ohdeerjily:

Honestly one of the most important scenes in the entire Harry Potter series is when nine-year-old Severus Snape uses magic to cause a tree branch to fall on Petunia. Even at nine he had no qualms about hurting people Lily loved. This really serves to underscore the idea that while Snape loved Lily, he was not truly invested in her happiness or well-being because he did not care about the people she loved. At age nine he didn’t care about hurting her sister and at age twenty he didn’t care about the imminent deaths of her husband and infant son. So I will always stand by my opinion that while Snape no doubt loved Lily, it was not a healthy love and he really never deserved to have it reciprocated.