#oh so snape being older than harry gives him an outlet for modelling platonic affection in a way that makes sense to himself and others

[lightningant]

talking with a friend about snape like severitus as a genre is too tempted to make snape realize that harry is a poor little abused boy and go out of his way to protect him. he is a child-hater who tasked his only friend with being the sole proof of the world being capable of good and thus interpreted her death as nothing more than the death of that goodness. he barely cares about her love for harry. his reaction to finding out harry's family hates him [details unclear] is to simply retire "you're spoiled" as an insult and continuing to bully him. however mean you think he is he's not mean enough. he's a horrible little man. the catharsis only hits when snape is like oh okay it is impossible to rage against each other indefinitely and children are deserving of grace. the world is deserving of grace. am i deserving of grace? by releasing lily from her role as the arbiter of the world's kindness and brilliance he is forced to bear the horrifying burden of being responsible for the current amount of kindness around him. starting with harry who is currently trying to start a screaming match

also the most important part of severitus (TO ME) is that harry trusts snape's bad attitude as a comforting constant in his neglected child mind and snape being nice to him is inherently a source of conflict because harry doesn't like it. and the kindness he is afforded from snape recontextualizes his neglect in ways that upsets but validates him because its something his abusers should have also done yet snape who he hates twice as much could do it. do you understand. am i making sense