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Harry Potter fans are just realising Snape's first lines hinted at his love for Lily

8 April 2021, 10:02 | Updated: 8 April 2021, 10:04

Heartbreaking Truth Behind Snape’s First Words to Harry Potter

By Polly Foreman

Snape dropped a huge hint about his history with Harry's mum Lily in the first potions class of the series.

It's been over a decade since the last Harry Potter book was published, but that doesn't mean we don't still have a big cry every time we think about Snape's final twist.

Fans of the series will know that it turned out the Potions Master had been in love with Harry's mum Lily, and that her murder by Voldemort had led him to leave the Death Eaters for good and work as a double agent.

Snape had been in love with Lily. Picture: Warner Bros.

Readers weren't aware of this until the end of the final book, with Snape's memories showing that he had made a promise to Dumbledore to protect Harry because of his love for his mum.

It was a twist nobody saw coming, but fans have previously pointed out that JK Rowling alluded to the storyline in Snape and Harry's first scene together.

In his first ever Potions class, Harry is picked on by Snape, and asked a number of difficult questions seemingly to catch him out.

Harry Potter is seemingly picked on by Snape in his first Potions lesson. Picture: Warner Bros.

The first was: "What would I get if I add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Picking apart the meaning of these items, one fan (posting under @Akhtxr_Rehxn on Twitter) revealed that Asphodel is a type of lily, which was often used as a symbol of death 'remembered beyond the tomb'.

Wormwood, meanwhile, is thought to symbolise 'absence' and 'bitter regrets'.