#Severus snape meta

[maxdibert]

Why do you think Snape still became "friends" with death eater wannabes at school when he had a good influence on his side - Lily a muggleborn who wasn't afraid to stand up for her beliefs? He did have someone to influence him to the good side so why did he still choose the bad guys?

Because, basically, he was alone in a house full of purebloods who, at that time, had an enormous level of influence, where you either adapted or perished. It was better for him to adapt because outside of that, all he had were a bunch of idiots bullying him all day. Lily could have been a good influence, but:

Lily had no responsibility whatsoever to "rescue" anyone, especially being a child/teen herself. The system failed Severus. The Muggle world system condemned him to poverty and left him in the hands of an abusive father. The Magical world system failed him by allowing the bullying to happen, by not preventing it, by not protecting him, and even forcing him to stay silent about the bullying. Ultimately, they had no control over what was happening within the school walls. But Lily? She had nothing to do with this because we’re not going to place the responsibility of pulling a friend out of the abyss on the shoulders of a teenager (a girl, no less).

Lily doesn’t seem to have taken Severus’s situation very seriously either. In Snape’s memories, she downplays the things the Marauders did to him, and when she eventually cuts ties with him, she even suggests that their bullying wasn’t that bad because “at least they didn’t use dark magic.” Lily’s value system seems to have been somewhat convenient in that sense.

One person alone cannot handle the weight of a toxic social ecosystem. Lily was supposedly very popular and had her own friendships. Obviously, she wasn’t spending all her time with Severus (understandably, she wasn’t his babysitter), and it wasn’t her responsibility or duty to keep him away from bad influences.

The future Death Eaters offered Severus several things: acceptance for the first time, despite his background, his lack of a notable name, and the social ostracism caused by James and Sirius. They offered him a sense of belonging, a chance to be part of something. They offered him a perspective for the future, the possibility of social mobility, and the hope of rising above living in a dusty shack in a miserable Muggle neighborhood. For someone in his context, with his traumas of abandonment and violence, this wasn’t just tempting—it was an easy sell. So it’s not much of a mystery why he did it. Severus is like many other vulnerable boys from low-income families and dysfunctional homes who end up in gangs, cults, or extremist religious or political groups. He had the perfect profile to be dazzled by certain ideas if they came with the promise of a future he couldn’t even dream of as a child.

[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 finds something cathartic in letting a character be nasty… but for it to be allowed because they’ve suffered, and also because they'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]

Unweaving Canon Lily Evans: Parallels to Voldemort

To illuminate what JKR was doing with this dynamic, alongside several other dynamics across the text, and how she wove in Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers", see my metas “And Cain Repented Not Of What He Had Done”: Harry Potter As Retelling of Cain and Abel, and Lily and Harry as Voldemort’s Mirror of Erised.

*Note: not necessarily accepting the narrative's (or Dumbledore's) exact judgments in all these quotes (i.e. reactions to very different childhoods, etc.; but working with the general concept of them as foils and choosing different paths, which is relevant wrt Lily’s experience of violence at and post Hogwarts during the war). Further fic recs, and notes on characterization are at the end. Much of this is to be elaborated in future metas, so excuse some of the loose threads here.

1. Muggleborn

Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London. "He must’ve been Muggle-born," said Harry thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..." “You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?” said Dippet curiously. “Yes, sir,” said Riddle, reddening slightly. “You are Muggle-born?” “Half-blood, sir,” said Riddle. “Muggle father, witch mother.” "No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don’t know myself. But I know why you couldn’t kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me." (CoS) - “I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future,” said Dumbledore. “Are you family?” asked Mrs. Cole. “No, I am a teacher,” said Dumbledore. “I have come to offer Tom a place at my school.” (HBP) “And will it really come by owl?” Lily whispered. “Normally,” said Snape. “But you’re Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents.” “Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?” (DH) - “There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious. He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of ‘Lord Voldemort’ behind which he has been hidden for so long." (HBP) “I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No — listen, I didn’t mean —” “— to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?” He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole... (DH)

2. Magic

2.1 Controlling wandless magic before they knew about magic

“It’s... it’s magic, what I can do?” “What is it that you can do?” “All sorts,” breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.” His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer. “I knew I was different,” he whispered to his own quivering fingers. “I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.” “Well, you were quite right,” said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. “You are a wizard.” Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it [...] “His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and — most interestingly and ominously of all — he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously. And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control.” (HBP) - “But I’m fine,” said Lily, still giggling. “Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do.” [...] Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster. “Stop it!” shrieked Petunia. “It’s not hurting you,” said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground. “It’s not right,” said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flower’s flight to the ground and lingered upon it. “You’ve got loads of magic,” said Snape. “I saw that. All the time I was watching you..." (DH)

2.2 Unsupported flight

Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snakelike face gleaming out of the blackness — He was gliding around the high walls of the black fortress — No, he was Harry, tied up and wandless, in grave danger — — looking up, up to the topmost window, the highest tower — He was Harry, and they were discussing his fate in low voices — — Time to fly... [...] — and he rose into the night, flying straight up to the window at the very top of the tower — [...] — as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and landed, lightly as vapor, inside the cell-like room — A metal heart was banging outside his chest, and now he was flying, flying with triumph in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral (DH) - There was undisguised greed in his thin face as he watched the younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her sister. “Lily, don’t do it!” shrieked the elder of the two. But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly. “Mummy told you not to!” Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips. “Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!” (DH)

(Given he calls himself "flight from death" at 15, I assume Tom could do something similar to Lily as a child, and his flight in DH the fully trained version; possibly Snape's is the same innate ability but showed up a few years later than Lily's that they trained together, or some learned variation with a spell/ritual.)

2.3 Potential Legilimency

Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying. (HBP) “Did you make that happen?” “No.” He looked both defiant and scared. “You did!” She was backing away from him. “You did! You hurt her!” “No — no I didn’t!” But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket, off after her sister, and Snape looked miserable and confused... (DH) “Prove it,” said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, “Tell the truth.” Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts —” “Of course I am!” “Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’” (HBP) “Maybe once I’m there — no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!” (DH)

(the word “persuade” often used to refer to force via Legilimency) Mirrors the language around Dumbledore - who I assume is Legilimizing Snape in this scene, as he'd hardly trust a DE’s word without it, and makes a very specific accusation to manipulate Snape without Snape bringing it up (possibly Snape's opening up his mind on purpose). Similarly, Lily - said to be looking up at the canopy - brings up Snape's home life, then changes the subject when he starts to get agitated to something that makes him happy (talking about magic) that they've already talked about (despite this as only the 2nd/3rd time she's speaking to him), so she could be feeling bits of Snape's emotions throughout that scene, hence reacting so strongly when he drops the branch.

“How are things at your house?” Lily asked. A little crease appeared between his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “They’re not arguing anymore?” “Oh yes, they’re arguing,” said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. “But it won’t be that long and I’ll be gone.” “Doesn’t your dad like magic?” “He doesn’t like anything, much,” said Snape. “Severus?” A little smile twisted Snape’s mouth when she said his name. “Yeah?” “Tell me about the dementors again.” (DH) “Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?” “No — no message — I’m here on my own account!” Snape was wringing his hands: He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him. “I — I come with a warning — no, a request — please —” [...] “If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?” “I have — I have asked him —” “You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?” Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. (DH)

2.4 Disillusionment/Invisibility

It would not do for Snape, or indeed anyone else, to see where he was going. But there were no lights in the castle windows, and he could conceal himself… and in a second he had cast upon himself a Disillusionment Charm that hid him even from his own eyes. And he walked on, around the edge of the lake, taking in the outlines of the beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright… And here it was, beside the lake, reflected in the dark waters.

(Lily implied as having the same ability to be explained in another post)

2.5 Conquering death

“No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that [...] That’s probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn’t  want another Dark Lord competing with him." (CoS) “I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it.  My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it  rebounded upon myself. Aaah... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing  could have prepared me for it.” (GoF) “I, who have gone further than  anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal — to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.” (GoF) “Certainly,” said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. “I have  experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed —” (HBP)

Lily creates blood wards to protect her sister // the only other time we (explicitly) see a blood ward is outside Voldemort's Cave protections, protecting his mother's locket

4 examples of sacrificial magic, 3 Voldemort's, 1 Lily's - in CoS Tom is killing Ginny to gain a body; in GoF the "flesh blood and bone" rebody potion; and obviously horcruxes; Lily's sacrificial magic). Lily does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice; LV does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice (father's bone, blood of the enemy, etc). Twice when Lily's sacrificial magic comes up between Harry and LV, Voldemort's in the process of doing his own sacrificial ritual and also in the midst of a "rebirth" (in CoS and GoF)

"This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it" // LV's own to counter her magic - "I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients."

The only time "magical traces" are (explicitly) mentioned are LV seeing the traces of Lily's protective magic on Harry // and Dumbledore seeing the traces of LV's magic in the Gaunt house and the locket Cave (symbolic Gaunt shack), both horcruxes related to his family and to Merope

"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice..." (GoF) "I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts’ house [...] He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived (Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment." (HBP) "How did you know that was there?" Harry asked in astonishment. "Magic always leaves traces," said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, "sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style." (HBP)

LV invents a concentrated dementor potion to symbolize Merope's murder in the Gaunt home and Dumbledore takes 13 sips in that cave (12 of the Drink of Despair, 1 of Inferi water) // when LV gets close to the house where he murdered Lily, it has the effect of a concentrated dementor on him and Lily vanquishes him for ~13 years (13 1/2 inches is also LV's wand length) - Lily described like a dementor in the memory of the Potters' deaths (to be elaborated in future metas)

"So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted.... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul into her..." (CoS) “If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself... soulless and evil.” (PoA)

LV (more or less) kills Dumbledore who he can't beat in a duel with a curse that strengths with time // Lily kills LV who she can't beat in a duel without a wand and with obscure magic

Priori Incantatem (elaborated here) // Merope's locket // Resurrection Stone :

And she came… first her head, then her body… a young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort’s wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. (GoF) Out of the locket’s two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root (DH)

Likewise, the shades out of the Resurrection are implied to be Lily's soul, creating those versions of James, Sirius, and Remus, the way the locket creates Riddle-Harry and Riddle-Hermione.

Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised // Merope's locket horcrux with Riddle's eyes through mirrors burns Harry, the Dark Mark's burn (elaborated below)

2.6 Dark Arts, DADA, Potions, inventing spells and potions (extrapolated for Lily via Snape)

3. Childhood memories

Both show immense joy and wonder at magic, Snape and Dumbledore play similar roles: acknowledge them as unusually magically powerful, explain the laws of the wizarding world to two Muggleborns pushing boundaries before either even knew any existed (Snape, who ignores many of those laws himself, coming from a different angle than Dumbledore). Also note that we are meant to question Lily being too pure to end up in Azkaban - because she's implied to have ended up there, in a way, in a state similar to LV's imprisonment in Albania (to be elaborated).

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic — yes, there is a Ministry — will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws.” (HBP) “...and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters.” “But I have done magic outside school!” “We’re all right. We haven’t got wands yet. They let you off when you’re a kid and you can’t help it. But once you’re eleven,” he nodded importantly, “and they start training you, then you’ve got to go careful.” [...] “Tell me about the dementors again.” “What d’you want to know about them for?” “If I use magic outside school —” “They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You’re not going to end up in Azkaban, you’re too —” (DH)

- Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. “Where can I get one of them?” (HBP) Lily had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air, and Harry knew that she was imagining sparks trailing from it. (DH) - "I’m not mad!" "I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic." There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying. "Magic?" he repeated in a whisper. "That’s right," said Dumbledore. (HBP) Then she dropped the twig, leaned in toward the boy, and said, "It is real, isn’t it? It’s not a joke? Petunia says you’re lying to me. Petunia says there isn’t a Hogwarts. It is real, isn’t it?" "It’s real for us," said Snape. "Not for her. But we’ll get the letter, you and me." "Really?" whispered Lily. "Definitely," said Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair and his odd clothes, he struck an oddly impressive figure sprawled in front of her, brimful of confidence in his destiny. "And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispered. (DH)

3.1 Alienation from the Muggle world/family

(to highly different degrees, but outsiders shows up as connection even in dynamics where the specifics are very different - Tom using Ginny's alienation from her brothers, Dumbledore and Doge, etc)

“I don’t — want — to — go!” said Petunia, and she dragged her hand back out of her sister’s grasp. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a — a —” [...] “— you think I want to be a — a freak?” Lily’s eyes filled with tears as Petunia succeeded in tugging her hand away. “I’m not a freak,” said Lily. “That’s a horrible thing to say.” “That’s where you’re going,” said Petunia with relish. “A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy... weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good you’re being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.” (DH) “He was a funny baby too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was... odd.” […] “He’s definitely got a place at your school, you say?” “Definitely,” said Dumbledore. “And nothing I say can change that?” “Nothing,” said Dumbledore. “You’ll be taking him away, whatever?” [...] “I don’t think many people will be sorry to see the back of him.” (HBP)

4. Brilliant students

Prefects, Head Boy/Girl, Slughorn's favorites, charming, charismatic, good-looking, well-liked but with few close friends

"Brilliant," he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most  brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen [...] Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts [...] Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here." (CoS) "You shouldn’t have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl." (HBP) Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn’t suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry’s neck. "If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed." (CoS) - "Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn’t believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good." (HBP) “I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir [...] I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.” A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader’s famous ancestor. “Nonsense,” said Slughorn briskly, “couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet.” (HBP)

- "I forgot," lied Harry, Felix Felicis leading him on. "You liked her, didn’t you?" "Liked her?" said Slughorn, his eyes brimming with tears once more. "I don’t imagine anyone who met her wouldn’t have liked her... Very brave... Very funny... It was the most horrible thing..." (HBP) "As an unusually talented and very good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff almost from the moment of his arrival. He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were most favorably impressed by him." (HBP)

Lily as Ideal of a Gryffindor with a Slytherin streak (like Harry) vs. Tom as Ideal of a Slytherin

Then Professor McGonagall said, "Evans, Lily!" He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, “Gryffindor!” (DH) “Well, the start of the school year arrived and with it came Tom Riddle, a quiet boy in his secondhand robes, who lined up with the other first years to be sorted. He was placed in Slytherin House almost the moment that the Sorting Hat touched his head." (HBP) "I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too." [...] "I was Head of Slytherin," said Slughorn. "Oh, now," he went on quickly [...] "don’t go holding that against me! You’ll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose? Yes, it usually goes in families." “You’d better be in Slytherin,” said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a little.

5. They Even Look Something Alike

Just as this is pointed out for Voldemort and Harry, and Voldemort and Snape, in DH it's Voldemort and Lily that look alike and are revealed as reflections - and Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers".

5.3 The Same Eyes

And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister. He could not have said why this hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean. Aunt Petunia had never in her life looked at him like that before. Her large, pale eyes (so unlike her sister’s) were not narrowed in dislike or anger: They were wide and fearful.

The barman grunted. Harry approached him, looking up into the face, trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair and beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue. “It’s your eye I’ve been seeing in the mirror.” Dumbledore’s long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet... Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry He met Aberforth’s gaze, which was so strikingly like his brother’s: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking [...]

The burn of Lily and LV's eyes through the mirrors is repeated in the description of their eyes, and additionally both Snape and Lily's gaze described like LV's:

Voldemort’s expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers. But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket (The Prince's Tale, DH) His red eyes fastened upon Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH) “I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. (The Prince's Tale, DH)

Likewise in OoTP, Voldemort (when Harry is in his head) and Snape described as having slits for eyes (Other Death Eaters - Lucius and Bellatrix - described similarly via their hoods - "her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood" etc); then in DH, it's only Voldemort, Nagini (symbolic Merope), Harry, and Lily described with slits for eyes - Harry in the Malfoy Manor mirror, face blurred like LV’s in HBP, unrecognizable as himself and Draco unable to look at him (it's significant that Hermione's the one to make him look like LV - see this post); the same mirror LV’s in front of with slits for eyes tormenting his DEs, and Draco and Snape (parallel to Lily and LV and the Mirror of Erised in PS); Lily while looking at Snape in his memories:

Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? (OoTP) “He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it too...” “And Vol — he — realized I was there?” “It seems so,” said Snape coolly. “How do you know?” said Harry urgently. “Is this just Professor Dumbledore guessing, or — ?” “I told you,” said Snape, rigid in his chair, his eyes slits, “to call me ‘sir.’” (OoTP) A cracked, age-spotted mirror hung on the wall in the shadows. Harry moved toward it. His reflection grew larger and clearer in the darkness... A face whiter than a skull... red eyes with slits for pupils (OoTP) Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, andthe whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders. (HBP) [...] his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow. The huge snake [...] rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders […] its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH) Harry clutched at his excruciatingly painful face, which felt unrecognizable beneath his fingers, tight, swollen, and puffy as though he had suffered some violent allergic reaction. His eyes had been reduced to slits through which he could barely see; his glasses fell off as he was bundled out of the tent Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded thing in an intricately scrolled frame.Through the slits of his eyes he saw his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place. His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted by Hermione’s jinx. His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark shadow around his jaw. Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he would have wondered who was wearing his glasses [...] yet he still avoided eye contact with Draco as the latter approached. “Well, Draco?” said Lucius Malfoy [...] “Is it? Is it Harry Potter?” (Malfoy Manor, DH) Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (The Prince's Tale, DH)

In HBP, only Morfin, Tom Riddle, and Harry are described as remorseless; in DH only Harry, Voldemort, and Lily are described as pitiless:

“So you smashed my prophecy?” said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes (OoTP) Harry could see it happening. He watched Voldemort’s white, snakelike face vanishing into darkness, those red eyes fixed pitilessly on the thrashing elf (DH) “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late." (DH) --- “This discussion is getting us nowhere,” said Ogden firmly. “It is clear from your son’s attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions.” (HBP) “Didn’t you tell them, sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” asked Harry. “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before [...]" (HBP) “He told her to get out of the way,” said Harry remorselessly. “He told me she needn’t have died. He only wanted me. She could have run.” (HBP) “— Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explained it all as well,” Harry pressed on remorselessly. “Once I’m seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break, and that exposes you as well as me.” (DH)

5.1 Halloween, 1981

In the scene where he goes to murder the Potters - LV and Lily both enter through a door ("identical movements"; the Veil described as an "ancient doorway" - because sin is crouching at their door), both sneaking up on the enemy they're about to kill, and while Harry and James are described as "black-haired", LV and Lily have their faces covered ("matching hairstyles"; and because I show not your face but your heart's desire), and identical laughs - because the laugh that for six books were told was LV laughing as he killed Lily wasn’t him laughing, it was Lily laughing. (Explanation/closer analysis of this scene to come.)

“Nice costume, mister!” He saw the small boy’s smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face: Then the child turned and ran away And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and stared over it A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open. He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall.

5.2 The Mirrors

“How did you get this?” Harry asked, walking across to Sirius’s mirror, the twin of the one he had broken nearly two years before. - Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle’s eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled. (DH) A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he’d touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air — she and the others existed only in the mirror. She was a very pretty woman.She had dark red hair and her eyes — her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green — exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. (PS) - Then a voice hissed from out of the Horcrux. “I have seen your heart, and it is mine.” [...] “I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible...” [...] “Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter... Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...” (DH) “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." (PS) - “Ron!” he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort’s voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face. [...] “Presumption!” echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed. (DH) He tore his eyes away from his mother’s face, whispered, “I’ll come back,” and hurried from the room. (PS)

Lily's bright green eyes look at Harry from the Mirror of Erised; LV meets Harry in front of that mirror (there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake // The evil face was now smiling); LV describes Harry's parents' deaths and especially Lily's death/sacrifice; then Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised when he tries to touch Harry.

Riddle's dark eyes that gleam red look through the mirrors in Merope's locket, the dark twin of the Mirror of Erised (the connection also implied in it being Tom’s mother's locket and the only horcrux to have a mirror; and Ron coming with Harry to the Mirror of Erised and destroying the locket); Merope's locket horcrux burns Harry - right after he and LV see the full memory of Lily vanquishing him, after trying to kill him.

I show not your face but your heart's desire // The locket showing distorted faces of Ron's "family" - not their real faces but his heart's fears

Voldemort screamed “SEIZE HIM!” and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell’s hand close on his wrist [...] and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him [...] he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers — they were blistering before his eyes [...] “Master, I cannot hold him — my hands — my hands!” And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms — Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny. “Then kill him, fool, and be done!” screeched Voldemort. Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face — [...] Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain [...] - “I couldn’t get the Horcrux off you [...] It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You’ve got a mark; I’m sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake bit you too [...]" He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half-healed puncture marks to his forearm. the figures [....] swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot. [...] while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry’s neck still burned. (DH)

Harry's curse scar likewise described as burning and scorching - all echo the Dark Mark's burn: "Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord [...] When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to [...] Apparate, instantly, at his side [...] We both felt the Mark burn.”

Not taking the Love thing or Lily as inherently pure literally but - the prophecy says LV would "mark him as an equal"; Dumbledore says "love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign [...] It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good" aka Lily marked Harry as her equal (evidently it left some sign, per LV seeing traces)

6. Personality traits

6.1 Curiosity, Cunning, Manipulation

Skilled at using people's weaknesses against them:

Slughorn pulled himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk as the boys filed out. Voldemort, however, stayed behind. Harry could tell he had dawdled deliberately, wanting to be last in the room with Slughorn. (HBP) Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce. (DH) “You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you.” Petunia turned scarlet. “Beg? I didn’t beg!” “I saw his reply. It was very kind.” (DH) She dropped her voice. “And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there —” (DH) Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.” (OoTP) "Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it." (OOTP)

- The text draws a very deliberate parallel between her, Tom Riddle, and Harry (and to an extent Dumbledore) regarding their cunning and manipulation in HBP - i.e. Slughorn calls Lily charming, charismatic, says that he used to tell her she ought to have been in Slytherin, which means she has Slytherin traits (cunning, ambition, resourcefulness, a disregard for rules) and which sounds like the kind of thing he'd say specifically when she was displaying those traits - akin to when Slughorn tells Tom Riddle that he'd "like to know where he gets his information", that he's "more knowledgeable than half the staff" and has an "uncanny ability to know things he shouldn't".

- Lily calls Snape an affectionate nickname ("Sev") three times. Lily addresses people by name a lot, it's a part of her speech patterns; but it could also be read as having a slight manipulative edge to it - the way Harry and Dumbledore use "Lily Evans" to manipulate Slughorn and Snape, and LV uses names to simulate intimacy (especially given Lily uses Snivellus later, and if Lily's using Legilimency on Snape in this scene - "Severus?" A little smile twisted Snape’s mouth when she said his name - she'd be extra aware of it).

- Not super difficult to fake given Lily could do magic at Snape's house, but the Dursleys not knowing Harry can't do magic at home implies that Lily hid the Underage Magic rule and kept up a lie to likely all three of her family members for a while; like Harry threatening Dudley ("it was only their terror that he might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking him in the cupboard [...] Harry had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under his breath and watching Dudley tearing out of the room as fast as his fat legs would carry him.")

- Sneaks into Petunia's room with Snape to read her mail - she has the same curiosity and penchant for solving mysteries and sneaking that others have (i.e. parallels Harry reading Filch's mail in CoS). Her knowing about the Prank, dynamic with Slughorn and Bathilda Bagshot (gets the same "best kept secret" info out of her that Rita Skeeter gets using Veritaserum) may also imply this trait.

Rulebreaking and Bravery

“Yes, I speak it,” said Riddle. He moved forward into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemort’s complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Snape could no longer contain himself, but had jumped out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieked and ran backward toward the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. Snape seemed to regret his appearance. A dull flush of color mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily. “What’s obvious?” asked Lily.

“Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you —” “I’d like to see them try,” sneered Riddle. (HBP) “Let me? Let me?” Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (DH)

- "Lily, don't do it!" "Mummy told you not to!" "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" "But I'm fine" She only obeys when Petunia appears genuinely freaked out ("Stop it!" Petunia shrieked / "It's not hurting you").

- Lily laughs and takes a selfie while James runs after Harry; thinks it's hilarious when Harry breaks Petunia's vase; goes on "little excursions" under the Cloak while in hiding; goes "I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew!" wrt Bathilda spilling Dumbledore's secret then proceeds to gossip to Sirius about it.

[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.

[maxdibert]

Hello!! I really like your blog ^^ Do you have any headcanons about Tobias Snape and his relationship with Severus?

Yes, I have quite a few headcanons, both about him and about their relationship. Here are some:

Severus was born in 1960, so Tobias must have experienced WWII in one way or another. I imagine him coming from a working-class family that suffered the consequences of the war when his father had to go to the front. Tobias was probably still a teenager, and if they were already poor, the absence of the family’s breadwinner made them even poorer, and he would have started working at a very young age, almost as a child.

The trauma of war and having to take charge of his family so young likely shaped his personality. From an early age, he acted like an adult and accumulated a lot of anger that he didn’t know how to process because 1) men in that era were ticking time bombs, as they weren’t allowed to show their emotions, and 2) if you weren’t violent, you didn’t survive. Period.

He worked in a factory and was quite frustrated with how little he earned and the fact that he was never promoted beyond being a laborer. He started frequenting pubs after work at a young age and began drinking very early as well.

He let out his anger by getting into drunken fights.

He met Eileen Prince when he was about 35, and she was 10 or 12 years younger. She looked like a well-to-do young lady, and he was quite smooth-talking, so it wasn’t hard for him to win her over.

Eileen seemed like one of those women who appeared fragile, and Tobias liked that. It reinforced the image of the macho breadwinner and family man typical of the time, which he liked to embody. It gave him confidence because, as a nobody, it was the only thing his ego could cling to.

He didn’t care that her family wanted nothing to do with their marriage; he saw it as a kind of triumph. He had won the girl, "conquered" her, and those posh idiots who seemed to be her parents could go to hell.

All of this changed when Severus was born and Eileen told him she was actually a witch. That was the beginning of his descent into hell because his fragile masculinity, rooted in patriarchal ideals of manhood, couldn’t handle the fact that his wife was more powerful than he was. That she had powers, that she could do anything with a wave of her wand. It stripped him of the head-of-household role he had built for himself. If his wife could do anything with just a whisper, and he couldn’t get beyond being a factory laborer, then what was left of him?

He began showing hostility every time Eileen displayed any kind of magic. Over time, she repressed herself more and more until she finally stopped using it altogether. Tobias became increasingly intimidating whenever she mentioned her powers, to the point of verbally abusing her when he came home drunk. Eventually, when Severus started showing signs of being a wizard, Tobias felt so alienated from his own family that this was when the physical violence began.

Eileen didn’t dare use magic because her family had rejected her, and Tobias was all she had left. She clung to her marriage and obeyed him in everything he said. But his frustration, lack of self-esteem, and constant personal failures only worsened his temper, and he always took it out on her. He would accuse her of thinking she was better than him because she was a witch, of mocking him behind his back with Severus, and he constantly reminded her that she would have nothing without him (classic abusive behavior, nothing new under the sun).

He was always deeply frustrated with Severus because, from a young age, Severus showed a strong interest in intellectual rather than physical pursuits: books, stories. It wasn’t just because he was interested in magic and Tobias felt intimidated by something he couldn’t access. It was also because Tobias had built his self-image as a strong man through his physicality—someone who had survived a war, endured a brutal post-war period, and worked with his hands from a young age. His son lacked all those traditionally masculine qualities. Instead, he was drawn to interests Tobias didn’t even understand because he had barely finished primary school. This frustrated him immensely, so he tried to force Severus to be a "real man" from the start. But when he got nowhere, he eventually took it out on the boy. He beat him with a belt whenever he saw Severus doing "sissy" things, showing interest in the magical world, or simply failing to embody the epitome of masculinity Tobias wanted in a worthy son.

As a child, Severus was deeply afraid of his father. This fear partly fueled his interest in the Dark Arts. He fantasized about using a curse on Tobias one day to make him suffer and pay for everything he had done. It’s no coincidence that Severus was ahead of his peers; it was a form of self-defense. He would secretly read old books from his mother or ask her questions when Tobias wasn’t home. But as Severus grew older, Eileen became more emotionally distant, eventually becoming almost a ghost in the house.

As a teenager, Severus felt nothing but disgust for his father. He despised being related to someone so pathetic and simple. He threw himself into his studies because, on some unconscious level, he believed that the more he learned, the more knowledge he acquired, the farther he would be from someone as illiterate and brutish as his father, who seemed almost animalistic to him. Ending up in a house full of upper-class people was a way for him to dissociate from his own origins, adopting mannerisms and striving to set himself apart.

This infuriated Tobias even more. To him, his son not only thought he was better because he was a wizard, but now he was also attending that boarding school full of "posh prissy idiots" and coming home as an effeminate weakling, trying to sound like some upper-crust Londoner. Tobias would grab him by the neck and slam him against the wall, yelling furiously, asking if a scrawny, weak runt like him seriously thought he was better than his own father. Deep down, Severus liked provoking this reaction because he knew he had hurt Tobias's ego.

Through his Slytherin peers, Severus came to understand that Muggles were like that—violent, unpleasant, always seeking to harm wizards. And in a way, Severus believed it, because his father was like that. His father was violent, uncivilized, while the pureblood wizards he met during those years were intellectual, highly knowledgeable, elegant, and well-mannered. They were eloquent, interesting people, full of curiosity and ambition. What Severus knew of Muggles was nothing but filth, violence, resentment, and hatred. It was his father shouting, the smell of alcohol from the pubs he always went to, the factory friends who staggered home with him late at night, always filthy and barely literate. Magic was extraordinary; Muggles were dusty streets, old, soot-covered houses that looked ready to collapse, beggars in the alleys, and families who couldn’t even afford proper clothes. What his housemates said about Muggles made sense because he had lived it.

By the time Severus was 16, he almost cursed his father during one summer holiday. Tobias had gone into a rage and assaulted Eileen and then him. But Severus held back; he didn’t want to risk expulsion or losing his wand. However, he was intimidating enough to make Tobias almost wet himself in fear. After that, Tobias restrained himself; he was no longer physically violent, only verbally abusive. They barely spoke when Severus came home for the holidays. Tobias barely spoke to Eileen either.

I don’t have a clear headcanon about how Tobias died. Many people speculate that Severus killed him. I don’t think so. I don’t believe he killed his father or had him killed. I think it’s more likely that Eileen died first, shortly before or after Severus finished school. She probably died because she had neglected herself so much that her health deteriorated beyond repair. I imagine Severus stopped going to Spinner's End, and Tobias, now completely alone, spiraled out of control. Maybe he stopped going to work and was fired, and he drank himself into oblivion. Perhaps he got into a fight and took a fatal blow, or he crashed a car while drunk. I don’t know. What I imagine is that he died after Eileen and under very sordid circumstances.

Severus didn’t even bother to collect his body from the morgue.

[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]

Severus does seem the type, doesn’t he?

 

“Severus?” Quirrell laughed, and it wasn’t his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. “Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn’t he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. [HP&PS]

 

I think a lot of problems with how many HP fans percieve Snape stem from the type of person he seems to be.

As a teenager he’s a skinny, awkward nerd who hangs out with the wrong crowd and is fascinated by a dangerous ideology. He seems to be an archetypal nerd and incel fascinated by neonazism. A lot of ideas who Snape is, what his motivations are and so on, stem from not the source material but the archetype he seems to match.

The thing is, while he has a lot in common with this archetype, there are also significant differences. Without them Snape wouldn’t have betrayed Voldemort and become a spy, he would have stayed a loyal DE or another Karkaroff. This is important thing about Snape: he seems the type, but he is not the type.

Lily and Snape’s friendship wasn’t an awkward situation where Lily was a kind girl who sometimes talked to the local nerd out of pity and Snape jumped to the wild conclusions that they were best friends now. Lily truly liked him and they were real friends, not just in his head.

Was he jealous of James? Most likely he was, but he had a real reason to worry about Lily. James was a bully, Snape also believed James knew about “the Prank” beforehand. Would Snape have reacted in the same way if a genuinly nice boy like Cedric Diggory had been interested in her? We don’t know, but we can’t be sure that he would have reacted equally negatively. A jealous incel would have done that, but it’s not enough to be sure that Snape would have too.

After Snape called Lily a Mudblood, he sincerely apologised. An archetypal incel would have tried to put the blame on James and on external circumstances, he would have tried to gaslight Lily. An incel has a victim mentality: he’s not the one to blame, others are. But Snape did none of those things.

Snape didn’t feel entitled to Lily’s attention, he was her friend. She liked him and talked to him willingly. After Lily ended their friendship and told him to stay away, he did. He respected her wishes. An archetypal incel wouldn’t have listened, would have tried to contact her afterwards and felt entitled to her attention just because they used to talk. Snape did not, he left her alone as she wanted.

Snape was never friendzoned, because he had never asked Lily out. There is even no proof that he was in love with her romantically. Personally I think he had a crush on her, but her friendship was most important to him. I guess he didn’t want to lose it and waited for some signs that Lily had feelings for him too. Having an unrequited crush on somebody isn’t a crime, people don’t control it. An incel would have expected a romantic relationship in exchange for being nice. Snape respected Lily’s feelings and didn’t expect anything from her.

When he found out that Voldemort thought the Prophecy concerned Harry Potter, he asked Voldemort to spare Lily’s life. He could have asked him to Stupify her so he could have made her his sex slave. He could have Obliviated her so that she wouldn’t have remembered her family, he could have given her a love potion. It would have been so easy. According to Hagrid, Voldemort had wanted to recruit her before, so he surely would’ve been on board, wouldn’t he? But Snape after initial, emotional impulse to beg for her life didn’t come with such a plan. He went straight to Dumbledore, even though he could have been killed, and became a spy, risking his life, just to save Lily and her family. He took responsibility for his actions. He didn’t do it because he expected something from Lily. He hadn’t talked to her in years. It wasn’t selfish, it was selfless. He tried to save her and her family without expecting anything in return.

Do you know who saw Snape like the archetypal incel? Voldemort. And that mistake led to his downfall.

(Incels weren’t exactly the thing in the 90s, but creepy men have always existed, even if they were called differently.)