find your truth, speak your truth & be your truth

We always talk about Rowling using Snape's "black, tunnel-like eyes" as a literary device for his Occlumency, which is true. But from a purely genetic standpoint, how does a pale, white British man from the Midlands end up with hair and eyes that dark?

The answer is likely in his mother's side of the family: the Prince bloodline.

1. The "Black Irish" phenotype in Ireland and parts of the Celtic regions, there is a very famous genetic contrast.

While many associate Irish people exclusively with red hair, there is a massive sub-population known historically as the "Black Irish." These are people with extremely pale, fair skin, but coal-black hair, heavy eyebrows, and deep, dark brown eyes that look pitch black unless hit by direct sunlight.

Snape and his mother are the textbook definition of this.

2. Eileen's name is the biggest clue Rowling rarely picks names at random.

"Eileen" is the anglicized version of the pure Gaelic/Irish name Eibhlin. Given that Cokeworth is located in the Midlands (an industrial hub that historically attracted thousands of Irish migrant workers during the industrial eras), it makes perfect sense that the Prince family carried these strong Celtic roots.

3. He is a Prince through and through in the books, it's explicitly stated that Severus looks exactly like his mother-the long face, the heavy brows, the bleak demeanor. Apparently he completely wiped out his Muggle father's traits with the exception of the hooked nose and inherited the full, raw Black Irish genetics from Eileen.

So to me, Snape isn't just a gothic character design; he and his mom are ethnically Celtic/Irish, and his appearance perfectly fits the biology of that heritage.

McGonagall was Hermione's boggart and she obviously represented her fear of failure.

At that time of PoA, Neville hasn't met Bellatrix. He meets her a few years later. He was a baby when it happened to remember what she looked like, just like Harry with Voldemort. And boggart is not someone's "biggest" fear. Boggart definition: a shapeshifter that can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.

The boggart is whatever’s on your mind, not your true deepest, darkest fear (unless Ron is a monster for fearing spiders when just last year he nearly lost Ginny, or Harry for having dementors when just a year ago he met the man who is after him face to face). PoA already introduces a creature that actually makes you relive your worst moments, which aredementors. Introducing two creatures that do essentially the same thing is redundant and doesn't make sense.

Neville defeats his Snape boggart on his first attempt because it’s a trivial fear (Snape is listed among the meaningless boggarts the kids defeated with ease). Remember, in OotP Molly couldn't defeat her boggart because there was nothing light about her losing her family. If Snape had been abusive, other students would not have found this funny and Neville would not have smiled, nor would Remus have joked about it. If the fear had been overwhelming, Neville would not have defeated the boggart on his first try. Harry, who is canonically a bit smarter than him, especially in DADA, couldn’t defeat his boggart. He mentions his grandmother too here, by the way. She was a possible boggart for him.

Snape boggart doesn’t necessarily mean Neville fears Snape himself; rather, Snape represents an authority figure and Neville’s fear of not measuring up. Snape never coddles him and openly highlights his mistakes. This is especially clear as Neville talks about his grandmother, another someone whose expectations already weigh heavily on him. His fear in itself would be not measuring up.

Just like Minerva appearing in Hermione's boggart saying she failed (I mean, it could have literally been just a piece of paper on a desk with failed results) doesn't inherently mean she fears Minerva, but the fear of failure as judged by authority.

For Hermione, it manifests as being told she has failed by Minerva, and for Neville, who is naturally timid and lacks confidence, it manifests as Snape, an authority figure who consistently criticizes him. I don't think it's going to be easier to fight it off when you constantly see him; in that case, it would have been harder, especially for someone in nature like Neville (then it's like seeing your worst fear every day), even when someone like Harry, who is much better in DADA than him, nor Molly could fight theirs off, showing if it was that serious, it wouldn't be easy to fight off.

Harry has a LOT more to fear than Dementors literally put in the school to help keep him safe. They are there FOR him. They are bad for him, yes, but they DO keep the serial killer away, so that's... good.

He's met Voldemort - twice - both times almost died. He saw his friend turned to stone, his friends little sister almost die, two teachers turn on him violently, an Acromantula calmly say it will let its children eat them, the dread of going back to the Dursleys every summer (or if he gets expelled)... And is being haunted by a Grim and being hunted by a serial killer.

I'd say that it's not just Dementors themselves that are making Harry scared, it's the fact hearing his parents death again makes him feel funny - he both hates it and wants to hear it more - and thats awful.

But then... once again, it's a Boggart more complicated than just 'appears as his worst fear'. It's not his worst fear. It's whats bothering him most right now - and isn't even that bad. Though it's worse than Neville, as pointed out: Neville can deal with his Boggart while Harry struggles.

Neville attends every Potions class. He attempts his potion. He makes stupid decisions like bringing his Toad. It's awful for him, yes - but it's also manageable. He does it weekly.

Could Ron attend a class taught by a spider? Especially after almost being eaten by them? He could barely handle Barty torturing and killing spiders in fourth year. Could Harry attend a class where a dementor was present?

Boggarts can be crippling if the fear they take form of is crippling. That's the very reason why Remus didn't let Harry deal with it in class, right? Because for him - it could have been Voldemort. Probably why its a good idea to teach how to deal with them when kids are young and their fears are less likely to be too serious. Like... a fear of snakes. Or mummies. Or your mean teacher.

The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions.

-Goblet of Fire, Ch. 14

This is before the first DADA class of the year. Neville has either melted six cauldrons in the first week of school, or in his 3 years and one week at Hogwarts (the latter is more likely). Potions is a high-risk class and Snape tries to instil the importance of working attentively and meticulously in his students from their first year. When Harry throws a firework in Goyle's cauldron in CoS we see what can happen with a simple classroom accident as half the class needs an antidote as their various bits are hit with swelling solution. A simple moment of clumsiness or carelessness can cause serious damage.

The paragraph in PoA where he threatens to poison Neville's toad is laden with details about both Snape's teaching abilities and Neville's carelessness:

A few cauldrons away, Neville was in trouble. Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things ten times worse. His potion, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned - ‘Orange, Longbottom,’ said Snape, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see. ‘Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?’

-Prisoner of Azkaban, Ch. 7

We know Snape writes out directions on the board instead of telling his students to consult their textbook. We also know, from HBP, that Snape has a better understanding of Potions than the textbook, so presumably the directions he writes on the board are more detailed than the textbook (which we an also infer from the fact that Harry does better in Potions when working from the Prince's, aka Snape's, notes than the other students who are using the standard textbook). Nevertheless, Neville struggles to follow them. We also know that Neville is careless, which is reflected in the above excerpt, and which is also extremely unsafe in a class like potions.

In the above quote we see that not only did Neville add an incorrect amount of ingredients, but that Snape is an experienced and skilled teacher, who can immediately identify exactly where a student went wrong based on their potion down to which ingredient was added incorrectly and in what amounts. He's tough on students but he's also clearly frustrated with Neville. You can call it bullying, but I don't think that's the correct term to use here - don't get me wrong, I don't think it's OK for a teacher to let their impatience with a student show through like this. It was accepted and normalized at the time the story takes place, which gives some context to teachers like Snape and McGonagall, but it's also understandable why Neville gets so stressed and it's good that this kind of approach is no longer acceptable. The reason I don't think it's bullying is that in moments like these Snape is clearly frustrated and letting the students know, but he isn't having a go at Neville to assert his power or for his own enjoyment which is what bullies do. There are other moments throughout the books where Snape does bully in that way, but this isn't one of them.

Similarly Snape threatens to poison Neville's pet because it raises the stakes and he likely thinks it'll force Neville to pay more attention to his work and learn something. Neville is also the only student we see take his pet to classes - and given that he lost Trevor before he even got off the Hogwarts Express in his first year, he probably shouldn't be taking him around school with him all day. That, and also a schoolbag and classroom desks aren't a suitable environment for a toad to spend its days in.

guess who got out the very ancient drawing tablet of ten years ago, collecting dust and cobwebs and now in my clawing hands!!

Severus most often lashes out at Harry when Harry puts himself and/or others in danger – using Arthur's car to fly to school, running away to Hogsmeade while dementors and an alleged murderer are around, being found in a Shack with Black and about to transform into a werewolf Remus, showing up on the first of September late and with a bloodied face, firing Sectumsempra at Draco, etc. Even with the pensive situation, when Severus has a different reason to be really upset, he initially leaves Harry alone with his most private memories because his missing student had been found, AND we don't know what kind of memories Harry might've seen after SWM if Severus didn't drag him out before it's finished.

Severus has a problem with Neville as a student, who is genuinely a physical danger to himself and everyone around him, both with his potions and his spells – even though it's not his fault, of course. It's clear that that he does not want Neville to end up harmed.

Severus calls Hermione an insufferable know it all – in contrast to him just telling her to sit down or stop showing off elsewhere in the books – during the werewolf class, where he tries to warn students about the danger Remus poses to them.

We see Severus running up the corridor at night because he heard a scream; he shows a similar reaction when he hears Trelawney loudly crying, and when Myrtle shouts "murder". I also think that him being shown to patrol corridors at night more than other teachers (“You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night...") has to do with him being worried for their safety – see Fluffy, moving staircases, etc. We don't see Severus showing animosity towards students – and overall people – whom he doesn't see as dangerous to others (a casual reminder for anyone who might need it that Snape is not shown to be equally hostile towards all students or all gryffindors in Harry's group).

Again

I think there’s a very specific cognitive dissonance going on with Severus and Slytherin, because despite the fact that most Slytherin students come from wealthy pure-blood families and privileged social environments, I genuinely think Severus internalised the stigma against Slytherin as something deeply personal. Not just because of other students bullying him, but because authority figures —teachers included— repeatedly stood by and allowed that bullying to happen.

So I think in his mind, being a Slytherin became inseparable from being socially condemned, mistrusted and left unprotected. And yes, objectively speaking, a huge factor in why he suffered so much was poverty, social isolation and lack of protection or support systems. But trauma is not always rational. Trauma simplifies things emotionally. So I think Severus ends up associating a lot of that pain specifically with the identity of being a Slytherin. Which is why I think he becomes intensely protective of Slytherin students later in life. Not because he necessarily agrees with every single thing they do, but because in his mind they are children who, from the age of eleven, are already going to walk into Hogwarts with a target on their backs and assumptions made about them before they even open their mouths.

And unlike Slughorn, who desperately wanted approval from wealthy elites and influential families, Severus genuinely does not give a shit about social acceptance. He doesn’t care about being liked. He doesn’t care about networking. He doesn’t care about pleasing people. So I think part of his mentality becomes: “No one protected me. Fine. I’ll protect them.” And I think that’s also why his resentment toward Gryffindor runs so deep specifically. Because we never really see Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff students having personal issues with Snape. The hostility is overwhelmingly tied to Gryffindor, the house associated with the people who abused him and the institutional bias that protected them.

Especially considering that Dumbledore himself was a Gryffindor, McGonagall was a Gryffindor, the school culture clearly favoured Gryffindor students in many ways, and the Marauders were essentially treated like mischievous golden boys despite repeatedly crossing lines that would absolutely be considered abusive. So from Severus’s perspective, Gryffindor represents not bravery or heroism, but a system that rewarded charismatic cruelty while dismissing his suffering. And I think that deeply shaped how he approached teaching.

Honestly, I think Severus was emotionally distant but structurally protective. I do not think he was the kind of teacher students went to crying about personal drama. I think that would make him deeply uncomfortable. He’s emotionally repressed, highly guarded and extremely rigid with boundaries. Especially because he started teaching so young —the age gap between him and some students was tiny at first— so I think he intentionally built very thick professional walls from the beginning. There is always a line: He is Professor Snape first, everything else second. But at the same time, I absolutely think his students knew that if they were genuinely being treated unfairly, he would go to war for them. Not in a warm or nurturing way. Not in a soft, emotionally available way. But in a very harsh, almost paternalistic way rooted in trauma.

Like the type of parent who publicly defends their child with their life, then privately tears them apart afterward for behaving like an idiot. That’s exactly the energy Snape gives me. Publicly? “My students did nothing wrong.” Privately in the common room? “You absolute morons, do you have any idea how stupid that was?”

And honestly, I think he valued effort more than likability. Outside of obvious exceptions like Harry and his immediate circle —because Harry was psychologically triggering to him in ways that completely compromised his objectivity— I actually think Severus was relatively fair academically. Demanding? Absolutely. Strict? Definitely. Harsh? Constantly. But I think he respected intelligence, discipline, talent and hard work. If a student genuinely applied themselves, I think he respected that regardless of whether he liked them personally.

Canon: “Snape has shoulder length black hair”