allow, in what she actively did against him and also what she withheld-the truth and the knowledge about his mother. There’s a scene in a completely different movie-Ever After-when Drew Barrymore confronts her evil stepmother and, when asked what she wants, she says, “You are the only mother I have ever known. Was there a time, even in it’s smallest measure, that you loved me at all?” and the step-mom responds with, “How can one love a pebble in one’s shoe?” And it’s such a terrible, cruel thing to say but it sums up Petunia and Harry’s relationship. She saw him as a stain on her life, her dead sister trying to ruin her life, a problem to hide under the stairs when company comes over, and it’s terrible. For her to take out issues on an innocent child-especially her nephew-is what I cannot abide.
Something I don’t necessarily appreciate about the books though, or that I wish we’d had more of, is the chance for her to redeem herself. Snape had his redemption, so to speak, in that he saved Harry’s life or whatever, and Petunia never got a chance to say that or do that? Or maybe the moral is that she is-there’s that moment at the beginning of book 7 when she wants to say something, an doesn’t-and so maybe the moral is that she hasn’t changed and never will. We know that Dudley would visit with Harry-and it would be awkward and weird, but they did it. IDK this is very rambly but ya feel me?
Putting aside my own feelings as much as I can, sometimes I’m just like, astounded by the fact that Dumbledore ensured the acquittal of a former Death Eater. And then hired him to teach children. Like??? He was a willing participant in a violent terrorist group for several years??? He changed his mind. Ok. He should still receive due punishment. Counselling. Some kind of behavioural assessment. A probation officer. Something. How did this trial go?
Wizengamot: You have been accused of aiding and abetting attempted genocide, child endangerment and hate crimes. How do you plead?
Snape: Guilty. But I feel like, really shitty about it. Not a good life choice.
Dumbledore: He really seems to mean it.
Wizengamot: U r free to go.
About Dumbledore:
Because that’s Dumbledore’s whole character. Does he really see only the good in people or is he completely aware of who they are and their ambiguity (in Snape’s case it’s way more than ambiguity) but sees the bigger picture in everything he does? the line is unclear, but i’d highly suggest the second option. That’s Dumbledore’s thing: he does people a huge favor (i.e. allowing Hagrid to stay at Hogwarts and giving him a job, allowing Remus to attend Hogwarts and giving him a job too, whatever he did for Mundungus which was probably getting him out of a sticky business situation, and so on) to ensure their loyalty, which often works. He knew that Snape wouldn’t be a good teacher, wouldn’t become a good person, however skilled he was; but he also knew, i think, that snape would not be stupid enough to lose his place in Dumbledore’s good graces, and that he had a reason that was solid enough -because it was, though twisted, unconditional love - reason not to.
But the main thing here, like you said, is that Dumbledore didn’t really care about people’s inner battles, mental health, or struggle; or rather, he cared about them, but he was cold blooded enough to not let it affect his plans (i.e. not even looking at Harry in OOTP when he suffered from PTSD, not caring about Sirius going mad in Grimmauld Place, and not caring about the students in Snape’s class, because he knew that it was helpless). That’s the whole complexity of Dumbledore’s character. It’s unclear if he really cared. But he did it all for the greater good.
As for the Wizengamot :
I think Snape was way more cunning and cautious during his time as Voldemort’s right hand man than the other Deah Eaters. I don’t think he was much of a battlefield person, either. It’s entirely possible that the Ministry had no solid proof of his actions, mainly high suspicions, I believe. I have no idea how Dumbledore managed to clear him, but it probably wasn’t that hard considering Dumbledore’s influence on the Wizengamot at the time and the fact that Snape could probably deny most of the things he was accused of; and I personally think he did something major to help the Ministry in the fight against Voldemort to prove his loyalty (because that is also how Dumbledore tests his men as well; by how loyal to him they are willing to be)
they figured out how to use the Marauder’s Map during their first year
they both received good marks in their first few years at Hogwarts
they drove their dad’s flying car without any training
they knew how to pick a lock using Muggle methods
they actually memorized the entire Marauder’s Map by their fifth year
they correctly predicted the outcome of the Quidditch World Cup
they made a successful aging potion so they could put their names in the Goblet of Fire (of course, Dumbledore had the age line which knew they weren’t of age, but their aging potion was a success regardless)
they started a highly successful business from scratch before their sixth year
they invented a great load of things for their business (which takes time, intelligence, and money)
found a way to disguise their products so they could be delivered to Hogwarts students
they passed their Apparition tests “with distinction”
they knew what the Vanishing Cabinet was and shoved Montague in it, knowing he wouldn’t come out for weeks
they turned corridors at Hogwarts into swamps
helped to keep Potterwatch going
Kind
tried to send Harry a toilet seat when he was in the hospital wing after fighting Quirrell and Voldemort
tried to keep the rogue bludger away from Harry after Quirrell had bewitched it
they rescued Harry from his abusive home before his second year at Hogwarts
didn’t take the rumors that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin seriously
both of them were ready to attack Malfoy when he called Hermione a “mudblood”
decided to give the Marauder’s Map to Harry because his “needs are greater than ours”
comforted Harry after the dementor attacks
they allowed Harry free merchandise from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes because he gave them the thousand galleons to start their shop
defended their brother when the Slytherins came up with “Weasley is our King”
defended Harry when the Slytherins insulted his mother, Lily Potter
started an all-out rebellion against Umbridge for her punishment practices
volunteered to take Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Harry Potter so they could safely transport the real one
Family-Bound
constantly defended their family from jokes about wealth, blood status, and appearances
requested that Percy sit with them instead of the other prefects in their third year because it was a “family holiday”
they were very proud of Ron when he beat McGonagall’s life-sized wizard’s chess
tried to cheer up Ginny during her first year, even though she’d been under the influence of Tom Riddle
joined their family in Egypt (even though they tried to lock Percy in a pyramid)
(sort of) comforted Ron when Scabbers went missing in his third year
they bought Ron a brand new set of dress robes under Harry’s instruction
they spent a majority of their Christmas holidays during their seventh year at St. Mungo’s after their father was attacked by Nagini
defended their family from Percy’s ignorance on multiple occasions
both still stayed at the Burrow for the Christmas holidays during Harry’s sixth year
[feel free to add more]
Addition, Family- protective of Ginny, in general, but specific example, during GoF at the Quidditch World Cup when the Death Eaters attack.
Correction: Dobby bewitched the rogue bludger, not Quirrell. That happens in CoS and Quirrell is very much dead by then.
