Just after Sirius dies in OoTP, Dumbledore sends Harry to his (Dumbledore’s) office to wait while Dumbledore sorts things out with and for Fudge. When Dumbledore arrives in his office to talk to Harry, Harry is still thinking of Sirius:
Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and stared determindedly out of the opposite window. He could see the Quidditch stadium in the distance. Sirius had appeared there once, disguised as the shaggy black dog, so he could watch Harry play…. He had probably come to see whether Harry was as good at James had been…. Harry had never asked him….(823)
Harry is beating himself up over Sirius’s death and agonizing over Sirius’s life. The thing is, however, that the question of why Sirius came to watch Harry play was answered in PoA. While Sirius is telling of his escape from Azkaban, he says:
I swam as a dog back to the mainland….I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I’ve been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry…(372)
cited:
Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York, Toronto, London, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Scholastic Inc., 2003.
Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, Toronto, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Scholastic Inc., 1999.
I wonder what it will mean that Snape is indebted & bonded to James, since James saved his life. At the end of PoA, Dumbledore tells Harry that Wormtail and he (Harry) are bonded because Harry spared Wormtail’s life. That means that James and Snape are equally bonded. Perhaps that’s why Snape’s always (or at least for the most part) tried to save Harry. That makes me question my idea that Snape’s impetus for doing so is more or less rooted in his feelings for Lily. I guess I’ll just have to give it some thought…and, of course, wait for the last book.
People who ship (or just plain talk about Harry Potter) often compare Harry to his father. People say he is James, to Ginny’s Lily. That doesn’t hold true for me. One constant theme in OoTP was that Harry is NOT James. Molly says it. Sirius says it. Harry is not James. However, what occurred to me while reading HBP is that it’s more likely that Harry is Lily to Ginny’s James.
Harry has Lily’s eyes and it’s been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I think that translates here in a way that gives Harry Lily’s sensitivity, her delicacy. I don’t mean those as signifiers for weakness–I consider neither Harry nor Lily weak. I just mean that like his mother, Harry is good at sensing and understanding the delicate nuances of situations. It’s what made Lily great with potions. Snape himself describes potion making by saying, “I don’t expect you [students] will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…” (Rowling 137). But Lily obviously did understand the delicacy of potions.
Harry displays that same kind of ability with people–he sees them and through them. More so in HBP than any of the other books, certainly, but all along really. It’s just that HBP shows a more mature focused Harry–a Harry very much similar to his sensitive and temperate, though passionate, mother. Meanwhile, brash, smart, popular, outgoing Ginny is much more James-like.
Moreover, I think Harry’s similarity to his mother is going to really come to mean something big. All through HBP I wondered if perhaps Snape hadn’t been in love with Lily when they were in school. True, as seen in OoTP, he wasn’t exactly nice to her–but then when he was working as hard as he could to SAVE Harry’s life, he wasn’t being nice to Harry either. One gets the feeling that Snape doesn’t much appreciate goodness and what it does to him–as though he still hasn’t matured emotionally enough to handle the intense welling up of LOVE or HAPPINESS. Because of that, he lashes out instead.
If he does love her, or at least did, it would certainly shed greater light onto why he hated James and why James hated him. It would further explain why the sight of Harry inflames Snape so much. To see Lily in Harry’s eyes, trapped in the face that James gave him…well that would inflame his jealousy and anger and pain. Furthermore, I think it might have spurred him on toward leaving the Death Eaters. He didn’t know when he delivered the prophacy that it would result in Lily’s death. He didn’t know that Voldemort would choose Harry. And when Lily died, I think Snape couldn’t take it–couldn’t ever again really side with Voldemort. So he came to Dumbledore. So he spends his time torn between wanting to help Harry for Lily’s sake and wanting to hurt him because of James.
cited:
Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1997.
My friend Shawn claims that Sirius can’t really be dead, even though he seems to be by all accounts. My mom thinks he’ll be back, too. I’ve been reluctant to believe that because going beyond the veil equals death and that’s just what Sirius did. However, I was just rereading PoA and I found a line that I find interesting:
“Harry looked into the shadowed eyes of Sirius Black, the only part of the sunken face that seemed alive. Harry had never met a vampire, but he had seen pictures of them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, and Black, with his waxy white skin, looked just like one.” (Rowling 38)
The Potters and Dumbledore seem to get on very well with “half breeds.” Take Lupin and Hagrid for examples. While being a vampire wouldn’t actually make Sirius a half breed, it amounts to nearly the same thing. So what if Sirius IS a vampire? That could mean that he’d be back. For me, it’s something to think about.
cited:
Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1999.