Lily's Friend: Renamed "With Her Own Eyes": A WIP

[terri_testing]

With Her Own Eyes

Summary: Mary Macdonald watches the breakup of another of Lily Evan’s friendships.

Warning: Emo!Snape.

The fire bites, the fire bites. Bites

Comments

[totalreadr]

What oryx_leucoryx said: It's clear Severus' "looking as though he’d invented a spell to stride on sunlight" was because of the canon conversation.

...

I was just thinking of the computer game Civilization II (I don't need no stinkin' Call to Power, or III, or IV) and how if you have a "Fundamentalist" government, you can break treaties and alliances and so on with much less of a hit to your reputation because, the manual explains, "The other countries don't expect any better from you."

Likewise, when Draco called Hermione a Mudblood, Hermione finally had an excuse to slap him, but in general, neither the Trio nor the readers thought any worse of him. They (unlike Lily) didn't expect any better from a Slytherin.

I guess I expect the same attitude from Mary, so I get confused when she gives so very much emotion to Severus. She almost even comes off like Lily toward James in SWM!

“Why, that ungrateful little-jerk!”

To me "jerk" seems a little too much what you'd call a peer. What about something like "worm"?

It made her quite hot to see Snape’s distrust!

Huh? Why isn't she rolling her eyes at the greasy git showing his Slytherin green yet again?

Mary’s lips tightened as she thought of Snape’s distrust and ingratitude. She blurted, “How can you call a git like that a friend, Lily?”

I would've expected her to be thinking how *pathetic* Snape is, being ungrateful even when his life is saved. I wouldn't have expected her to be *angry*. She might still be moved to ask Lily that question, but I'd expect it to be in a snide, eye-rolling way, not "blurted" in anger. "Jeez, Lily, this guy puts you down when all you did was ask what's wrong -- *why* are you friends with him again? Why do you even talk to him? The good-for-nothing!" (Obviously I'm putting it in the slang of my own generation, but you get the picture.)

You also might want to look at this. It's Elkins' pre-OotP explanation of what JKR had done to convince many Snape fans that Sirius and James had bullied Severus in school. Since it's pre-OotP, a lot of it rests on the attitudes displayed by Sirius and the Marauder's Map (and Severus).

Here are the most relevant bits:

it is difficult for many people to read Sirius' sneers about "slimy, oily, greasy-haired" Snape in GoF, for example, and not see it as a quite recognizable depiction of the popular charismatic bully, all grown up and still utterly lacking in any particular sympathy for his adolescent victim. His derisive snort and sneering of "it served him right" in the Shrieking Shack also contributes to this impression, I think, as does his allowing Snape's head to bang on the ceiling as they make their way out of the shack.

[...]

I personally find it simply impossible to read [the Marauder's Map] scene without coming to the conclusion that the map's little zingers are in fact precisely the sort of verbal abuse with which James and his friends used to taunt Snape back in their schooldays. The Map's insults are fundamentally childish. They are schoolboy insults: "abnormally large nose," "ugly git," "idiot," "slimeball," "advises him to wash his hair."

They are also precisely the sort of insults that get levelled against creepy unpopular kids by their socially superior adversaries.

[oryx_leucoryx]

As I understand it, Terri needs Mary to be someone who has a sympathetic view of James. Knowing Terri's view of James, this doesn't leave much room for Mary to be much else. I'm not even sure if a female Sirius would have worked because she'd be left out.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Sorry, I was just speculating on what possibilities there could have been for an outsider female friend of Lily to see James sympathetically.

[totalreadr]

Terri's Mary makes *sense* if you view her as the 'female Pettigrew' (aka 'archetypal syncophant').

I agree -- I said as much under the first posting of the story. I also said that in order to instinctively see Mary as the "female Pettigrew," I personally would need more of a sign that that's where Mary's coming from. A "moment of doubt in her own superiority" is how I put it there. More of a sign she's jealous of *Lily's* friendship -- or even just really, really, *really* admires Lily -- would also work.

But then, you didn't need any more of a sign than Terri gave you. Just because I personally would need more of a sign doesn't mean everyone does.

(OTOH, there's canon Lily's "none of my friends understand why I even talk to you anymore," which would imply Lily's friends do honestly think they're better than Severus...)

(BTW, I don't expect anyone to automatically know or assume this, but I'm a guy.)