"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter-"
"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
"For him?" shouted Snape. "Expecto Patronum!"
From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape.
--
I rebought the Harry Potter 7 book yesterday with a burning desire to both be in a book store and read it. I had read it hungrily the first day I got it, then let Finan borrow it, and at this point I know I'm never getting it back. Finan is not worth the gas to drive down there and get my stuff, I figure fifteen dollars is well worth the price, about the same of driving down to get my shit back.
Anyway, this whole chapter made me sob hysterically the first time I read it (I was a mess back then), and I thought if I re-read it I would gain perspective, and maybe it wouldn't be as sad as the first time, that Snape would seem pathetic to me, that the book would not be as good as I remembered, etc etc.
I got to the chapter tonight, and I was home alone. Nick had gone to Nate's, he usually does on Monday nights since I'm at work. I don't really mind anymore, I like being alone.
Reading the chapter did not change my perspective. I still cried really hard, still found the whole idea really compelling, and still found Snape to be my favorite character.
Now, I know it's lame that I'm blogging about a fictional character, but you bailed on me, so shut it.
The idea that someone can be in love with another person is a weird concept to me. To show unconditional love for as long as we live almost seems to go against human nature. This has been show to me fairly recently with promises of soul mates and undying love that turns on and off like a light switch. I have always believed in love, and that you don't really get to decide who you fall in love with, because if you could, why would you pick the person you are with? Why would I choose to fall in love with Nick, someone who complicates me, drives me up a wall, can make me scream at the top of my lungs for days on end ?
Wouldn't you want someone safe and reliable, who will always answer the phone when you call, who never stays out late, someone who agrees with what you say, who thinks they're lucky to have you and not worthy, and someone who doesn't pee all over the toilet seat?
Well of course. But that's not really the holy fuck love we all dream about, is it? Love is hard. If it were easy they would stop making movies about it, stop writing songs about it, stop writing books, poems, everything. People would not crave it, dream, fantasize, wish, hope, pray for/about it. It would be common, it would be someone we all have.
If this were love, Snape would have been with Lily, and I would have no cause to cry my way through chapter thirty three. I wouldn't have chosen to stay with Nick, Cindy would not still be my best friend.
I think that's why I enjoy Snapes ending so bad. I always like the underdogs, and my favorite characters are always like this, I think I must see myself in them. Certainly I Snape and I are both cutting and sarcastic, though I don't think I could pull the cape off as well as him.
His love for Lily was hard and complicated, and he spent his life loving her.
I guess I worried for a while that I made a mistake, that I should have chosen the easy option, that I should be begging for forgiveness, that me and Nick can be volatile and explosive, too passionate and emotional than is good for any human being.
I wanted to re-read the book specifically for the Snape chapter, specifically to see how I felt, if maybe I was making a mistake.
But I knew, like I knew back then, that it wasn't. Maybe Nick and I aren't Severus Snape and Lily Potter, maybe in four years from now we will part ways, but how could I give up a good thing, something so perfect for me? Me, who is sarcastic, and cutting, and loud, and sometimes really cynical and demanding and all sorts of things, why would I give up the one person who I ever met who not only understands all of that without me ever having to explain one part of it to him, but, at his worst, brings out the best in me?
At her worst, she brought out the best in him.
I will always regret my time with Garrett, because none of it was real. Everything we had was faux, pretend, how can you love someone as deeply as we claimed when it was so easy for us to let each other go. Sometimes I wonder if he hurts as bad as I do, if he misses me as much as I miss him, but I regret him harder than I miss him, and the feeling is a sinking ship in my stomach. He's my death eater, if we stick with the HP metaphor here. He said all the things I wished Nick would say, was a link to the friends I've always wanted so desperately to like me, he was cocky and arrogant, and it was easy to forget why I loved Nick so much I moved in with him four months after dating. Nick and I were fighting. I said awful, terrible things, things I regret terribly, all because I thought I wanted to be with someone who had very little respect for me, in the end, who lied to me over and over and never felt sorry for it, who turned people I liked against me to make his own ego feel better.
My story is different, much different from the book. I am young, I make mistakes. That does not excuse them, but I learn from them, I better myself, I move on.
I have had hard ship in my life, stuff people experience throughout an entire lifetime, not in twenty short years, and I know without a doubt I am a better person for all of them, that it is easy to put me under a microscope and pick me apart, and call me crazy, to tell me to go back to my medication, but I can't imagine anyone living through things like that and coming out a beautiful, intelligent, strong individual such as myself who is willing to help those around her, and is not bitter.
I know that my story, life and love, will be an interesting one, and it will be extraordinary because I chose it to be so. That I did something amazing and beautiful with my life, that I helped someone else, that I loved fiercely, was incredibly loyal, and was decent my entire life.
This are all things I love about Snape's character. He was loyal and fierce, brave and honest, and I think you could learn a lot from him.
Despite that he is a fictional character of course...
--
And Snape left the room. Harry rose up out of the Pensieve, and moments later he lay on the carpeted floor in exactly the same room: Snape might have just closed the door.
--
-embee
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