I'm having a hard time believing in a reconciliation that doesn't address the EXTREME double standard that Lily's been showing. As in, she admits she's had it and was wrong. But maybe I have more pride than Snape.
...right.
Also... The decision to have sex is always based on information about the prospective partner (sometimes just the information that they're attractive, but still -- information). If someone's information is incorrect they may make a choice they wouldn't had they known the truth. Given that fact, if you know your prospective partner's information is incorrect, you have an obligation to correct it. Deliberately withholding correction, thus influencing the decision, is not much better than deliberately providing false information in order to influence the decision. Both are a species of violation.
And that goes double when the sex in question is their first time.
...
Perhaps I'm a worse person than Snape, but if I were in his shoes that entire "can't make her choose, therefore must leave" decision would lose a LOT of its power to move me when I thought back on the loss of my virginity and realized Lily's, excuse me, LIE. (Not only did she withhold potentially important information, she also let him make a fool of himself, whereas telling him would have nipped the fool-making in the bud.)
Already after the last chapter I was thinking I'd have trouble caring if, having already accepted Murder In The Service Of The Cause, I accidentally killed this particular person too. But I thought perhaps I wouldn't feel that way without the direct line you provided into Lily's thoughts. Now...
I think the problem is that after all she put Severus through and the really, really, mind-bendingly extreme!!! double standard that she never could let go of...you'll never convince me this Lily ever really loved him. It seems this Lily can only "love" him if he shows complete loyalty (and she has to show none), jumps through all sorts of hoops (and she jumps through none), and just generally Does Grand Things. Because, she seems to think, he as he is is just not good enough for her.
It is a neat reversal of all the fics where the guy has that sort of double standard.
Anyway though, it's one thing to convince the reader Lily never loved Severus, but in this case I'd feel that way if I were him, too...
...
You've addressed some of this with your characterization of James as squeaky-clean sweetie of the light, but... You can't pull off popular guy status and still be that much of a...sweetie toward girls, nor can you be 100% light, because to be a popular guy you have to be a bully, which James canonically was, so... I'm not sure if you're just saying Lily doesn't see it or that it's actually not there. But it is.
James -- and Lily -- may have thought he was always and 100% true to "the light," but they were fooling themselves.
...
If Severus joined Voldemort mainly to have money to support Lily, then I imagine he'll shortly realize, "You know, I'm a half-blood and here he's for pureblood supremacy..."
I tend to think the DEs were more clearly a terrorist group -- not a place to earn money, but a place to, if anything, give it for the cause -- by even the '70s, and that someone would have to be All Fired Up to join them.
...
In conclusion, I just have to reiterate that I for one could never forgive someone who ruined my first time like that. That is seriously the single worst first time I can imagine. Worse than paying for it. Worse [for me] than being forcibly raped, which though targets do tend to blame themselves is nevertheless in the end easier to understand is not the target's fault. Just... Worst. First Time. Ever. |