Gallery ♦
I wrote this a while back as a response to someone's question (if I'm remembering correctly I wrote this on the HPN and then copied it as a response to someone's post here). Anyway, here it is, because I truly believe it and it deserves it's own space!
I've always thought that to love Severus is to love Lily. Even though I greatly prefer stories where/personally like to believe that that love is NOT romantic.
I never thought his love for Lily was obessive or stalkerish, and I've never understood how some people can. I mean, the definition of obsession is "an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone". He doesn't try to control her, or stalk her, or force her to do anything. He doesn't even lie to her in any of the memories we see (his no about the branch doesn't count because he was highly confused and it was accidental magic).
It seems like a common idea in the world is that someone's love for their friend is less than their love for their romantic partner. But that's not true. It's different, yes, but not less.
Severus' love for Lily is one of his most defining characteristics because it shows us that he can feel that pure, deep, and unconditional love for someone.
That love is truly the most powerful thing in the world is one of the main themes in the books, and one of the biggest reasons of why I treasure the books. That pure and unconditional love is so much more than a crush or what you feel for an acquaintance.
That unconditional love is not found just in romantic relationships. It's found everywhere, both in the books and in the real world. It's the love a mother or father has for their child, shown so clearly when Lily sacrificed herself. It's the love Harry has for his friends and the ones who fought with him, shown when he does what Lily had done, and Voldemort can't touch anyone on the side of the light because of Harry's unconditional love for them. It's the love a spiritual or religious person has for their higher being, and the thought that that higher being loves them unconditionally as well. It's the love that is the very essence of life and nature. It's the love Severus has for the only good thing/person in his life, his only light, Lily.
And you can have that love in a friendship. That deep, unconditional love where you would do anything for them, where the idea of them being gone devastates you. I know this because I've lived it.
Love is infinite. Your heart never runs out of love. It strengthens you. It's not like hate or revenge, where the only way to fuel it is to give up happiness and peace. It fuels itself.
That pure, deep, unconditional love is what Severus has for Lily. She is a part of him, and she always will be.
Whether or not you wish for that love to be romantic as well is a personal opinion. We all have our preferences. But neither option (romantic or friendship) diminishes that unconditional love. That deep, wonderful, inexplainable, pure, unconditional love.
