#Severus snape meta

[maxdibert]

‘Severus didn’t care if Lily’s husband was killed—he wasn’t worried about her; he just wanted to get the girl at all costs.’

Correction: Severus couldn’t care less if the rich brat who harassed, stalked, and tormented him for seven years of his life—a privileged, possessive jerk who couldn’t stand the idea of the girl he liked having a friend who didn’t fit his idea of ‘proper masculinity’ and who was an easy target because of his looks and social class—was killed. Because no victim is required to care about what happens to their abuser. Expecting Severus to have empathy for someone who reduced him to a ‘thing’ to take out his personal frustrations on is like asking a woman who was assaulted to feel sorry for her attacker. And for the record, Severus hadn’t spoken to Lily in six years; all he wanted was to make sure she wasn’t killed.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

To be honest, I can’t believe I have to say this but Severus Snape being angry at Neville for regularly making the equivalent of a pipe bomb in class is not in the realm of SA, stalking and attempted murder. Let’s put the arguement of “well snape bullied his students so he deserved it as a kid” to rest. Cause I’m tired. Really tired of pretending it’s somehow the same. Yes, he was rude, yes he was mean and snarky at times. Doesn’t mean it’s the same on any level as what he suffered as child and teen. Be fucking for real. Not even in the same realm.

[bookwormangie]

Harry and Snape’s Clashing Communication Styles

It's interesting to think that Harry and Snape don’t have longer conversations in the series, but when they do, their communication styles are so different that they often clash.

Harry’s way of communicating is practical and straightforward. He tends to break down complex ideas into simpler terms that he can easily understand. This makes sense, given his upbringing in a non-magical world and his tendency to rely more on gut instinct than deep theoretical knowledge. For Harry, things are usually black and white, and his directness shows his desire to cut through the confusion and get straight to the point.

Snape, on the other hand, has a more complex and layered way of speaking. His language is precise and often sarcastic, which reflects not just his intelligence but also his disdain for what he sees as Harry’s lack of subtlety. Snape’s use of imagery and metaphor, especially when he describes consepts, gives his speech a poetic, almost philosophical quality. He takes pleasure in showing off his superior knowledge and uses this as a way to belittle Harry.

We see this clash clearly in OOTP during Harry’s first Occlumency lesson:

Snape looked back at him for a moment and then said contemptuously, “Surely even you could have worked that out by now, Potter? The Dark Lord is highly skilled at Legilimency —” “What’s that? Sir?” “It is the ability to extract feelings and memories from another person’s mind —” “He can read minds?” said Harry quickly, his worst fears confirmed. “You have no subtlety, Potter,” said Snape, his dark eyes glittering. “You do not understand fine distinctions. It is one of the shortcomings that makes you such a lamentable potion-maker.” Snape paused for a moment, apparently to savor the pleasure of insulting Harry, before continuing, “Only Muggles talk of ‘mind reading.’ The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter . . . or at least, most minds are. . . .” He smirked. Whatever Snape said, Legilimency sounded like mind reading to Harry and he did not like the sound of it at all.

For Harry, when Snape mentions Legilimency, it immediately sounds like “mind reading,” which is a reasonable but overly simple way to understand such a complex concept. His quick jump to this conclusion shows his need to make sense of something that feels threatening, but it also reveals his limited grasp of the deeper nuances.

Snape, however, can’t resist mocking Harry’s lack of subtlety. His response is laced with condescension as he insists on the complexity of the mind and dismisses the idea of “mind reading” as something only muggles would think of. Snape’s explanation is detailed and philosophical, contrasting sharply with Harry’s desire for a straightforward answer.

Another great example of their different communication styles comes in HBP when Snape puts Harry on the spot, asking him to explain the difference between an inferius and a ghost:

“Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost.” The whole class looked around at Harry, who hastily tried to recall what Dumbledore had told him the night that they had gone to visit Slughorn. “Er — well — ghosts are transparent —” he said. “Oh, very good,” interrupted Snape, his lip curling. “Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. ‘Ghosts are transparent.’ ” Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, though his insides were boiling, “Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren’t they? So they’d be solid —” “A five-year-old could have told us as much,” sneered Snape. “The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth . . . and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent.” “Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we’re trying to tell them apart!” said Ron. “When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we’re going to be having a shufti to see if it’s solid, aren’t we, we’re not going to be asking, ‘Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?’

Once again, Harry demonstrates his practical and straightforward approach. He gives a simple, clear distinction based on what would be most useful in a real-life situation—whether the entity is solid or transparent. This shows how Harry tends to focus on what’s immediately relevant and actionable, and Ron’s defense of Harry’s answer highlights this practicality. Ron even points out that in a real-world scenario, Harry’s answer is actually the most helpful, contrasting it with Snape’s more academic approach.

Snape, though, dismisses Harry’s answer as too simplistic and mocks him for stating what he sees as the obvious. Snape’s communication is more about the theoretical and precise understanding of magical concepts. He emphasizes the deeper, more complex nature of an Inferius, which, while academically accurate, is less practical in the context that Harry is thinking of. Snape’s disdain shows that he values this deeper, nuanced understanding more than the direct, practical knowledge that Harry offers.

These moments really bring out the deeper divide between Harry and Snape. Harry approaches things with instinct and a straightforward mindset, while Snape is all about nuance, precision, and seeing the layers in everything. Because they see the world so differently, they struggle to communicate, which only adds to the distrust and misunderstanding between them—a tension that echoes throughout the entire series.

[wisteria-lodge]

Since you’ve talked about Molly and Draco, can you talk about Snape as well? When you said that there was a disconnect with Snape’s character I honestly wasn’t sure if you meant the audience was supposed to like him more or less than they actually do.

This is a complicated one, because Book 1-3 Snape and Book 5-7 Snape are written so differently that I actually want to talk about them as two separate characters. 

Book 1-3 Snape… kind of sucks. Maybe he sucks in a way you find funny (which I completely get. A lot of comedy - especially British comedy - revolves around finding the humor in really *mean* people. Snape is *written* to be funny in a dry, acerbic, Roald Dahl kind of way.) But maybe Snape sucks in a way that’s not fun for you, he’s just upsetting and cruel. Either way, he’s petty, unfair, a bully, completely unreasonable, and doesn’t really appear to have any redeeming qualities. Snape protects Harry in Book 1 only because James Potter saved his life and, according to Dumbledore:  

“Professor Snape couldn’t bear being in your father’s debt. . . . I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father’s memory in peace. . . .” 

Later on, Snape’s motivation will become “Protect Harry because you couldn’t protect Lily.” But there’s no hint of that here.

I actually think it’s very likely that ‘Snape was in love with Lily’ is a plotline added during Book 4, because 1-3 Snape’s motivation is so completely focused on JAMES. He hates Harry because he looks like James, he hates James because (according to Lupin) he’s “jealous, I think, of James’s talent on the Quidditch field.” Within the context of the series it’s easy to say that Lupin is lying, and with good reason… but in the context of the first three books, I think that’s just meant to be true? Snape, as we know, is a stealth quidditch hooligan the way McGonagall is. Also… James’ characterization shifts around. He’s not a bully in the first three books, he’s Head Boy… and that Head Boy thing doesn’t quite gel with what we hear from Sirius later: 

“No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.”

(I know JKR plans things out in advance, but she absolutely does change things on the fly. Arthur Weasley not getting killed by Nagini is an easy example that we definitely know about. And come on - the entire last book is a Deathly Hallows fetch-quest. Was there really no way to slip in a reference to Beedle the Bard - or a super-powerful semi-mythical wand - anywhere in the first six books?) 

So, in books 1-3, there's no hint that Snape is a potion prodigy, particularly powerful, or even particularly clever. He wrote a logic puzzle and “knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts.” But that’s it. “Potion Master” isn’t an advanced rank, it’s just the posh British boarding school way of saying “teacher.” (Like headmaster = head teacher.) Early Snape is also a lot more *emotional* than he is later on, when his ability to “Master yourself!... control your anger, discipline your mind!” becomes extremely plot relevant. Like, can you picture 5-7 Snape (or Alan Rickman, who plays a distinctly later-books Snape) doing any of this? 

Snape was beside himself. “OUT WITH IT, POTTER!” he bellowed. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”  “Professor Snape!” shrieked Madam Pomfrey. “Control yourself!”  “See here, Snape, be reasonable,” said Fudge. “This door’s been locked, we just saw —”  “THEY HELPED HIM ESCAPE, I KNOW IT!” Snape howled, pointing at Harry and Hermione. His face was twisted; spit was flying from his mouth.  “Calm down, man!” Fudge barked. “You’re talking nonsense!”  “YOU DON’T KNOW POTTER!” shrieked Snape. “HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT —”

In Movie 3, Snape gets a cool protective moment where he shoves the kids behind him during the werewolf attack. In Book 3, Snape is unconscious during the entire werewolf attack because Harry, Ron and Hermione simultaneously decide he’s too dangerous, and too much of a liability to keep around. Here are are some bangers from Book 3 Snape: 

- “Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works.”   - “KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!” Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. “DON’T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” - “Up to the castle?... I don’t think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black . . . pleased enough to give you a little Kiss, I daresay. . . .”  - “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a Kiss for him too —”

If you sort of squint you can maybe say - okay, maybe this is a PTSD response. Like I’m writing a Snape POV fic right now, you can make it work. But it’s not work the books do for you, and it’s not the characterization choice they make in the films. 

BUT. Snape goes through a little bit of a revamp/retcon in Book 4. It’s totally deliberate - he’s Book 1-3 Snape at the beginning, then he basically vanishes from the narrative… the reader kind of forgets about him…  until it comes up during Karkaroff’s trial that Dumbledore ABSOLUTELY trusts him, even though he was a Death Eater. So now when Snape turns up at the climax - he’s a figure of intrigue, and it makes sense that he’s one of the two people Dumbledore brings with him to deal with Barty. Honestly, it’s a pretty cool magic trick. We buy it when - instead of hissing and spitting and hopping around like he does when he confronts Fudge at the end of Book 3 - Book 4 Snape deals with Fudge like this: 

Snape strode forward… pulling up the left sleeve of his robes as he went. He stuck out his forearm and showed it to Fudge, who recoiled.  “There,” said Snape harshly. “There. The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it. (...) This Mark has been growing clearer all year. Karkaroff’s too. Why do you think Karkaroff fled tonight? We both felt the Mark burn. We both knew he had returned. Karkaroff fears the Dark Lord’s vengeance.”

Calm, collected, focused. This is a character who you’re supposed to take seriously, a character who you are supposed to respect. 

I think it’s very interesting that after Book 4, we don’t see Snape *bully* the students during class again. He’s strict, and he’s a hard grader, and Harry still thinks he’s unfair, but like… the narrative framing is on his side now. 

“Tell me, Potter,” said Snape softly, “can you read?”  Draco Malfoy laughed.  “Yes, I can,” said Harry, his fingers clenched tightly around his wand.  “Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter.”  Harry squinted at the blackboard(… ) His heart sank. He had not added syrup of hellebore, but had proceeded straight to the fourth line of the instructions after allowing his potion to simmer for seven minutes.  “Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?” “No,” said Harry very quietly.  “I beg your pardon?” “No,” said Harry, more loudly. “I forgot the hellebore...”  “I know you did, Potter, which means that this mess is utterly worthless. Evanesco.” The contents of Harry’s potion vanished; he was left standing foolishly beside an empty cauldron. “Those of you who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name, and bring it up to my desk for testing.” (...)  “That was really unfair,” said Hermione consolingly, sitting down next to Harry  (...) “Yeah, well,” said Harry, glowering at his plate, “since when has Snape ever been fair to me?”

Like he isn’t nice, but he also isn’t asking Harry questions he can’t possibly know the answers to, threatening to kill someone’s pet, or calling Hermione ugly. He didn’t even take away house points. And - during the next lesson, we are told that the approach Snape took with Harry actually worked?

Determined not to give Snape an excuse to fail him this lesson, Harry read and reread every line of the instructions on the blackboard at least three times before acting on them. His Strengthening Solution was not precisely the clear turquoise shade of Hermione’s but it was at least blue rather than pink, like Neville’s, and he delivered a flask of it to Snape’s desk at the end of the lesson with a feeling of mingled defiance and relief. 

I want to do one more close read, on a excerpt from Book 5: 

Harry realized how much Professor McGonagall cared about beating Slytherin when she abstained from giving them homework in the week leading up to the match. (...)  Nobody could quite believe their ears until she looked directly at Harry and Ron and said grimly, “I’ve become accustomed to seeing the Quidditch Cup in my study, boys, and I really don’t want to have to hand it over to Professor Snape, so use the extra time to practice, won’t you?” Snape was no less obviously partisan: He had booked the Quidditch pitch for Slytherin practice so often that the Gryffindors had difficulty getting on it to play. He was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital wing with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast that they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that she must have attempted a Hair-Thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eyewitnesses who insisted that they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx.

This has a very similar structure to the sequence when Snape refuses to punish Draco for enlarging Hermione’s teeth. Slytherins and Gryffindors having an altercation, Gryffindor girl gets caught in the crossfire. BUT a few key things have been changed. One - the section is told in second-hand narration, which makes it less emotional than the teeth-scene. Two - the section begins with comparing Snape to McGonagall: she’s being biased/helping out her students too, so it’s only fair if he does it as well. Three - his insult isn’t “Your face has always looked like that,” it’s “You must have messed up a spell,” which is a lot less personal, and a lot less mean. (If anything, Snape is subtly insulting her for casting a cosmetic charm/being too girly… and being a girly-girl is an inherently suspect characteristic in JKR’s world.) Everything about this passage is set up to create a “Snape the Bully” moment… that kind of excuses Snape. 

So, what do we have? There are the people that think Book 1-3 Snape just went too far, and you can soften the narrative framing around him, and you can add in as many tragic backstories as you want, and it doesn’t really matter. THAT is definitely not what JKR wants you to think. She wants to bring you along for the ride, and (as you can tell from the framing) she's started to like Snape a lot.

HOWEVER. I do not think that the fan who likes 5-7 Alan Rickman Snape is… quite seeing the same thing she is. I get the sense that in the text, Snape’s tragic backstory is not meant to *explain* his bad behavior so much as it is meant to *excuse* it. He stays mean and bad-tempered… but he’s allowed to be, both because he is always acting in service to a Good Cause, and because he was abused at home, bullied at school, etc. A big part of why I think JKR likes writing Snape so much (and why she’s so protective of him) is because she likes the idea of being as nasty as you like… but for it to be allowed because you’ve suffered, and also because you’re in the right. Sadly I think this describes a lot of her current online interactions. 

JKR also loves the idea of *pining.* (It is crazy how long the main characters’ pining/longing/will-they-won’t-they thing in the Cormoran Strike books has lasted.) It’s a very safe kind of romance, and (again, sadly) you can tell from her writing that romance is not generally something that feels safe to her. Snape is sometimes characterized by those who dislike the character as an incel-type who wants to possess Lily, and I just don’t think that’s in the text. If anything it’s the other way around. Snape has some unconsummated, medieval courtly love thing going on, where he has decided to live his life in Lily’s service. 

I wrote about why I think Draco Malfoy (unintentionally) appeals to fans. With Snape…  I actually think a lot of his current (unintentional) appeal comes from the way a softer Snape reframes the narrative into something more complex, and especially the way it reframes Dumbledore. Manipulative/Morally Grey Dumbledore is a *very* popular fan interpretation, and the way you get that is with a sympathetic Severus Snape. 

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. (...)  “Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her — them — safe. Please.”  “And what will you give me in return, Severus?”  “In — in return?” Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, “Anything.”

The implications here are really far reaching. Because to me, the main question when it comes to Snape is - why does he STAY at Hogwarts? He clearly hates it, why doesn’t he just leave? If you’re talking about 1-3 Snape, it's because he’s eternally holding out for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, and he’s just kind of a twisted miserable guy who would probably be equally miserable everywhere. 

But books 5-7 add the context that he’s brilliant, he’s brave, he’s principled, he’s got a sense of humor. He seems close with the Malfoys. He has *options.* So now the (unintended?) implication is… he doesn’t leave because Dumbledore won’t let him. The fact that he keeps applying for the DADA job becomes dark and borderline suicidal when we learn it’s cursed, and that Snape knows it’s cursed. If he takes it, he’ll leave (or die) at the end of the year. That means, every year, he’s tacitly asking Dumbledore “Can I leave?” And Dumbledore is answering “No.” 

That’s such an interesting, juicy character dynamic. Snape is being kept miserable on purpose because… he’s easier to control that way? And if that’s true… then oh boy is it sinister that Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursleys. He knew he was raising Harry “like a pig for slaughter” (as Snape puts it.) And if Harry doesn’t have a support system, if he’s miserable, if Dumbledore can swoop in as his savior… then doesn’t that make him so much easier to control? 

[forestdeath1]

I think it's important to see that James and Sirius bullied Snape, but Snape wasn’t "hiding in bushes in SWM to avoid them". Fans of the Marauders also like to whitewash James and Sirius, making them out to be good boys. They were not kind, certainly not to Snape.

Snape also wasn’t a kind and innocent boy. Before school, Snape already held views similar to Nazis, and he wanted to be in Slytherin, a house that "produced" many Death Eaters during a time when Voldemort was tearing the country apart.

I don’t know why Snape stans don’t see how bad this is. Let me repeat. THIS IS VERY BAD. "But we can’t judge them all, they are just children..." No one judges anyone just for being in Slytherin, though it’s a weird desire during an open genocide of Muggle-borns. Again, Snape didn’t just want to be in Slytherin. He held these views before school. (Yes, he had a bad father. No, that’s no excuse to harbour misanthropic views. Sirius had a bad family. Harry had a bad family. Millions have bad families. Snape read books; he knew the history of Slytherin and Gryffindor. Hatred for his father isn’t an excuse to think you're above Muggles. Snape could defend his views even as a child, and he methodically stuck to his views, despite everything Lily told him, despite already knowing what was happening in the Wizarding World).

Plus, the narrative that JKR tried to feed readers in the books, that James was similar to Draco in his bullying, is also bad.

Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?

Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?

It's clear she tried to portray James as similar to Draco.

But they are in completely different positions. Draco is in a house that officially adheres to a policy of exclusivity and pure-blood supremacy, which led to a terrible war and many deaths, literally genocide. Slytherin isn’t just about cunning and ambition. It’s primarily about blood; the main reason for the fallout between Salazar and Gryffindor was that Salazar didn’t think Muggle-borns should be at Hogwarts. Draco is in a house that produced almost all the Death Eaters. Not to mention, Draco is a Death Eater’s son and holds similar views.

At the same time, James, who hates everything about Slytherin, dark magic, roughly speaking, hates their exclusivity and where it leads. And he, as a pure-blood, knows well what is happening in the country at that time. He doesn't fully understand all the propaganda as a child, but he knows it's bad.

There is nothing in common between Draco and James.

In James’s case, it’s actually Snape who holds supremacist views and even persistently advises his friend to be in Slytherin. Of course, James reacts. No "good" person would want to be in the house that supports genocide. At least it's shameful.

Draco actually insulted Hufflepuff from his privileged position. For him, Hufflepuff isn't "prestigious" enough.

James was rude because of the moral component of Slytherin’s ideology (and he was right, though he shouldn't have interfered in Snape and Lily's conversation), while Draco criticised personal qualities of Hufflepuffs, which he finds not "cool" enough. And this is exactly how Snape later insults Gryffindor, calling them stupid.

This is a completely different starting point. However, this doesn't negate the fact that James and Sirius were bullies. James tripped Snape the first time they met. James physically bullied Snape. Sirius bullied him psychologically. Meanwhile, Snape was inventing dark spells, which he planned to use on enemies. Considering he was planning to become a Death Eater, enemies would be Aurors, the Order of the Phoenix, Muggles, and Muggle-borns.

Lily tried more than once to convince him that he was on the wrong path, but Snape was blinded by his ideals. Even his love for Lily didn’t change his beliefs. He thought the genocide wouldn't affect Lily. Snape only realised the full horror when tragedy struck him personally – the only one he always loved. Then he understood how painful it is to lose a loved one. Then he realised that other people also lose loved ones. That all of them are people. And that genocide is bad, and Voldemort is evil.

Snape’s fans blame only James and Sirius, portraying Snape as an innocent victim of rich, pure-blood, popular boys. Ignoring the fact that Snape genuinely believed he was better than the two, and that in Slytherin they couldn’t stand James and Remus, but probably treated Snape quite well, although not enough to defend him (which is not surprising for Slytherins, when did they ever defend each other in canon?). No one was accepted into Voldemort's ranks just like that, Snape was very smart and talented. Voldemort didn't recruit only through fear, intimidation, and humiliation, he gave a sense of community, participation, exclusivity, unity.

James and Sirius are cruel, with Sirius being more cruel than James. James has a "justification" in his mind; Sirius needs no justification, he simply despises Snape. James doesn't understand that even if you think someone is bad, you can't beat and humiliate them. Sirius doesn’t care about this. They don't understand that their violence is bad. None of them fully understand it. All of them think Snape deserved such treatment.

I find it very hard to write this and I'm sincerely trying to be fair to schoolboy Snape and see him first as a child, not a future member of a terrorist organisation, who actively supported these views even at school, though even teenagers are responsible for their actions. But if you find an excuse for Snape, find one for James too. And don't make Snape out to be a little defenceless boy who was a victim and who hid behind bushes. Snape was never a defenceless boy.

I love Snape as a character. But both he and James, and Sirius, were cruel children, but with different presuppositions.

Regarding the notion that poor Snape was bullied by the rich... JKR tried to push a narrative of classism based on money into the story but failed completely, because there is no evidence that pure-blood wizards were directly associated with wealth in the WW. JKR is known for her haphazard world-building, her Ministry even lacks a Department of Economy and Finance, and here she tried to introduce a narrative of Snape's poverty versus the wealth of pure-blood James and Sirius, while the entire book contradicts this narrative. Let me explain! In the books, blood is more important than money. Blood provides connections. And before all social changes connections and blood brought everything else. Although there probably aren’t many rich Slytherins, most are of average wealth. By that point, James was a son of blood traitors and likely not very popular in Slytherin. No amount of money could fix the disdain they had for him because he actively opposed their ideals. A poor but pure-blood Slytherin would consider themselves much higher in status than James (As often happens, the most extreme and exclusive views appear when people start losing their position, and the pure-bloods began to lose their position in the WW). The heir of Slytherin – a status that outweighed poverty and Tom Riddle's half-blood status. For the Lestranges, Rosiers, and Averys, this was enough to follow Tom. They smirked in the book when Tom said he had a "bad background." They knew his real background, his true status. Snape was a Prince, his mother was pure-blood, we don’t know much more about them, but considering Snape called himself the Half-Blood Prince, he was proud of being a Prince, not a Snape. The Gaunts were poor, but they considered themselves the most noble. Classism in the WW isn’t that simple, it’s not just pure-bloods = money or that money solves everything, or money = Upper class. Even in Muggle history, aristocrats weren't homogeneous, there were "real nobles," like in Germany, there was Uradel and those who gained their nobility, Briefadel. The antiquity of a noble line was considered superior to a newly granted honorary title. After all, any commoner can be granted a title, but no power can give noble ancestors to someone not born to them. And this is very relevant to the WW with its shifting social structure, where previously pure-bloods ruled and didn't allow anyone decent jobs etc etc, and now suddenly everything is changing and "Mudbloods" can even become Ministers of Magic.

Slughorn is known for trying to be a "good Slytherin," but he is also the craftiest Slytherin and knows which way the wind blows. The first time around, in his Slug Club, there were only pure-bloods and Tom Riddle himself, but Tom was an exceptional student. But then pure-bloods increasingly lose their status as society becomes more diverse, and he realises that half-bloods can also achieve success. Cunning Slughorn understands that the social structure is starting to change (and this becomes fertile ground for war because pure-bloods don't want to lose their status). And we see that in the Slug Club, there are now half-bloods and pure-bloods, and he selects not just based on pure-blood status but also on talents and who owns a potion shop etc.

So, James has a conditional "status" among "good" houses and within a changing society, but for Slytherin, where Snape studied, James’s status wasn't so clear and his money wasn’t really important for old-fashioned Slytherins. Slytherin lived by its own laws, the laws of true class – Nature's Nobility (Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy). Obviously, not everyone was wealthy. In such a small economy, there can't be a large number of wealthy families. While James was popular in school among a more liberal society, Snape fuelled his pride within Slytherin, which accepted him even as a half-blood. And only Sirius had real status for Slytherins, but he lost it. Classism in the WW is complex, because during the Marauders' era, they were in a situation of changing social structure. It's somewhat like the Middle Ages when the middle class emerged, followed by the English Revolution etc. But people reduce it all to the simple cliché of "they had money," although the dynamics between them were more complex, and their story unfolded during serious social upheavals and class struggle.

I know it’s boring 😂 If you have any thoughts, let’s discuss!

[sctumsempra]

going insane and i need to infodump about severus snape’s patronus being a doe for a second. i personally don’t think it changed, or lily necessarily influenced it- i think it’s always been a doe, casting the charm in dumbledore’s office was meant to show that he and lily were supposed to be viscerally aligned with each other and he knows he fucked it up and that’s why he’s spent almost two decades trying to atone for what he did. on a representative level, the doe symbolizes peace, protection, and innocence, and no three words could possibly represent severus snape more.

all he wants is peace: a peaceful life for himself, a peaceful world, a peaceful school. everything he’s ever done has been to create as much peace as possible. some of it can be considered misguided from a black and white moral standpoint, but it’s what created peace for himself. for example, aligning himself with the purist views of his housemates made him less of a target for bullying- he’s not a pure blood, and they’d know, and having powerful ambitious students on your side instead of alienating yourself from everyone means you have at least a semblance of protection from harm some of the time. he becomes a double agent for dumbledore to help bring about peace from voldemort’s reign. it might not have been peaceful for him per se, but it was still with the intention of peace in some form. he tries to give other people peace- he takes a vow with narcissa to protect her son because she’s crying and scared for him, and it gives her peace. he doesn’t throw draco under the bus to save his skin when voldemort accuses him of being the elder wands owner, giving draco and narcissa peace even if they weren’t aware. it’s either for himself, or for others.

he’s the most protective teacher at the school- would mcgonagall have thrown herself in front of three kids facing a wolfsbane-less werewolf? would flitwick take the burden of an unbreakable vow to protect draco malfoy from voldemort? would any of the DADA teachers have run towards the sound of a screaming woman? he consistently vows to protect everyone and everything he can. and, leading into his innocence, when he realizes he’s only been protecting harry for him to die, it breaks him.

he’s not necessarily innocent in that his hands are clean and he’s never done anything wrong in his life, but he’s innocent in that he’s naive. he trusted voldemort enough to be drawn into the death eaters, he trusted dumbledore enough to be manipulated into his bidding. it feels like he forgets that dumbledore screws him over constantly, dangles things in front of him and takes them away, makes crude assumptions, and has left him to fend for himself essentially their entire relationship. the times that dumbledore abandons him- physically, mentally, metaphorically- he gets very upset. like it’s new information to him that dumbledore treats him like shit. from an abuse perspective, he probably had to spend his childhood mentally erasing what his parents and home were like so he could feel safe and normal, so the constant ebb and flow/back and forth of his and dumbledore’s relationship is familiar to him. when dumbledore draws him back in with whatever method, he’s right back to behaving as dumbledore wants, doing what dumbledore wants, and believing what dumbledore believes. the times that he remembers that dumbledore doesn’t care that he let the guy who’s tried to kill him or assault go, or that dumbledore thinks he wants only lily saved because he desires her romantically or sexually, or that dumbledore has only been using harry and, by extension, him (as he’s been the one protecting harry) to play the long game of destroying voldemort are the times that he’s emotional in the books. he cries, he’s vulnerable, he raises his voice, he begs and he pleads and he defers. he doesn’t do that any other time, other than when he found harry watching his memories. he trusts and he forgives (or he forgets, or he feels safer pretending he doesn’t care what’s been done to him/how he’s been treated.) a doe is perfect for him. reducing it to something like tonk’s patronus being changed as soon as she’s in a relationship with lupin or that it’s only a doe because of lily evans completely erases his entire way of thinking and behaving and being.

also, in a self indulgent addendum, it’s a very feminine animal, and severus is consistently aligned with femininity. hermione calls the half-blood prince’s writing feminine. he wears his mother’s clothes as a child, and lupin encourages neville to dress his boggart as his grandmother. he’s quiet and docile and tries to be non-violent unless he’s pushed to his breaking point, and even then it’s screaming or crying or getting animated. he’s emotional and frequently painted as hysterical. he gets the “woman character treatment”: to the average viewer who doesn’t think about him long enough to understand otherwise, he only desires lily. the consensus is that he chases her, he only thinks about her in the context of attraction. the line about looking at her greedily is constantly understood to be lust, and not a desire for love or a desire for a peaceful relationship for once in his life (and a relationship that only ever seems to be platonic at that). he even backs off and all but disappears from her life when he’s asked to, while james (the one with the stag patronus, the classic triumphant male character) harasses her and pursues her and behaves in a way that makes his son decades later wonder if he forced lily into a relationship. he’s behaviorally aligned with what femininity in the eyes of misogyny is supposed to be. he keeps to himself, he’s quiet, he sacrifices every bit of himself for students and coworkers and superiors and expects nothing in return, he pushes his students to be the best they can. (i’d say nurtures with my whole chest, but as the narrative comes from harry, we can’t really be sure. in my view, his house won the house cup for several years in a row which was only interrupted by dumbledore awarding a fuck ton of points to his gryffindor prize pony, his classes are seen as high performing and advanced by even dolores umbridge of all people, he only tries to punish students albeit a bit violently after several attempts of getting them to understand why what they did was wrong, which seems to be pretty nurturing in comparison to what other teachers allow and do). whether he’s trans, or had been influenced more by eileen, or he was intended to be deeply complex and contradictory and that meant that he had to have these traits, or any other of the multitude of reasons for snape being an inherently feminine character, it’s there. his patronus wouldn’t be a stag, he wouldn’t be anything overbearing and he wouldn’t be anything aggressive. it doesn’t make sense with his soul and his personality and his life. the peaceful protective innocent/naive doe, however, does.

[heidi891]

The Boggart Lesson from PoA

I like both Snape and Lupin, and I don’t agree with the takes from both ‘sides’ of fandom.

1) Snape makes a rude remark about Neville. I love Snape, but that was terrible. It’s great that Lupin tries to help Neville.

2) Lupin cannot know Snape is Neville’s boggart. Neville’s greatest fear is being a Squib, being not enough, and he’s just had a stressful lesson with Snape. Lupin could think Neville’s boggart would be some kind of a monster like many kids or a Death Eater or something like that connected to what happened to the Longbottoms. Snape isn’t an obvious option. Lupin wants to help Neville, not to bully Snape.

3) Once it turns out Neville’s boggart is Snape, it’s hard to choose a Riddikulus option that doesn’t humiliate Snape somehow.

4) Still, this scene is an early sign that Lupin used to be Snape’s bully (or at least a friend and an enabler of his bullies, though the Marauders Map suggests Lupin could take more active part in the bullying before the Prank).

5) Because of that bullying, Snape takes the boggart incident personally. Lupin doesn’t try to bully Snape this time, so from this point of view Snape is overreacting, but at the same time he does have a reason to suspect Lupin of bad intentions. After all, he was a member of the group that bullied Snape, and Lupin never apologised.

All I mean… it isn’t black and white situation.

[slitheringghost]

“When Lily Cast Her Life As A Shield”: Analysis of the Shield Charm

Some busily burnished the aegis Athena wears in her angry moods—a fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin, and the linked serpents and the Gorgon herself upon the goddess's breast—a severed head rolling its eyes (Virgil, Aeneid)

The recurring use of the word “shield”, the Shield Charm (Protego), and the Invisibility Cloak are all a reference to the Aegis, which Zeus god of lightning lent his daughter Athena in battle ("daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus"), in some variations of myth depicted as a shield or breastplate and in others a cloak; it's described as producing "a sound as from myriad roaring dragons" and often features Medusa's head whose gaze turns people to stone (like a basilisk, like Lily and Harry's killer green eyes).

JKR also predictably incorporates it in misogynistic ways to indicate "ideal" vs. "warped" motherhood - i.e. "Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top of Dudley, shielding him from Mr. Weasley", "Umbridge gave a little scream and pushed him in front of her like a shield", Narcissa in DH "her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers", the German family LV kills "She screamed. Two young children came running into the hall. She tried to shield them with her arms.", etc.

But much more interestingly, it shows up across the narrative in several dynamics.

I. Voldemort, Harry, and Lily

The word “shield” is repeatedly used for Lily’s sacrificial magic/deflection of the Killing Curse (for elaboration on how Priori Incantatem is related to Lily’s magic, see this meta):

Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry… how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son... and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry (Ch 14, GoF) [...] the golden thread broke; the cage of light vanished, the phoenix song died — but the shadowy figures of Voldemort’s victims did not disappear — they were closing in upon Voldemort, shielding Harry from his gaze (Ch 34, GoF) “Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you” (Ch 37, OoTP) The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glare like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut... He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear [...] [...] and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead (Ch 17, DH) Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole (Ch 33, DH)

Note that in the last quote, Dumbledore doesn't say that Lily "died to save" Harry - he instead uses active phrasing, and very similar to the phrasing he uses for the death of Ariana ("It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister.")

Despite it being James's Cloak, it's textually linked to Lily in DH, as Death's Invisibility Cloak (and Lily and Harry both implied as the “true owners”, as the conquerors of death - see my meta Unweaving Canon Lily: Master of Death) and also representative of the Aegis. Harry received Death’s Invisibility Cloak the same day he first found the Mirror of Erised - on Christmas Day - in which the text focuses on Lily (Harry’s true reflection - “his deepest nature is more like his mother’s”), and in front of which Lily’s blood magic saves Harry from death.

Christmas is also when we finally see the full memory of Lily’s murder/vanquishment of LV in DH (“he screamed with rage, a scream that mingled with the girl’s, that echoed across the dark gardens over the church bells ringing in Christmas Day”) and the Invisibility Cloak is mentioned in Lily’s letter, part of what leads Harry on the trail of the Hallows.

“Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana [...] (Ch 35, DH) “But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.’” (Ch 21, DH)

Lily is aegis-bearing Zeus (and the third brother, and Death himself), passing down her shield and her cloak - Death’s cloak - to her son.

Hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Harry cast a Shield Charm between Neville and Voldemort before the latter could raise his wand. Still hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Harry was buffeted into the entrance hall: He was searching for Voldemort and saw him across the room [...] still screaming instructions to his followers as he sent curses flying [...] Harry cast more Shield Charms, and Voldemort’s would-be victims, Seamus Finnigan and Hannah Abbott, darted past him he saw McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn blasted backward, flailing and writhing through the air, as Voldemort’s fury at the fall of his last, best lieutenant exploded with the force of a bomb. Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly Weasley. “Protego!” roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak at last. “Potter doesn’t mean that,” he said, his red eyes wide. “That isn’t how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?” “I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You can’t touch them.” (Ch 36, DH)

Another allusion is when Harry finds Tom Riddle's name on the Award for Special Services shield, this quote right after the passage when Harry thinks of Riddle as "a friend he'd had when he was very small", establishing the dynamic as familial (and the shield first mentioned by Ron, right after which Harry points out T.M. Riddle must've been Muggleborn - like Lily):

Riddle's burnished gold shield was tucked away in a corner cabinet. (CoS)

Note how "burnished gold" matches the description of the Aegis in the first Aeneid quote. Shields are mentioned in relation to the founders, as LV's replacement parental figures, by Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, and LV mentioning Slytherin's shield:

Harry’s wandlight passed over shields and goblin-made helmets [...] higher and higher he raised the beam, until suddenly it found an object that made his heart skip and his hand tremble. “It’s there, it’s up there!” Ron and Hermione pointed their wands at it too, so that the little golden cup sparkled in a three-way spotlight: the cup that had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, which had passed into the possession of Hepzibah Smith, from whom it had been stolen by Tom Riddle. (Ch 26, DH) all around them the last few objects unburned by the devouring flames were flung into the air, as the creatures of the cursed fire cast them high in celebration: cups and shields, a sparkling necklace, and an old, discolored tiara — (Ch 31, DH) “There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won’t they, Neville Longbottom?” (Ch 36, DH)

Then there’s Voldemort in the DoM battle - which is likely meant to indicate LV having a weak shield game; realistically though, he can do an excellent Shield Charm, but his conjured Shield is weak, because, well, Dumbledore was his Transfiguration teacher:

Dumbledore flicked his own wand. The force of the spell that emanated from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his stone guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed, and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gonglike note reverberated from it, an oddly chilling sound... “You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?” “We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world [...] “Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit —” “There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort. (Ch 36, OoTP)

This conversation between Dumbledore and LV happening in tandem with the shield mention is significant, because Lily deflecting the Killing Curse landed LV in a state of suffering that the series intends us to read as "worse than death": the despair caused by the dementors (grief, trauma, abuse, isolation, imprisonment, helplessness, etc.), and LV was trapped alone in Albania in that state, in his own personal "Azkaban" - which is also the state LV inflicts on his victims, the "other way of destroying someone" (of course, a result of the horcruxes and not Lily's intent - unlike Dumbledore, merely killing LV would've satisfied her).

II. The Golden Trio

In PoA, Ron gets his willow wand - the same wand wood as Lily - and embodies Lily in the Shrieking Shack by physically shielding Harry and echoes her last words disobeying Voldemort's orders to stand aside ("Take me, kill me instead"):

Ron, however, spoke to Black. “If you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us too!” he said fiercely, though the effort of standing upright was draining him of still more color, and he swayed slightly as he spoke. Something flickered in Black’s shadowed eyes. “Lie down,” he said quietly to Ron. “You will damage that leg even more.” “Did you hear me?” Ron said weakly, though he was clinging painfully to Harry to stay upright. “You’ll have to kill all three of us!” (PoA)

Hermione’s the one to teach Harry the Shield Charm while training him for the Triwizard Tournament, which Harry then teaches the whole DA (Neville, the other Chosen One, mastering the Charm faster than anyone other than Hermione), which permeates throughout the wizarding world via the Weasley twins’ Shield line (the narrative significance of this and how Hermione starts performing the part of Lily elaborated further in my meta Hermione As Teacher and Connections To Lily). Then we have the trio in DH:

“It’s all right for you two, isn’t it, with your parents safely out of the way —” “My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed. “And mine could be going the same way!” yelled Ron. “Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’ve got over your spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and —” Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own. “Protego!” she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them. (DH)

We see the memory of Lily's death in the center of these two instances of the Shield Charm - and Lily echoes Hermione, throwing herself as a shield in between the two "brothers" Voldemort and Harry, with the fight between Harry and Ron echoing that dynamic, while Harry then follows in both Hermione and Lily's footsteps when it's Ron and Hermione fighting:

“You — complete — arse — Ronald — Weasley!” She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced. “You — crawl — back — here — after — weeks — and — weeks — oh, where’s my wand?” She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry’s hands and he reacted instinctively. “Protego!” The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione: The force of it knocked her backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again. “Hermione!” said Harry. “Calm —” (DH)

There's also Harry throwing himself between Sirius and Snape like Lily does in SWM, and between Ron and Ginny fighting and drawing wands on each other in HBP, and Percy "shielding Fred's body from further harm" in DH.

III. Snape, Harry, and Lily

Chapters before this, Snape saw Lily in the Mirror of Erised through Harry's memories ("His father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror"), and when Harry performs the Shield Charm, he then glimpses Lily in Snape’s memory for the first time:

He raised his wand. “One — two — three — Legilimens!” A hundred dementors were swooping toward Harry across the lake in the grounds... He screwed up his face in concentration... They were coming closer... He could see the dark holes beneath their hoods... yet he could also see Snape standing in front of him, his eyes fixed upon Harry’s face, muttering under his breath... And somehow, Snape was growing clearer, and the dementors were growing fainter... Harry raised his own wand. “Protego!” Snape staggered; his wand flew upward, away from Harry — and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his — a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner... A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies... A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick — (OoTP)

The wording here evokes the idea that Snape is like a patronus, driving the dementors away from Harry (a patronus described as “a kind of anti-dementor - a guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor”), foreshadowing the appearance of the doe patronus in DH.

(Later in OoTP, similar wording is used for Snape as for Lily - lilies called the "white-robed apostles of hope" - "A door stood ajar to his left. It was his only hope" when Harry first finds the Mirror of the Erised // "He closed the door behind him with a snap, leaving Harry in a state of worse turmoil than before: Snape had been his very last hope." // “'while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort’s one last hope for himself.'”)

“Well, Potter... that was certainly an improvement...” Panting slightly, Snape straightened the Pensieve in which he had again stored some of his thoughts before starting the lesson, almost as though checking that they were still there. “I don’t remember telling you to use a Shield Charm... but there is no doubt that it was effective...” (OoTP)

Then a paranoid Snape checks the Pensieve, where he's stored his memories of Lily, because of Harry managing to glimpse her in Snape's head.

He turned his wand on Harry so fast that Harry reacted instinctively; all thought of nonverbal spells forgotten, he yelled, “Protego!” His Shield Charm was so strong Snape was knocked off-balance and hit a desk. [...] “There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ Professor.” The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying [...] “Detention, Saturday night, my office,” said Snape. “I do not take cheek from anyone, Potter... not even ‘the Chosen One.’” (HBP)

Chapters earlier in HBP, we were told that Lily gave "cheeky answers" to another Head of Slytherin house, and it’s right after Harry uses the Shield Charm that Harry mirrors Lily in his sarcastic answer to Snape - and right after that, Hermione points out how Harry mirrors Snape ("I thought he sounded a bit like you"). Then, Snape in the final battle:

Snape looked into her eyes. “Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have, I must insist —” Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed: Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. (Ch 30, DH)

This is also the scene Snape uses the suit of armor implied to be the one by the door where Harry first found the Mirror of Erised, and then flies unsupported, like Lily:

[…] Harry spotted the suit of armor. "It's here - just here - yes!" They pushed the door open. Harry dropped the Cloak from around his shoulders and ran to the mirror. There they were. His mother and father beamed at the sight of him. (PS) From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape. [...] Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast — [...] Flitwick’s spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter: With a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers: Harry and Luna had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into the wall and shattered. When Harry looked up again, Snape was in full flight (DH)

IV. Sirius, Bellatrix, and Harry

In the DoM battle, these three mirror each other (and Harry and Bellatrix also mirror LV):

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked, “Accio Proph —” Harry was just ready for her. He shouted “Protego!” before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it. “Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter,” she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. (OoTP)

He made the same slashing movement with his wand that he had used on Hermione just as Harry yelled, “Protego!” Harry felt something streak across his face like a blunt knife but the force of it knocked him sideways, and he fell over Neville’s jerking legs, but the Shield Charm had stopped the worst of the spell. Dolohov raised his wand again. “Accio Proph —” Sirius hurtled out of nowhere, rammed Dolohov with his shoulder, and sent him flying out of the way. The prophecy had again flown to the tips of Harry’s fingers but he had managed to cling to it. Now Sirius and Dolohov were dueling, their wands flashing like swords [...] (OoTP)

“Potter, you cannot win against me!” she cried [...] He backed around the statue away from her, crouching behind the centaur’s legs, his head level with the house-elf’s. “I was and am the Dark Lord’s most loyal servant, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete —” “Stupefy!” yelled Harry. He had edged right around to where the goblin stood beaming up at the now headless wizard and taken aim at her back as she peered around the fountain for him. She reacted so fast he barely had time to duck. “Protego!” The jet of red light, his own Stunning Spell, bounced back at him. (OoTP)

Sirius reflects Harry at the same moment Harry next performs the Shield Charm, "shielding" Harry physically with his body. Bellatrix echoes this after Sirius's death, when right after gloating about her Dark Arts lessons from Voldemort, Bellatrix doesn’t use a powerful Dark curse - she uses the Shield Charm, the spell she witnessed Harry using earlier. This mirroring also occurs in the “mad laughter”:

“Laughed,” said Stan. “Jus’ stood there an’ laughed. An’ when reinforcements from the Ministry of Magic got there, ’e went wiv ’em quiet as anyfink, still laughing ’is ’ead off. ’Cos ’e’s mad, inee, Ern? Inee mad?” (PoA) “Get it himself?” shrieked Bellatrix on a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?” (OoTP) Only one couple were still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix’s jet of red light: He was laughing at her. “Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room. The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest. The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock. (OoTP) “Potter, I am going to give you one chance!” shouted Bellatrix. “Give me the prophecy — roll it out toward me now — and I may spare your life!” “Well, you’re going to have to kill me, because it’s gone!” Harry roared — and as he shouted it, pain seared across his forehead [...]And he knows!” said Harry with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He’s not going to be happy with you, is he?” (OoTP)

And the other instance Harry laughing madly in OoTP is when he's feeling LV's happiness at Bellatrix escaping Azkaban (and Bellatrix's scream when Sirius dies is echoed by her scream when Voldemort momentarily disappears):

Maniacal laughter was ringing in his ears... He was happier than he had been in a very long time... Jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant... A wonderful, wonderful thing had happened... “Harry? HARRY!” Someone had hit him around the face. The insane laughter was punctuated with a cry of pain. The happiness was draining out of him, but the laughter continued... He opened his eyes and as he did so, he became aware that the wild laughter was coming out of his own mouth [...] [...] “He’s really happy... really happy [...] Something good’s happened [...] Something he’s been hoping for.” (OoTP)

[mitsuki91]

Another controversial and unpopular headcanon about Severus and Lily.

I always read that they don't understand each other, that Lily at least is not a real friend for him, ect ect... I don't like this.

I think they knew each other. In a way impossible to replicate. They are fond of each other. Too fond. As in they want more.

I mean not necessary in a romantic way, but in a jealous way for sure.

Do you think Lily was so stupid to not understand what's going on in Slytherin? To not see how James' bully and the fact Sev is alone in the entire school affect him so much? Oh no. Oh no, she knew. And she thinks: "But I am here. Why am I not enough?"

Do you think Severus was so stupid to not understand she is doomed to be hunted in the upcoming war? That she has to have other friends, a little protection everywhere she can find it, in order to survive outside school? He knews. And he thinks: "But I am here. Why am I not enough?"

The real problem between these two was that they don't fucking talk to each other. They are teens and afraid about their feelings. I suppose Severus was in love (or thinks he was if you don't see it) and doesn't feel like she can choose him, so he deny, even in his mind. He is sooo afraid to lose her that he simply shout down inside. And I suppose Lily knew somehow, somewhere in her, that her feelings are not healty. That she is not suppose to want him so much (again not necessary in a romantic way), to care about him so much... To need that he has to want her and only her so badly. She try find a balance, she try to make other friend, but no one stick or, in fact, she doesn't really care about other people so she is afraid. She thinks something is wrong with her.

They both are so jealous about each other that this blind them. They both feel so much about each other that they are afraid. And so, they didn't talk about this, and start to think this was a "me" problem and the other sure can not feels this way.

So they are doomed.

But yeah, at the end, Lily was the person who know Severus the best and Severus same about her.

They are real friends. Even too much.

[ebenelephant]

I would also like to note that the way fandom treats Lupin's class is often... not great.

I'll caveat this by saying that iirc it's very subtly implied in the books that he may only have become impoverished in adulthood (which isn't important for this discussion) and also that JKR's handling of class with the Weasley's in canon is also pretty bad (which is). She gets many class dynamics/relations down pretty well in terms of snobbishness and classism, but the Weasley family are just not well written as an example of a family on the breadline, which is what they ostensibly are.

This – not all the time, but definitely some of the time – translates to Marauders fic as well. And maybe that's just my view as someone with a better understanding of the British class system as a UK-resident than many individuals might have, but still it bears pointing out that often representation of poor/impoverished/working class characters in fanfiction (and fiction as a whole tbh) can often be classist. Especially when adding in the angle of a character being abused or orphaned, which is on the rise with Remus.

Often, it feels like Remus's class situation is for purely aesthetic purposes. Authors will talk about how insecure his old clothes make him, and Sirius will buy him a jumper. They'll make him just so starving hungry in the summers, but give only the most surface-level introspection of food insecurity, if any. He will be toughened and hardened by his time in care/on the streets/living in poverty/whatever in a way that really only leans into the stereotype that working class people are rude and unpleasant because they are working class, even though he is implied to be impoverished and possibly homeless in the books and is none of that. It's set dressing.

Snape is often rewritten as coming from a better station. Maybe they ignore that he grew up mostly muggle, or maybe they lean into the 'Prince' aspect and write him inheriting from a rich uncle or something. If not, his poverty is sort of just not addressed in a lot of Marauders fic. Again, this is anecdotal: I've seen some really interesting depictions of him before even in fics that otherwise bash on him, but the fact is that in the fics where the author clearly dislikes the character, this is rarely the case.

Snape's childhood is ugly. Coming from what is implied to be a dying Northern industrial town, he would've come into his majority over the Winter of Discontent, spent his early adulthood far away from the home that may well have been suffering under Thatcher's Britain. Maybe his dad was a union man. Maybe there was strike action and violence in his home town. Maybe it all simply faded away to nothingness and left everyone on the dole while politicians harped on about the unemployed draining government funds. Maybe his dad hit him. It's implied that the Snape household was tumultuous and loud, and didn't feel safe. It's implied that Eileen was cold and distant. And Tobias, as a man in a dying industrial town who shouted at his wife and scared his kid, this conjures and image in the mind of many Brits. Maybe that's lost somewhat to an international audience, I don't know.

The thing is, that when Snape's poverty is overlooked almost entirely and Remus's is both exaggerated and somehow made completely toothless by fandom, both instances are classist.

Alright, let’s dive into the dumpster fire that the Marauders fandom has become last years and threw any sense of canon or character integrity out the window. Because let’s be real, the way this fandom has twisted the characters of the Marauders and the Death Eaters, all while turning Severus Snape into some one-note “creepy stalker,” is embarrassing. The fandom seems obsessed with scrubbing characters clean, romanticizing abusers, inventing tragic backstories for literal sociopaths, and piling up headcanons that turn a few lines in canon into fully fleshed-out, fanon-only OCs. And somehow, the only character who gets relentlessly dragged and demonized is Severus Snape—a character who has actual complexity and trauma. It’s hypocritical, classist, and downright gross.

Let’s start with Severus. Canon Snape is a guy who came from nothing: poor background, abusive father, dead-end town. He didn’t fit into the wizarding world, was relentlessly bullied by privileged Marauders, and still somehow managed to survive and make something of himself. But instead of acknowledging any of that, the fandom loves to reduce him to this “creepy obsessive” stereotype. People act like he spent every waking moment pining for Lily and never did anything else, as if that’s all his character is. Never mind the fact that he was actively trying to get out of a miserable life, or that he was, you know, bullied on a daily basis by James and Sirius, who had wealth, status, and freedom to do whatever they wanted. Nope, to the Marauders fandom, Snape is just the “weird stalker”—because acknowledging his struggles would mean admitting that their golden boys were actually kind of awful.

Meanwhile, the same people are out here bending over backward to make people like Barty Crouch Jr., Evan Rosier, and Regulus Black look like misunderstood anti-heroes. Let’s be clear: in canon, Barty Crouch Jr. was a straight-up torturer, Evan Rosier died laughing as he fought Aurors, and Regulus was a kid raised with a silver spoon who only started doubting Voldemort when he realized he’d been signed up as snake chow. But no, fanon has turned these guys into “tragic, complex Slytherins” who were “just trying to survive.” It’s like they’re desperate for some tortured prince narrative, so they invent personalities out of thin air to give us this dreamy aesthetic of sad, beautiful Death Eaters who “didn’t really want to be evil.” Apparently, actually following the text is too much to ask when you’ve got fanon fantasies to uphold.

Regulus Black, in particular, has become this absurd fanon martyr. In canon, Regulus was a kid indoctrinated into pureblood ideology, who joined the Death Eaters without much hesitation. Maybe he had a change of heart eventually, but it wasn’t out of some grand moral revelation; he just realized Voldemort’s loyalty was to himself alone. Yet, according to the current fandom, Regulus is some misunderstood hero who was only “pretending” to go along with Voldemort and was “forced” into his choices. They’ve built this tragic romance around a character who, in the actual books, doesn’t have even half this depth. This Regulus in fanon is practically an OC at this point, and people cling to this made-up version of him so hard that they’ll defend it like it’s canon. It’s hilarious, and it’s also just plain wrong.

And let’s talk about the Marauders themselves. In canon, James and Sirius were rich, spoiled brats who spent their school years bullying anyone who didn’t fit into their world. They were kids with every privilege, and they used it to torment people like Snape, who had nothing. But the Marauders’ fandom has turned them into these fluffy, “good-hearted” rebels who just made “a few mistakes.” I’m sorry, but nearly killing someone as a “prank” is a bit more than a mistake. Yet people will ignore that or wave it away as “boys will be boys” just to keep up the illusion that James and Sirius were lovable scamps. It’s maddening—and it’s also classist as hell. They erase all the ugly realities of the Marauders’ behavior and then turn around and judge Snape for being “obsessive” and “weird” when he was just trying to survive in a world stacked against him.

The classism in this fandom is so blatant it’s laughable. Snape is written off as creepy and unworthy of sympathy because he didn’t have a cushy upbringing or the social standing to make him likable. Meanwhile, characters like Barty and Regulus, who came from wealthy pureblood families, get excused and romanticized to no end. It’s like the fandom is saying, “Well, Snape deserved it because he was poor and awkward, but the rich kids? They’re just misunderstood.” It’s the kind of privilege blindness that makes you wonder if people actually read the books or if they’re just projecting their own biases onto the characters.

And let’s not forget the army of new OCs the Marauders fandom has invented just to justify this headcanon universe (Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, that that Pandora no one knows why suddenly appears here lol) You’ve got random “best friends” for Sirius, unnamed Slytherins who magically have no ties to pureblood supremacy, and love interests for Regulus who supposedly saw the “real” him. All these characters are based on nothing more than a few throwaway lines, yet people have fleshed them out to a level that they’re practically new characters in the universe. It’s like they need this entourage of made-up people to back up their version of the Marauders and Death Eaters because, without them, their headcanons would fall apart. And all of this, while they keep painting Snape as this creepy loner with no real friends or worth. The hypocrisy is unreal.

At the end of the day, the Marauders fandom has taken a bunch of characters with clear flaws and complexities and rewritten them into these sanitized, tortured souls while dumping all their scorn onto Snape. They’ll go out of their way to redeem a literal torturer like Barty Crouch Jr. or turn Regulus into some tragic hero, but they can’t bring themselves to even consider Snape’s trauma or the systematic abuse he endured. It’s all about maintaining this fantasy where their favorite characters are perfect and untouchable, even if it means twisting canon and ignoring the ugly truths about class, privilege, and abuse that is reflected into the story. And that, honestly, just makes the fandom look shallow, hypocritical, and completely disconnected from the reality.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Ok but what’s funny to me is Snaters relentlessly arguing that Severus Snape is a bad person when in fact the entire fate of the Wizarding World hangs on the string of his integrity and goodness. He could have burned the world to the ground if he wanted; but he values human life, even the lives of those he detests personally. Literally the entire Harry Potter series hangs on the balance of Severus’s goodness. Without his relentless goodness even in the face of hatred; Voldemort would have rolled over them like ants under a boulder. You can’t deny it. He is canonically a good person with more integrity and responsibility and patience than I could ever hope to have.

[tiphprince]

The Iceberg of Snape and Dumbledore's Scheming

If you prefer to read this on reddit, here's a link to the post.

This theory initally came from this simple observation: it makes no sense for Snape to be the referee of Harry's second Quidditch match.

In total, the text gives us directly 3 reasons, all from different point of views. For the teachers and the students, Snape is a petty bastard who wants to prevent Gryffindor from winning. For Harry, Snape is a murderous bastard who wants to kill him. For Quirrell, Snape is an interfering bastard who wants to protect Harry. This last reason is the one that we are given at the end, and that we accept as truth. It seems logical to us both in the plot of PS as Snape being a red herring, and the plot of the whole series, with Snape having always been there behind the scene to protect Harry in honor of Lily's memory.

From Snape's point of view however, this makes no sense.

"Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn’t do it again. Funny, really ... he needn’t have bothered. I couldn’t do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor winning, he did make himself unpopular ... and what a waste of time, when after all that, I’m going to kill you tonight." - Quirrell

First, why would Snape be in a better position to help Harry while in the literal middle of a Quidditch match? He'd have to pay attention to everything happening, not just Harry, even if just to avoid being injured or killed himself, which nearly happened twice in the span of about 5 minutes. He wouldn't be able to focus nearly as much on counter spells, let alone keep an eye on Quirrell.

Second, Dumbledore's presence at the game. Even if Quirrell/Voldemort had made another attempt with Dumbledore there, I don't see how Snape could have done much from up there than Dumbledore wouldn't be able to do with spells.

So, my theory is, what if Snape wasn't there to protect Harry, but as another red herring, this time for Quirrell?

It gets a bit complicated here, as we have to keep track of the timeline and what everyone knows or doesn't know, so please bear with me.

I won't go into all the detailed explanations of Dumbledore's plot with the Philosopher's Stone, and the protections, many others have done it way better than I could, but the basic idea is this: Dumbledore knows Quirrell is working with or for Voldemort in some capacity, he orchestrated pretty much everything that happened in the first book, and asked Snape to keep an eye on Quirrell for him.

Quirrell however, doesn't know what exactly it is that Dumbledore knows. Quirrell knows that Snape suspects him, that he knows he's after the Stone, and that Quirrell made one attempt on Harry's life. What Quirrell does not know however, if whether or not Snape told all of this to Dumbledore.

Nothing, to Quirrell, indicates that Dumbledore knows about everything, or at least knows who is behind the events. After all, if he knew, why not have Quirrell fired/imprisoned, why not confront him, like Snape does?

To show this further, Dumbledore even asks Quirrell to help set up one of the protections for the Stone. This alone shows that Dumbledore must trust Quirrell, and so that Snape and Dumbledore are not working closely together, or else Snape would have told him. Snape being a referee even with Dumbledore present reinforces that idea.

In fact, to go even deeper, Snape is the one who looks the most guilty out of everyone involved.

"Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn’t he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor st- stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?" - Quirrell

What if Quirrell's plan was to also use Snape as a scapegoat, the one Dumbledore would be focused on. After all, we we saw it in the book, no one looks more guilty than Snape. This would explain why Dumbledore would attend a Quidditch match, which isn't something he usually does, to... keep an eye on Snape, who would be in close proximity to Harry during a highly dangerous sports game.

From Dumbledore and Snape's point of view, this is what they are counting on. Give Quirrell a false sense of security, that the one person he fears doesn't suspect him personally, not anymore than anyone else at least, and allows the rest of Dumbledore's plans to go as smoothly as possible.

In this book, Snape is a red herring for Harry, for Quirrell, for Dumbledore, and of course, the reader.

[forestdeath1]

I see many Snape Stans (I dislike Snape but I see why he turned out the way he did) saying James sexually assaulted him, especially on TikTok, when it’s not the truth at all, we don’t know if he ever actually took off his pants because and it wasn’t his fault that Snape wasn’t wearing any trousers. While he did bully him he never sexually assaulted him, and so many people are now saying this and I’m just flabbergasted, why did no one read the books? Why does everyone get their informations off TikTok and Twitter?

I don't really like this topic, to be honest. But here's how I perceive it.

1. In the canon, as far as I remember, it wasn't even implied that wizards wore trousers under their robes. They all just wore their underwear. And Lupin says:

"Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts," said Lupin reminiscently. "There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn’t move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle."

"Yes," he said, "but he wasn't the only one. As I say, it was very popular. . . . You know how these spells come and go. . . ."

So Snape not only created this spell himself, but it also became popular at school. So many students were hanging upside down, showing off their underwear.

From this, we can infer that wizards perceived it slightly differently than we do now, and even than Harry. It was "fun" bullying, but nothing more. Even Lupin himself sounds like he's justifying it, although he probably got hung upside down too ("There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn’t move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle.").

2. We don't know for sure if James ended up taking Snape's pants off. Logically speaking, JKR simply didn't describe it, assuming that he did. Given the time the book was written, she probably didn't intend to invest it with such a horrible meaning. This all happens in the 70s in the WW. For our time, of course, it's SA. And that's awful. But the perception of that time could leave its mark. For example, when I was in school, many things that are now considered "awful" were seen as "not so bad". Those who did those awful things back then didn't even really understand how awful their actions truly were. Society evolves and we increasingly respect people's personal psychological and physical boundaries. What we didn't perceive as SA back then is considered SA today. A simple example you've probably seen in movies, spanking children was considered normal and right. That's how society raised those people. Surely today those same people wouldn't spank their children, because they would understand it's bad.

So it's likely that nobody at school perceived this action as SA. Moreover, James always played to the crowd. And if he really, according to the author's intention, took Snape's pants off, and the whole school saw it as normal, and didn't start looking at James with disgust... it raises big questions for the school students, doesn't it? If my friend did this today, he wouldn't be my friend anymore. Most people would look at such a person with disgust. But James's popularity didn't diminish at all.

This brings us back to the fact that nobody back then saw it as worse than bullying. So the society of that time hadn't yet formed enough understanding of what SA was and how bad it was to expose someone else's genitals. So James didn't fully understand either how awful it was, much more awful than pink bubbles out of your mouth or doubling someone's head in size. So for them it was all on the same level — taking someone's pants off or making them hang upside down or doubling their head in size.

I'm not justifying it, but the wizarding world is pretty harsh. Neville was thrown out of a window, Harry almost killed Draco, Fred and George literally made a kid disappear for a week, and Hermione kept Rita Skeeter captive in a jar for over a month. All of this is awful, but the wizarding world operates by different moral standards.

If judged in terms of our morality, there are almost no morally pure characters in these books.

I especially don't understand Snape stans (I mean I like Snape, but I don’t understand their logic). In terms of our morality, both Snape and James deserve to be punished. Snape would have got a much bigger sentence for joining and helping a terrorist organisation. What are Snape stans trying to prove? That Snape was better? No, he wasn't. They're all arseholes in terms of the muggle world of 2024.

[thebewitcher]

On Severus Snape becoming a Death Eater, free will and redemption.

How do I start this? It’s not going to be too long or too meta”y”, just random thoughts once more. 

I was thinking about all the great meta posts explaining why Severus Snape became a Death Eater and why it was almost an inevitability. I probably already reblogged a few of them and will keep on doing so in the future. And I agree that he was primed to join them. It’s a damn tragedy. However, I want to add that despite knowing the odds were against him, it’s important to recognize he still had free will and that means admitting that he made a choice to join and stayed for a time (not too long) with a terrorist organisation that, while it may not have started as all that bad in the beginning, turned muderous even back in the first WW. He didn’t have to joing the Order, considering the way some of its members treated him. But, at worst, he could have flee and not get involve in the war. At best, he could have fight without joining the Order (not so sure about that last one). What I mean is that the binary choice was between joining or not the DE, not joining them or joining the Order.

I don’t think Snape participated in anything truly awfull (like torture or murder) while he was a true DE (again, I reblogg or will reblog great posts about that), but he knew they were doing orrible things to human beings and, even if we go with the more charitable headcanon that he didn’t ever truly share their beliefs (not wholeheartely at least) or that he had begun to question them and that Lily was just the last straw pushing him towards the “good” side, he still gave his implicit agreement by being a member. And yes, leaving, especially before having Dumbledore’s help would have been terrifying for all kind of reasons. His decision to do so is still incredibly brave.

I’m not saying all the above to shit on Snape, my absolute favorite HP character and one of my all time favorite fictional character point blank. I think that even if he took a wrong turn at first he’s still very sympathetic and, again, so much was stacked against him that it’s easy for me to forgive him. It’s because I respect him that I want to recognize that he was more than a mere puppet, that he had still his free-will despite all of the attenuating circumstances, that he first choose to do the wrong thing, paid the price, realised before or after having paid said price that he was in the wrong, did everything in his power to rectify this, lived and died as a hero.

To me it ony enhanced the great man he became.

There’s no redemption arc otherwise.

[snapeysister]

Snapedom!

Anyone having meta or ideas on why Severus had specifically been killed by a snake? Why would Voldemort, despite admitting that Severus had been a loyal servant to him and showing no signs of suspicion in his loyalty, decide to kill him in such a cruel way? And why Nagini, of all snakes?

Thanks in advance for input!

[heidi891]

I believe Snape is autistic

(FYI: I’m autistic myself and I have autistic children.)

He’s lonely. He doesn’t really have friends. We know of Lily, we also hear about Lucius Malfoy, but we don’t really see their friendship which in my opinion is much less close than fans believe. As a student he’s so alone that no one but Lily tries to stop the bullying.

He doesn’t participate in any social meetings. He’s quite miserable during the Christmas in Harry’s third year. He patrols the corridors and the grounds instead of attending the Yule Ball. He doesn’t stay for dinner after the Order meetings. He only attends the DE meetings because he has to.

His peers at school think he’s weird. Lily’s friends from Gryffindor don’t understand why she’s friends with him. When Harry asks why the Marauders bullied him, Sirius says he was different, weird, he was an "oddball". Autistic children and teenagers are often bullied because they are perceived as not normal, awkward, weird.

He doesn’t make a normal eye contact, he stares a bit too much. It can be partly explained by Legillimency, but he stared too much even as a teenager.

There’s a difference between how he speaks as a teenager and as an adult. It doesn’t sound entirely natural, he definitely had to put effort into that. It’s partly because he doesn’t want to sound like a poor man with a northern (?) accent, but autistic struggle with fluent communication may also be a reason.

He insists on precise definitions: Legilimency is not mind-reading, ghosts are not transparent but they are imprints of departed souls. He’s irritated that Harry has "no subtlety" and he doesn’t "understand fine distinctions".

He’s quite rude. He might be just *evil*, but he may just not fully understand how cruel he actually sounds. From his point of view he’s just honest and doesn’t beat around the bush. OK, maybe he’s a little mean, but not cruel… right?

He uses sarcasm (a lot of autistics actually do), but he doesn’t really appreciate Harry’s and other people’s sass, he treats their words too seriously.

He usually speaks coldly / calmly / without much emotion.

He’s usually dispassionate, he has limited facial expressions. Many autistic people also have a "resting b!tch face" unless they try to look more "normal". Perhaps he isn’t always as hateful as Harry thinks, perhaps it’s just his face.

He seems a little oblivious to other people’s emotional state and seems to analyse their behavior more intellectually.

He has special interests: Dark Arts / DADA and Potions.

He has his own collection of Potions ingredients, including rare ones, collection of weird jars (I guess they may contain some Potions ingredients, but also he may like them because of visual stimming aspect) and vast collection of books at home.

His Potions ingredients must be very orderly, he knows immediately that something is missing and what it is.

He "loves" rules. Students are breaking the rules? He takes points or gives detention. The Marauders are bullying him? He wants them expelled. (While Harry deals with the bullies on his own.) He’s caught Sirius whom he believes to be responsible for Lily’s death? He’s going to hand him over to the Ministry and the Dementors. (While Sirius and Remus want to murder Peter themselves.)

Since Snape likes rules and order, Harry who is a bit wild and unpredictable annoys him.

He doesn’t wash his hair as often as he should. It could be partly because of his poor background (he was neglected, he wasn’t taught to take a proper care of his hair, he didn’t even have a real bathroom as a child), partly because he has no one to look nice for, partly because of the Potions fumes. Autism might make him care less about his appearance. (He does care about hygiene though. Apparently he shaves regularly and Harry would certainly notice if Snape was dirty or smelly. His sallow skin and teeth have nothing to do with hygiene, it’s a result of his poverty and malnutrition.)

He stimms: He’s shredding leaves as a child. He’s flexing his fingers after the Shrieking Shack incident. During the Occlumency lessons he’s touching his lips with his finger while he’s thinking.

He has some sensory issues. He wears the same, a little baggy robes (they flutter as he walks). He’s sensitive to light: his Potions classroom is dim (it’s in the dungeons, but he could brighten it up with magic); he makes his DADA classroom dim, even though it’s no longer in the dungeons; when Harry comes to his first Occlumency lesson, Snape waits for him in a dark room. (You know, people don’t do things like that because they’re evil, it doesn’t make sense).

As a teenager he walks "like a spider" and generally he isn’t good at sports (we see him on a broom three times: in a memory of his unsuccessful flying lesson at school, being very pale and probably frightened after refereeing the Quidditch match in PS and trying to curse a DE and missing during the Battle of Seven Harrys).

John Nettleship whom Snape was partly based on was probably autistic.