If I’ve learned anything from video games, it is that when you meet enemies, it means that you’re going in the right direction.
that’s really inspiring
Essay put together from This Post by freyaboo
Published without permission but these words ARE IMPORTANT. ~That Woman
freyaboo
As someone obsessed with the character of Severus Snape, I guess I’ll chime in and school people on their useless Snape hate. This is gonna be long, be warned.
Facts about Eileen, Severus’ mother:
- The Prince family was a Pure family
- Eileen was a genius at potions
- She was a Slytherin
- She was athletic
- She wasn’t a purist, because she MARRIED one
- She was disowned which means her family was - otherwise why would she and her husband have gone to live in some slummy industrial town that is a bang on impression of Salford?
- She was interested in Dark Magic
- Severus learned from her either because he read her old books or because she actively taught him
- She was abused by her husband
Facts about Tobias Snape:
- Abusive
- Hated magic
- Hated his son
- Hated his wife
- “He doesn’t like anything, much”
- Fought all the time with his wife
Facts about Severus Snape:
- Genius
- Despite the words he uses, there is no indication he is actually a purist - more on that
- He was a halfblood in a mostly Pure House with mostly Pure students who had Pure parents who were probably purists (given the way JK protrays the House)
- Wore ill fitting, old clothes as a kid and well into his teenager years
- Was poor
- Abuse victim of the Marauders, his father and Housemates
- Hated his father
- Never once mentioned his mother
- Abusive
- Used as a tool both by Dumbledore and Voldemort against the other
- Unpopular
- Is said to have known more about the Dark Arts in first year than most seventh years
Is anyone a psychologist? I’m not but even I can see what this trifecta is. The Snape home was a nest of abusive behaviour, negative energy and an apparent lack of concern for a child that seemed to be unplanned or the victim of a failing marriage. There is a reason Eileen and Tobias got married and it was probably a bad one, because they obviously didn’t care for each other in any real way.
For the first nine years of Severus’ life the only things he experienced in life were abuse, neglect and a steady stream of hatred from his father for being something he couldn’t help being. Then he met Lily, a girl who was different than anything he had ever seen before and, as many little boys are wont to do, he fell for her immediately. Despite growing up and watching his father abuse his mother, he knew that Petunia calling Lily a freak for her magic was wrong and stepped into help Lily. He only begins an abusive type of response to Petunia when she begins to abuse him. That’s unsurprising given his background because he likely saw that stuff play out at home. ‘If someone hurts you, you hurt them back’. In my own past that was a running theme and to this day I struggle to control my bad coping issues.
Their friendship was never perfect. Severus was severely traumatized and never got help. No one ever paid enough attention to him or said, ‘can I help you?’. He had no idea how to have a healthy relationship. We have no explanation as to why they were friends for so long but I think that is evidence of Lily being a patient, long-suffering person who recognized that her best friend was messed up. From the snippets of conversation there was with them in the past about Severus’ life, Lily must have known of the abuse Severus went through. Yet she was unable to help, being a child. Maybe her parents didn’t like Severus and didn’t want to help. Maybe they didn’t know of the abuse. Who knows? All we know is that their friendship was real. Six years of hanging out with the same person isn’t a fluke. When we see Severus and Lily as teenagers there is tension there because Lily is frustrated with Severus’ choices but there is obviously at least a half-way positive relationship there. Why else would a strong-willed witch like Lily (who was a genius in her own right) choose to stay around with someone like Severus?
There is absolutely no indication that Lily was abused and accepted abusive treatment from Severus. There’s no indication that he stalked her. There is nothing in canon that says Severus ever admitted his feelings or that Lily ever turned him down romantically.
I’m going to let that bit sink in for a second. Snape-haters seem to have thick skulls regarding that bit so please repeat it a few times until you think you can remember it as I continue.
So. Most of what we see of Lily and Severus’ relationship was shortly before, during or just after ‘the incident’. At that point, there was already tension in the friendship for multiple reasons.
I’m going on a tangent for a second, but follow me, please…
I grew up in an abusive home. No details, just trust me when I know what it’s like to be abused by a parent. I grew up in a private ‘Christian’ school where rich children made fun of me for being poor and where the ‘pretty’ and ‘thin’ girls made fun of me for being fat. I had boys pretending to like me and making fun of me when I finally admitted I had a crush on them. ‘Don’t wear that you look fatter than you really are’. Had rocks thrown at me. We’re talking serious bullying. Even my friends eventually turned on me one year and began making fun of me. Blah, blah, blah. Again, I understand abuse from my peers.
In my personal life, the day I went to a public school and the anry, ‘I hate authority and everyone, fuck you’ punk/goth kids showed up and invited me to be friends with them…I threw myself into the deep end of their fucked up social circle and didn’t look back until I was older. Even now I struggle to maintain healthy relationships. Many friends have written me off for one reason or another. I’ve called friends horrible things. I’ve used them. I’ve been abusive. I admit this. I know that I am damaged and traumatized and I know that my brain chemistry got rewired because of those traumas and that as an adult I have to actively work at undoing it all.
So imagine a small boy, abused and traumatized and terrified of being alone without the one person in the world who accepts him despite his huge, overwhelming flaws. Imagine going into a House where people know who your mother was. They know she fucked a Muggle and had you. Hell, maybe he had cousins in Slytherin, Prince cousins, and they made it all worse. Then imagine that one or two them, for some reason, reach out to you. Offer protection maybe. Obviously they wanted something but Severus was desperate for anything positive in his life.
By the age of fifteen he’d been dragged deep into their shithole and couldn’t get out. Not even Lily could save him, which is evident in the scene where he calls her ‘that word’; let me end this sentence by saying that Lily was not responsible for saving Severus in any way…I’m simply saying that not even his best friend could get to him. Having grown up in a deranged home, Severus was already a bit deranged himself. Being scooped up by the clever, cunning boys of Slytherin was probably Severus’ doom from the beginning.
There is no explanation as to why Severus got so in with the Death Eaters but I suspect it’s the same reason I decided my soul was black, that washing my hair was stupid and that threatening to suck the blood from people’s jugular’s was cool. Children, who are wildly immature, weak and stupid, are prone to doing stupid shit to get accepted. I believe that’s what it started as. He couldn’t be with Lily in Gryffindor.
Which brings me to another point. Gryffindors. If you notice in the books, the majority of Gryffindors have all sorts of nasty, hateful things to say about Slytherins. None of them are kind about it. I can’t recall any scene where a Gryffindor says anything positive about Slytherins but correct me if I’m wrong. Who wants to bet that the moment Gryffindors found out Lily was friends with Severus, they told her how bad Slytherins were? Maybe Lily, a child herself and vulnerable as many children, bought into some idea of what Slytherins were. Maybe her Housemates began to discolour her view of Severus.
Maybe their friendship became strained because both of them were trying too hard to be accepted by those around them. But maybe not. There’s nothing that indicates this, but I believe it’s a realistic idea.
Back from the tangent…
The day Severus called Lily a ‘Mudblood’, she also called him ‘Snivellus’, a word James Potter had been using for four years to abuse Severus with. They both said awful things to each other. Yes, the term Mudblood was a terrible slur, and yes Severus shouldn’t have said it but he was fifteen. Mortified that the girl he loved was seeing him like some dangling, broken mess while James Potter, the rich and popular boy of Gryffindor - who constantly threw himself at Lily (and yes this is canon I will fucking find every mention of it if you disagree) - stood looking like some clever, windswept bad ass to those around him. Everyone was laughing at Severus. His own Housemates included. Probably his Slytherin friends too.
It’s all well and good to say that you would not have done what Severus did, but as someone who has been abused more than I want to admit, I will tell you that it is FAR easier to take the angry, dark way of things than to step back and be the bigger person. Severus said an awful word but he was a stupid, traumatized, abused little boy who had reached a breaking point. He was not an evil, child-killing Death Eater. He wasn’t a dark wizard looking to murder Muggles. Yes, he ran his mouth, he was crude. He hung out with the wrong crowd. But he was still a child when he was thrown into the air, turned upside down and used as a living laughingstock to anyone and everyone who wanted a look.
And no one saved him. Even Lily let it continue when he called her a name. In the end, Severus was left to his abuse because everyone gave up on him.
So you know what Severus did? He gave up on them. He was left without his best friend, was left to be a laughingstock even more than he had been before. There was nothing in his life except those Slytherins who had 'befriended’ him. Not even his Head of House gave a shit about him. He was too busy doting on Lily, a seemingly well-adjusted, clever, pretty girl (which creeps me out tbh). Severus became exactly what everyone assumed he was when he was eleven. Because what else was there? There were no friends at school. No friends at home. His parents obviously didn’t care. The staff obviously didn’t care.
Severus Snape gave up.
The character of Severus Snape is a realistic portrayal of someone who has been severely abused and never gotten help. He perpetuated the abuse that was done to him. He held grudges. He never learned how to interact with people properly. He never let got of his anger.
But at the age of twenty, after handing over secrets to the Dark Lord - someone else who manipulated him and got him to believe he was useful, it seems - Severus was faced with the reality of what he’d signed up for. I believe he shut down after that day he lost Lily. I believe he stopped being anything but what people expected him to be. He had no way of coping with the shit in his life so he just…gave up. But when he found out that his actions were going to get Lily killed, he panicked. She had gone off and married his worst tormentor, but his knee-jerk reaction was to run to Dumbledore and grovel and beg to make things right.
Remember how when they meet up, Dumbledore says 'you disgust me’ because he assumes Severus wants Lily for himself? He hates Severus, a boy of twenty, a boy who was never shown an ounce of mercy as a child. Dumbledore knew the abuse was going on when Severus was a kid, because Dumbledore is shown to have somehow known everything going on around him. There’s no way he was ignorant of what was being done to Severus. But he never stepped in, did he? He left Severus to the 'mercy’ of James Potter and his friends. Why? I think that’s a question that needs to be answered - but not by me, not here, because this is already too long.
Severus asked for Lily to be spared in exchange for Harry. Voldemort was a monster incapable of love or mercy or anything positive. Asking for any kind of altruistic mercy would have been stupid and Severus knew that. He played the situation the only way he could, but with Dumbledore he readily asked for the entire Potter family to be saved.
“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”
That was Dumbledore’s answer. For the rest of the memories involving Dumbledore, there is nothing but Dumbledore reminding Severus over and over and over again of what he did. Of how he is responsible for Lily’s death - which is simply not true. Even when Severus hands his whole existence over to Dumbledore, becomes a fucking pawn, he is never allowed any mercy, only reminded that he is nothing, that he is a mistake and that all he ever does is make mistakes.
No wonder Severus Snape never healed. No wonder he never became a kinder person.
*drops mic*
