Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,

Renaissance(distinct lines, stability and the individual man):

Baroque (bold, chaotic, dramatic):

Romantic(romanticize the simple hard working life):

James was more than “a little too aggressive” in his pursuit of Lily. He relentlessly bullied her best friend, and at one point even tried to use this as leverage to get Lily to date him (he’d stop the torment, if Lily would agree to a date). Lily herself calls him out on how he is a bully, saying he walks down corridors, hexing anyone who annoys him just because he can. When they get together in 7th year, it’s because he supposedly has stopped his bullying ways, but continues to bully Severus in secret behind her back. That is canon. That is said by Sirius and Remus, after Harry saw “Snape’s worst memory” and was appalled at how fucking horrid his father was.

And, why is it that James constantly bullies Severus?

JK herself said: “James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James’ behaviour towards Snape.“ 

So. Because Severus Snape was Lily Evans’ best friend, and a guy, James worried that he was a rival for her affections, and from day one targeted him for bullying. Because how dare Severus even think he has the right to talk to her, when obviously James is the one she should pay attention to.

The only character we see not respect Lily’s rejection is James Potter. This is canon. He doesn’t ever take “no” for an answer. He refuses to. He resorts to lying to her in order to finally get her to date him.

Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.

1- There is absolutely no evidence in canon that James ‘relentlessly’ pursued Lily. That is fanon. Sure fanon has that trope about James repetitively asking Lily out and almost stalking her. In canon we only see James ever ask Lily out ONCE. In Snape’s worst memory. The rest of the time we see Snape having to tell Lily that James fancies her and there is no evidence she even knew about it before that, then we have Lily actively defend the maradaurs to Snape asking him why he was so obessed with them :

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p540 bloomsburry edition )

“… thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging around with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him Sev? He’s creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily ha reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all -” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny -” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill -” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold “Why are you so obsessed with them, anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “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; “They don’t use Dark Magic, though”.

Now, what does this scene tells you. First for someone who supposedly didn’t give as good as he got and was only the helpless victim of James, we learn that : 1- Lily doesn’t understand why he is so obsessed with them and can’t see the resemblance between the marauders and the very real, blood supremacist, dark magic using bullies that Snape was hanging out with and found funny. 2- Snape was very clearly trying to out Remus and actively trying to prove his case; so please do tell me, if this isn’t reason enough for James to hate Snape then what is? Not only did Snape actively try back when he was 15, but he DID out Remus years later because he couldn’t let go of the past when Remus was being nothing but cordial with him.

2- Which brings me to my next point, the idea that Snape was an innocent victim and not a bully himself is utter bullshit.

Let’s look at another excerpt from the books shall we:

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p542, Blommsburry edition)

“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just -” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean -” “- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

Now what does this tells us? This tells us that unlike what the Snape apologists often love to pretend, Snape wasn’t an inactive by stander in the wannabe-death eaters sessions of muggleborns bullying. He actively took part in it, he actively threw slurs at them. Lily herself mention that and Snape doesn’t deny any of it.

Not only that but we also know that Snape invented Levicorpus, which we later see James use, how do you think James learned it if not because he had it used against him? We even see Snape use Sectusempra on James; Sectusempra, aka the spell capable of cutting someone open and leave them to bleed to death. This is the kind of experimentation Snape did with Dark Magic, so spare me if I don’t buy the “poor innocent Snape” narrative. He was a bully at school, going after muggleborn with his band of magical equivalent to the Hitler youth. But aside from that, please do tell me more about how Snape was innocent and never gave as much as he got when even LILY calls him out on his bullying of Muggleborns and admitted herself that she couldn’t excuse him anymore.

“Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.”

Excuse me? We should admire him because he backed off after HE threw a slur at her and still tried to talk to her when she didn’t want to, even saying he would sleep in front of the common room if she refused to have that talk?

And above all, we should think Snape is such a great guy because he bargained for her life? WHAT? Snape - may I remind you - was the reason why her life was even in danger to start with! Snape is the one who sold a BABY’S LIFE to Voldemort without second thoughts and only backed off when he realized that the baby in question was Lily’s. And not only that but he only partly backed off because he didn’t give a shit about what would happen to Harry and James, AKA the man she loved and HER SON. Dumbledore himself called him out on it:

“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?”

I genuinely cannot believe my eyes that some people are trying to paint this as a selfless act on Snape’s part. If it had been Neville he would have let him die without blinking, just like he was ready to let Harry die, a ONE YEAR OLD BOY and the son of the woman he claimed to love. I do not doubt that he loved her, but his love was entirely and completely selfish and none of what he did was for her. He did what he did for himself and to feel better about what he had caused. Snape was not a good person. Snape was bad guy who did the right thing for the wrong reasons. All his life he remained the same bitter bullying douchebag, he bullied kids as a gorwn ass man, he never got over it unlike James.

The point of Snape isn’t “good is not nice”, the point of Snape is “you don’t have to be a good person to do the right thing”. “Good is not nice” is in fact the point of James. Was James an immature “toerag” (as Lily colourfully put it) when he was 15? Sure he was, but his heart was always at the right place which is something we cannot say of Snape. And he grew out of it, which is another thing we cannot say of Snape.

The fact that James bullied Snape isn’t the only thing we know of him. We also know that James welcomed Sirius in his home when the later had nowhere to go, we know that James accepted Remus for who he was and became an Animagus to help him, we know that James befriended three outcasts without caring about how uncool they were, from what family they came from or what disease they had to deal with, we know that James was ALWAYS disgusted with pure blood supremacy as evidenced by his reaction when Snape calls Lily the m-blood in front of him. We know that when Snape was busy joining the Death Eaters fresh out of school, James was joining the Order and fighting against Voldemort from the start (a war that as a pure blood he could have stayed entirely out of). We know he defied Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale, we know that he died throwing himself between Voldemort and his wife and child without even a wand to try to give them time to escape. James was a good person who wasn’t always nice and grew out of his bullying way.

Every characters aside from Snape always describe the Marauders as this generation Fred and George (who by the way also did a number of questionable things, such as shoving Montague in the vanishing cabinet, feeding Dudley their toffees or turning Neville into a bird). Were they always nice? No. Did they bully Snape?  Yes. Where they still good people? Yes. James included.

1) The evidence we DO have shows James using his torment of Snape to literally try to blackmail her into dating him. You don’t get to just brush that under the rug as a “typical teenage boy with a crush.” We also have explicit statements that the only reason he tormented Snape was because he was threatened by him and his closeness to Lily. If that’s not proof of him relentlessly, if indirectly, pursuing her, I don’t know what is.

2) We’ve literally…already acknowledged that Snape was a bigoted teenager? Except our stance is pretty clearly “he experienced a childhood of domestic violence and possible abuse, was a half blood wizard put into a house known for bigotry against anyone without pure blood well before Voldemort existed, and was outcasted by people like James in his school life, and as such went in with the wrong crowd,” AND EVEN WITH THOSE EXPLANATIONS, no one is trying to excuse him. No one is sitting here saying he was justified or that him becoming a Death Eater was okay NO MATTER the . The only people excusing anything are people like you who’ve decided James Potter’s relentless torment and harassment of Severus doesn’t matter because hey, Severus became a Death Eater, completely disregarding the fact he was tormenting Snape well before he fell in with that crowd.

And also, LMAO at the spell dissertation, as if he didn’t start experimenting with those spells SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE JAMES WAS BULLYING HIM, AND ONLY ATTEMPTED SECTUSEMPRA WHEN BEING BULLIED BY JAMES. Again, no one is excusing Snape, but you’re going an awful long way to excuse James despite even his friends acknowledging he went too far.

It’s strongly implied that Snape told Voldemort about the prophecy (nevermind that there were many others who could’ve and would’ve done the same and would have not checked themselves no matter which child it was, but yes, Snape is implied to be the one who does this), and yes, he gets cold feet when he realizes it could be Lily’s child, but–much like every character in the series–he changes? He protects Harry AND his friends COUNTLESS TIMES, even when it doesn’t always directly serve Dumbledore’s cause. He protects a student he doesn’t even like from a slur hurled against her for no reason beyond him recognizing that it’s wrong. And yes, he even protects Neville, numerous times.

(Also, you didn’t explicitly do this but it’s strongly implied–you can’t use Neville, his fear of Snape, and the poor treatment he received from Snape as scapegoats if you’re not going to also attack literally every other teacher at Hogwart’s–including McGonagall–for turning a blindside to Neville’s obvious problems and treating them as his own personal defects. You don’t get to use Neville only when it’s convenient for your argument, and honestly I’m pretty disgusted people like you only seem to care about Neville’s plight when it suits your interests.)

James continued his bullying of Snape even after Lily and her were dating, during the final years of school. We don’t know if he “changed” because after that he was thrusted into the war (and no? James couldn’t have ignored it because as we see Voldemort was willing to kill literally ANYONE who wasn’t explicitly on his side? literally no one could CHOOSE to ignore it, no matter blood status?). But even if we assumed he had profoundly changed? It doesn’t suddenly make his faults something we can choose to ignore, the same way we shouldn’t choose to ignore Snape’s faults just because he did some good things in his life. And if you ARE going to try to play that card, that they don’t matter because “he was a good guy though!!1!”? You can’t deny that card to Snape just because you don’t like what kind of person he was. If you’re going to say being a bully and harassing a young girl for her affections doesn’t belittle every good thing James has ever done, then neither does being a former bigot and cult member who clearly learns from his ways and works to correct them, nor does being a mean teacher that in canon only has one known student that’s actually terrified of him. You don’t get to have it both ways, boo.

First, you lost the right to tell me I’m basing myself on fanon when I’m the one providing direct textual evidences while you’re not. None of my points are based on anything but text, and I quoted it, or are you now going to pretend that direct excerpts from Deathly Hallows are fanon? I wonder…? If you had told me that we had a different interpretations, that would be one thing - because every book can be interpreted differently - but telling me I’m not basing myself on text, when I literally quoted it above, is ridiculous. So, if you want to come back at me with that “flimsy argument” maybe put in some quotes from the books too next time - basics of textual analysis. 

First, about James asking Lily out, I did not say anything about the way he asked Lily out. Literally nothing. I did not give my opinion on that, did not comment on it. At no point was that a part of my argument, I only said that the idea that James asked Lily out over and over again and therefore felt entitled to her and her attention because of it, had no canon evidence. That was my point, which you did not answer to. And again, we don’t know if she even knew that James was interested before Snape’s Worst Memory.

And here, have some more textual evidence (p541, Bloomsbury, DH):

[…] Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. 

“I didn’t mean - I just don’t want to see you made a fool of - he fancies you. James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And he’s not… everyone thinks… Big Quiddich hero  -” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were travelling further and further up her forehead. […]

Before this point, James’ interest never comes up from either one of them, THAT was my point, that is what you need to answer to and explain, without deflecting to another thing entirely to try and make excuses. 

2- Please, do tell me WHERE in the text is it written that Snape started to experiment with dark magic because of James? Please quote it to me. The answer is that it is not in the text, period. That is just your interpretation, but there is no direct evidences that Snape’s interest and fascination with Dark Magic had anything to do with James. Why even are you trying to make every characteristic of Snape about James? You do realise that you take away a lot of his complexity as a literary character by trying to turn every aspect of his personality, choices, or mistakes, into being about James. 

If anything, the only thing we know about Snape and his interest in dark spells is that it lasted long after James’ death, in fact it lasted long after Voldemort first fell, and long after Snape deflected from the Death Eaters; this is why he wanted to be a DADA teacher to start with. Snape’s love for the Dark Art, which he was described as talking of with tenderness, is something that is Snape’s and Snape’s alone. 

As for his bigotry, again he held those beliefs as a child, before he met James. 

(p535, Bloomsbury, DH)

[…]“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?” 

Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over the pale face, the dark red hair. 

“No,” he said “It doesn’t make any difference.” […]

“He hesitated”, the first sign of his bigotry is right there, in the text, well before he met James. You might say that denying it was never your point, and yet, you waste no time in trying to blame Snape’s fascination with the Dark Art on James too, when those are character flaws that are his only, and that make him so much more interesting. 

Later in the same chapter we see him being a bully toward Petunia just because she’s a Muggle, and again this was BEFORE he met James. 

(p536, Bloomsbury, DH)

There was a crack: a branch over Petunia’s head had fallen. Lily screamed: the branch caught Petunia on the shoulder and she staggered backward and burst into tears. 

“Tuney!” 

But Petunia was running away. Lily rounded on Snape. 

“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: […]

And later Snape shows his contempt toward Muggles again, before he met James, when talking about Petunia. 

(p538, Bloomsbury, DH) 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said [Lily] in a constricted voice.

“Why not?”

“Tuney h - hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.” 

“So what?” 

She threw him a look of deep dislike. 

“So she’s my sister!”

“She’s only a -” He caught himself quickly; […]

All of those things show that Snape didn’t need James to be a bully and a bigot, the skeleton of this behaviour was laid right there, build from when he was a kid. Sure, you can try and excuse it with a sad childhood, but Harry did not have a happy childhood either, and yet he turned out much better. People have sad childhoods all the time, and while it might explain their questionable behaviours, in no way does it excuse them. You may not deny those things about him, but you are trying to excuse them, and this is what I’m speaking against. 

The difference between you and I, is that you think those things are excusable while I don’t. I can respect that, but then please respect my opinion, which I do base on text. 

I have said in other posts about this subject that I find very hard to to consider Snape redeemed, not because I love James or the Marauders so much (for information my favourite character is Harry followed by Dumbledore, James is not even my favourite Marauder - that would be Remus, I’m simply saying that James was a better man because he made the right choice from the start), but because even at the end, even after Dumbledore told Snape that Harry had to be sacrificed, he still cannot muster any caring for him. He still does not care about the child whose life he sold out and ruined. If he had shown this caring, then it would have shown to me that he learned, but years later he still only does what he does for Lily and her alone. 

The idea that he saved Harry and his friends lives for any other reasons has no support in canon, and if I must I will quote this part:

(p551/2, Bloomsbury, DH)

“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. 

“Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”

“For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto patronum!”

From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: she landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office and soared of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. 

“After all this time?”

“Always,” said Snape.

Here, right there, Snape himself is saying that he doesn’t care for Harry, years later he is still the same boy who only apologised for calling Lily a mudblood because it was her. He still hasn’t learned. I wish he could have shown some obvious caring, and then maybe I could have considered him redeemed. Not spending his adult life bullying children would have been a start too, and I can’t believe you are trying to minimise his treatment of his students; you don’t even have to mention Neville, you would only have to mention the time he made fun of Hermione’s teeth, a 14 year old girl at the time, as if he was still a teenager himself, to show that this is no exaggeration. No other teachers ever displayed such a behaviour, you can’t write it away and pretend it’s not as bad as it looks, because it is. 

However what I do believe is that his love and remorse saved his soul. This is precisely what Harry asks Voldemort to try and feel in order to rescue is soul. 

(p594, Bloomsbury, DH)

“[…] I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore’s last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!”

“Yeah, it did,” said Harry. “You’re right. But before you try to kill me, I’d advise you to think about what you’ve done… think, and try for some remorse, Riddle…”

[…]

“It’s your one last chance,” said Harry, “it’s all you’ve got left… I’ve seen what you’ll be otherwise… be a man… try… try for some remorse…”

Of course what Harry has seen, is the fragment of injured soul when he was in King’s Cross after being hit by the Killing Curse. Mustering remorse was Voldemort’s only chance to rescue his soul, it is the one thing he could not feel, but one thing Snape was capable of. This is important, because Voldemort, Harry and Snape are obviously build in parallel to each other, they are the Three Brothers, the Abandoned Boys of Hogwarts… So my point is that while Snape’s love didn’t not entirely redeem him, it did rescue his soul. 

I will keep believing that Snape was bad person who did the right thing for the wrong reasons, but he was capable of love and this is what sets him apart from Voldemort, this is why he could make the right choice after making the wrong one. This journey exists independently from James; to try and blame everything on James is taking away a lot of what makes Snape such a great character to begin with. 

His journey was not about a silly love triangle: Lily did not chose James over Snape, Snape chose the Dark Arts over Lily. The way you try and minimise the fact, the textual fact, that Snape told the prophecy to Voldmort speaks volume. This is not only implied; this is the plot. This is why Snape came back and asked Dumbledore for help (and I quoted part of this above) once he realised it spoke of Lily’s son. Again you are trying to simplify Snape’s character journey in order to white wash it, just so it can fit the idea you have of him, and this does an enormous disservice to this brilliant character and the moral struggles he went through. 

Finally, your point about how James would have “tormented Sirius the same” if he had romantic feelings for Lily or had been his friend, is absolutely ridiculous, you have no textual basis to support this idea, this is nothing but your speculation, and then you say that I’m the one basing my argument on my fanon? Really?

So until you can actually build an argument without speculating all over and totally dismissing my points which I did base from the books - even if you don’t agree with them, please don’t answer me anymore.

1) hesitation does not make one a bigot. It does make a difference being muggle-born, since said person knows nothing about magic. We simply don’t know what went on in his head precisely. Yours is just a guess.

2) he was no being a bully to Petunia. In that scene his magic lashed out in response to her insulting him, magic which any child like him could not control (hello, Harry making his aunt into a human balloon). If there is a bully in all of this, it’s Petunia. Look at her behavior towards Snape and her own sister.

[ “What is that you’re wearing, anyway?” she said, pointing at Snape’s chest.“Your mum’s blouse?”

There was a crack. A branch over Petunia’s head had fallen. Lily screamed.The branch caught Petunia on the shoulder, and she staggered backward andburst into tears. ]

and also

[ Snape looked miserable and confused… ]

Why would Snape look confused if he had the means to intentionally hurt Petunia and just did that? Thing is, kids’ magic at that age is controlled by strong emotions and Petunia’s just insulted a literally poor and abused kid’s wardrobe, mentioning his abused mother in the process.

Also, in another scene, Petunia calls Lily a freak and then her and Snape and magical people weirdos and freaks.

[It’s good you’re being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.”]

3) He caught himself, ergo he knew it wasn’t the right thing to say. Does this mean he did not have bigoted views? No, but he did not revel in that bigotry and in adulthood he changed his views altogether. At school uses the “mudblood” slur just once when lashing out after being publically humiliated, almost suffocated and sexually harassed. He went after that to apologize. When Lily didn’t want to have anything to do with him because his friends were the wrong crowd made of people who used said slur, he respected her wishes.

4) Why is his love for Lily not a good enough reason to want to do the right thing? Why is this always hrown under the bus? She’s the only positive thing in his life. It might not be healthy, but look at this man’s life. You make a comparison with Harry, but let me tell you thing: Harry at least met positive figurest as soon as he went to Hogwarts, which can help a person who was victim of abuse heal, Snape didn’t. He was abused at home, then he hopes to find a safe haven at school. but doesn’t, since he’s bullied and almost killed there as well. Also, why should he feel affection for Harry. Snape disliked Harry and Harry disliked him back. There was never a tentative search for a connection from either part so like? Why should Snape feel affection towards a kid who resembles his father, which is the first reason why Snape dislikes him. We can argue that it is not a reasonable reaction because Harry is not his father, and I’d agree with you, but look also at it from Snape’s pov: he has to work in the place where he was bullied for 7 years and he has to protect this kid that resembles his father phisically, at first, but then also behavior wise (fortunately, he’s not a bully like his father), as if confirming his bias. Does thos make his negativity right? Of course not and absolutely nobody does say that in this post? Explainig behavior does not mean excusing it.

5) Finding Dark Magic interesting does not necessarily make one a bad person. Using his interest in DADA and rumors as proof of his interest being born from evilness seems pretty weak to me. I mean, DADA is literaly defense AGAINST dark magic. And rumors are not necessarily born from evidence and that about him dabbing into dark magic because he enjoys it’s evilness is just a rumor, especially since Dumbledore keeps such a tight leash on Snape. Like do you seriously think that Dumbledore would allow that? And even if Snape did, there is no strong canon evidence of it.

As far as Sectusempra is concerned, it is written in the 6th year potions book and during that year Snape’s worst memory happens. It happens after he’s given his OWL. I’m gonna paraphrase because I have trouble copying all that text since I’m on mobile, but you are free to check yourself.

So, chapter 28, “Snape’s worst memory”, HP and the Order of the Phoenix

Sirius was bored and James decided to entertain him by bullying Snape.

[“This’ll liven you up, Padfoot,” said James quietly. “Look who it is… .”

Sirius’s  head  turned.  He  had  become  very  still,  like  a  dog  that  has  scented a rabbit.

“Excellent,” he said softly. “Snivellus.”]

Remus, a Prefect, acts like he is still reading, but he is not. He is completly aware of what’s about to happen and doesn’t do anything.

Peter looks at them with “avid anticipation”

Then this happens:

[“All right, Snivellus?” said James loudly.

Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack: Dropping his bag, he plunged his hand inside his robes, and his wand was halfway into the air when James shouted, “Expelliarmus!”]

Look at his reaction. How many times has this happened for him to have this kind of instinctual reaction?

Going on, James uses impedimenta on him, a crowd gathers to observe, Remus keeps pretending he’s reading. Sirius and James begin taunting and insulting him while the crowd laughs entertained and “Snape let  out  a  stream  of  mixed  swearwords  and  hexes,  but  his  wand being ten feet away nothing happened.”

[ “Wash out your mouth,” said James coldly. “Scourgify!”

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him — ]

James is literally choking Snape with freaking soap and people watch and laugh while Remus, A PREFECT, does absolutely nothing to stop this.

At which, finally Lily intervenes. She orders a few times to James to leave Snape alone.

[ “Leave  him  alone,”  Lily  repeated.  She  was  looking  at  James  with  every sign of great dislike. “What’s he done to you?”

“Well,” said James, appearing to deliberate the point, “it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean… .”]

Wow, James. Wow. And people call his behavior justified because Snape in the future becomes a DE. Looks like a self fulfilling profecy to me. And a clear act of psychological and phisical bullying being treated as just a “boys will be boys” scenario, but whatever, right? Snape obviously deserved this for his future self’s actions!

But going on, more laughing happens and then…

[ “I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly. “Go on … Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.” ]

Wow, blackmailing girls into dating you, James? By threatening their friends?

In the mean time, the Impedimenta finally wears off and Snape takes his wand and attacks James and makes a gash appear on the side of James’ face, who in reply sends a hex back and hangs Snape upside down, “ his robes falling over  his  head  to  reveal  skinny,  pallid  legs  and  a  pair  of  graying  underpants.” I know that many people don’t like to call it that, because the victim is Snape and the abuser is James (and also because they are boys and other nonsensical excuses), but in my book, exposing a person to their underwear is considered sexual harassment, bordering on assault really. Sure, James never touched Snape to expose him, but his magic, under his complete control, did.

And then there’s this jem which I had noticed just now on my re-read of the chapter:

[Lily,  whose  furious  expression  had  twitched  for  an  instant  as  though she was going to smile, said, “Let him down!” ]

Read that again, people. She was almost amused, or at least that’s what Harry sees on her face.

And what happens next sort of confirm to me that Lily and Severus have been drifting apart for a while and she was just looking for the right push to just let that friendship go, and by lashing out Snape gives her that push. She keeps repeating “let him go” but doesn’t actually do anything. Surely Prefects have more authority than that.

James let’s Snape go, which has him falling down from his upside down hanged position, then casts a Petrificus Totalus on Severus, which has him falling down once again.

So let’s enumerate what James’ done to Snape:

- verbally humiliates and insults him

- casts a spell which block’s Snape, who falls down

- chokes him by washing his mouth with soap

- hangs him upside down thus humiliating him by exposing him in his underwear and taking again his agency away

- lets him fall down from said position, which must have hurt

- as soon as Snape tries to stand up, he imobilizes him once again, which Once Again makes him fall down

Going on,

[ “LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.

“Take the curse off him, then!”]

Ah, Lily! You finally remembered you have a wand?

Also, look at your future husband threatening you if you don’t comply!

And then,

[“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, “you’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus —”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”]

Okay, I see people always calling out Snape because he called her that horrible slur while lashing out, and calling him out on that is a good thing to do because while his lashing out is understandable, using that word was not the right thing to do, but at the same time, people treat Lily as this angel tainted by Snape’s darkness and nobody ever addresses her behavior before AND after that.

I’m going to do that here.

Her supposedly best friend was being bullied in front of her for a long time while people looked on laughing and all she did was repeat a dozen times to let him go as if she did all this half heartedly. After Snape went through that beautiful list of attacks up there, she seems to remember that oh, yeah, she’s a Prefect AND a witch, which means that she can use her wand to stop these people. Too late for her friend’s well being, though.

And After Snape lashes out? It’s not like she does the right thing and that which as a Prefect she has a duty to do by stopping James. Snape’s lashing out does not make James’ actions suddenly right. She could have stopped all of that and still cut ties with Snape after everyting was done and there was order.

But nope.

“I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”

Wow, Lily. She humiliates him and calls him with the same name that his tormentors have been using for 5 years, instead.

James orders Snape to apologize, Lily is super angry and pits the both of them in the same category and then storms off leaving the situation where it was before.

[“Right,” said James, who looked furious now, “right —”

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hang-ing upside down in the air.

“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”

But  whether  James  really  did  take  off  Snape’s  pants,  Harry  never  found out. ]

First, I hope you don’t mind if I start with point 4, but point 4 is really at the heart of the issue I have with Snape and which I think you misunderstood. I’m not asking Snape to like Harry, I’m asking him to care. Dumbledore does not ask Snape if he has come to “like the boy”, he asks him if he “has come to care for the boy”. Those are two different things and you can trust that JKR did not make this choice of vocabulary by mistake. 

You do not have to like someone in order to care for them. Lily cared for Snape long after she stopped liking him (as you pointed out above), she cared for him even when she struggled to find excuses for him, long after her friends stopped to understand why they even hung out. But she still cared, because once upon a time he was her best friend. And this is the issue I have with Snape, that he never could care for Harry. 

I wish Snape could have answered that “of course he cares because Harry is just a boy, and letting a boy die is wrong” and that “he was ready to sacrifice a boy once and he’d never make that mistake again”, THAT is the sort of caring I wish he could have shown; the basic caring any decent human being has for a child and which Snape himself states that he doesn’t feel. And even more so because Harry is the child he once sold out; so yeah maybe saying “I won’t sell him out again, not even for you” to Dumbledore would have gone a long way, because this, more than anything, would have showed me that he learned. 

But he doesn’t do that, does he? Instead he is still the same boy who only apologised to Lily for calling her a “Mudblood” because it was her but wouldn’t do it for anyone else, still the same boy who only became unwilling to sacrifice a baby because it could endanger Lily. He still only does what he does because it’s her, he still doesn’t get what she meant when she asked him “why should I be any different?” because if he did then he would care for a child, regardless of what child it is. 

THAT is the thing that bothers me the most about Snape and THAT is why I cannot see him as redeemed, even if I do think that his soul was rescued.

Which brings me to my second point: I do not think that Snape’s love for Lily was worthless, I think it rescued his soul, and I’m not sure how you can read that I “throw it under the bus” in that given how thematically relevant and central to the whole story it is - and I quoted above the part where Harry asks Voldemort to try to muster the same kind of remorse and love that Snape felt for Lily to try and rescue his soul; Harry even bluntly state to Voldemort that he didn’t see Snape’s betrayal because he could never understand what he felt for his mother. The parallel is obvious. 

People’s ability to love rescuing them and / or other people is a theme of Jo. Love being the most powerful magic is a central theme that was build from the moment the story starts: with Lily dying to protect Harry. Lily’s pure love saved Harry, Harry saves everyone by dying for them, Snape saves his soul by dying for Lily..etc..  It is established from Half Blood Prince on, that the only way one can repair a damaged soul is to feel regret; do you truly think that it was a complete hazard that it is later revealed that Snape lived his entirely life in bitter regret for having caused the death of the person he loved most? Of course it wasn’t. 

Voldemort, Snape and Harry are the abandoned boys, the three brothers, Voldemort damaged his soul and could not heal it as he could not feel any sort of love or remorse, Snape damaged his soul but could repair it because he could feel those things, Harry’s love was pure enough to rescue others as well as himself. Nothing about that shows that I dismiss it, I don’t, I feel like people simply don’t like that I don’t think it’s enough to consider him wholly redeemed. 

In fact, I have stated before (and I’ll state again) that I dislike the way some try a play up Snape and Lily’s friendship as simply an obsession on his part. First because, as I said, Snape’s love for Lily (even tho I think he loved her wrong and selfishly for the reasons stated above) is thematically crucial, and you lose a big chunk of the story by dismissing it, and second because I feel like it takes away Lily’s agency - who loved Snape enough to maintain a true two sided friendship with him for years on her own accord until she couldn’t anymore. 

Secondly, about the whole issue with Petunia, Lily and the prejudices he displayed as a child. Let’s be blunt here: there is simply no usefulness in including those moments where Snape’s hesitate, where Snape shows contempt only catching himself just in time when he realise who he is talking to..etc..  if not to show that Snape didn’t need anyone to display the first signs of that bigoted attitude he will later fully embrace by joining the DE. From a literary standpoint, the only point there is in including those moments is to lay the foundation for who Snape will eventually become. Period. Given everything we already knew about Snape and about the magical world before reaching that part of the story, do you truly think JKR wanted us to understand that he only hesitated because Muggleborn may have more to learn (which btw we have known to be false for a long time as Hagrid state as early as in PS that everyone start at the same level in Hogwarts)? Of course not.

The point of that argument of mine was not to say that Snape was irredeemable from there on (I do believe that he may have turned out differently if he had been sorted into Gryffindor with Lily instead for instance), my point was to refute the idea that Snape’s bigotry was caused by James. It wasn’t. Period. If anything blame it on his father, but James has little relevance as to why he developed such views, the bones were laid far before they met. THIS was my point. Not anything else.

Also about the fight with Petunia… you did not quote what happens just before this moment. Namely Snape yelling at her about “who’s spying now” and being the first one to be aggressive. During this moment PETUNIA is the one in position of inferiority, she is the one who is outnumbered and does not have magic and when Lily directly asks Snape if he did it on purpose, his “no” is stated to be a lie in the very next sentence. Sure burst of magic happen, but in that moment Snape isn’t in danger, he yells at her first, he his in a position of superiority in every single way, so why is it that his magic was triggered to hurt Petunia. Ask yourself this question, Lily sure did. 

Also, while I’m at it, this same basic premise apply to his fascination with the Dark Arts. I’m not saying that it made him irredeemably evil from the start, I’m refuting the idea that James was the cause of it. He wasn’t, and i don’t like the way some people are trying to write away every single of Snape’s character flaws into being about James when the text made it obvious that it wasn’t. 

Sure you can explain those thing with his childhood, but as I said above: an explanation is not an excuse and Harry turned out better despite having those same awful circumstances (and no, Harry did not have a support system for a long time, in fact Snape found his before Harry did, and yet still chose the Dark Arts over her). 

Next, following this, about the Mudblood calling… since I quoted that part above, I will do it again: 

“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just -” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean -” “- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

“ But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus.” Here you have it. LILY is directly accusing him of calling everyone of her birth that slur and HE has nothing to answer to that. Period. It is stated in the text that SNAPE was calling every other muggleborn that name with his friends. I’m sorry but it’s right there and I don’t see how you can write it away. There is no evidences that he only did it once and this one - pretty big I might say - evidence that he was doing it regularly. Full stop. 

Finally about James and their animosity… to be frank I find that debate quite boring now. I had it too many times, so I can invite you to go through my tags if you want more precision, but let’s go over it quickly:

1- I never said that I think that James treatment of Snape in SWM was okay; I’m simply saying that unlike Snape, James learned to stop being a bully, Snape never did as evidenced by his treatment of his pupils (and yes Snape was a bully too, HE WAS bullying muggleborns, Lily calls him out on it and he doesn’t deny, cf: “ He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. ”)

2- About James “bullying” Snape behind Lily’s back after they started dating… Sorry but this is not what Remus and Sirius said. They said that the animosity was mutual and that Snape gave as good as he got and that James “couldn’t be expected to take it lying down”. You can’t pick and chose which parts of what they said are true and which aren’t. 

3- My point about Sectusempra in the original post was to say that for this reason (in addition to the Muggleborn bullying which DID happen) I find very hard to see Snape as an helpless victim, he clearly wasn’t. We don’t know how those spells came to be, we only know they were in the Prince’s Book and used against James, the rest is nothing but speculation. I have my interpretation and you have yours, which as stated above i can respect given we’re talking of a book. 

4- Every time Snape and James are contrasted when it comes to making the right moral choices, James wins. Period. James doesn’t like Snape but still care enough to know it’s wrong to let him die and rushes to save his life, later Snape couldn’t give less of a shit about James’ life if he tried. Snape calls Lily a mudblood, James is instantly disgusted. James studies forbidden magic to help Remus which strengthen their friendship, Snape study forbidden magic which eventually lead him to the DE which causes Lily to drift away. James join the Order fresh out of school, Snape join Voldemort out of school… etc… 

As for the rest, see my other posts.

I won’t answer the part about Lily, because to be frank, I really can’t stand when people paint her as being in the wrong at all. At this point HE was hanging out with wannabe DE, HE was studying dark magic, HE was bullying people like her, HE was planning to join a man wanting people like her dead, and she knew about every single of those things, it’s a wonder she even jumped at his defence at all. I sure wouldn’t have. IMO, she was 100% right and justified to drop his sorry ass and stand up for herself, she isn’t his lapdog, she’s is a person who did what was best for herself. Period. 

James was more than “a little too aggressive” in his pursuit of Lily. He relentlessly bullied her best friend, and at one point even tried to use this as leverage to get Lily to date him (he’d stop the torment, if Lily would agree to a date). Lily herself calls him out on how he is a bully, saying he walks down corridors, hexing anyone who annoys him just because he can. When they get together in 7th year, it’s because he supposedly has stopped his bullying ways, but continues to bully Severus in secret behind her back. That is canon. That is said by Sirius and Remus, after Harry saw “Snape’s worst memory” and was appalled at how fucking horrid his father was.

And, why is it that James constantly bullies Severus?

JK herself said: “James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James’ behaviour towards Snape.“ 

So. Because Severus Snape was Lily Evans’ best friend, and a guy, James worried that he was a rival for her affections, and from day one targeted him for bullying. Because how dare Severus even think he has the right to talk to her, when obviously James is the one she should pay attention to.

The only character we see not respect Lily’s rejection is James Potter. This is canon. He doesn’t ever take “no” for an answer. He refuses to. He resorts to lying to her in order to finally get her to date him.

Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.

1- There is absolutely no evidence in canon that James ‘relentlessly’ pursued Lily. That is fanon. Sure fanon has that trope about James repetitively asking Lily out and almost stalking her. In canon we only see James ever ask Lily out ONCE. In Snape’s worst memory. The rest of the time we see Snape having to tell Lily that James fancies her and there is no evidence she even knew about it before that, then we have Lily actively defend the maradaurs to Snape asking him why he was so obessed with them :

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p540 bloomsburry edition )

“… thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging around with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him Sev? He’s creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily ha reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all -” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny -” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill -” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold “Why are you so obsessed with them, anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “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; “They don’t use Dark Magic, though”.

Now, what does this scene tells you. First for someone who supposedly didn’t give as good as he got and was only the helpless victim of James, we learn that : 1- Lily doesn’t understand why he is so obsessed with them and can’t see the resemblance between the marauders and the very real, blood supremacist, dark magic using bullies that Snape was hanging out with and found funny. 2- Snape was very clearly trying to out Remus and actively trying to prove his case; so please do tell me, if this isn’t reason enough for James to hate Snape then what is? Not only did Snape actively try back when he was 15, but he DID out Remus years later because he couldn’t let go of the past when Remus was being nothing but cordial with him.

2- Which brings me to my next point, the idea that Snape was an innocent victim and not a bully himself is utter bullshit.

Let’s look at another excerpt from the books shall we:

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p542, Blommsburry edition)

“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just -” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean -” “- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

Now what does this tells us? This tells us that unlike what the Snape apologists often love to pretend, Snape wasn’t an inactive by stander in the wannabe-death eaters sessions of muggleborns bullying. He actively took part in it, he actively threw slurs at them. Lily herself mention that and Snape doesn’t deny any of it.

Not only that but we also know that Snape invented Levicorpus, which we later see James use, how do you think James learned it if not because he had it used against him? We even see Snape use Sectusempra on James; Sectusempra, aka the spell capable of cutting someone open and leave them to bleed to death. This is the kind of experimentation Snape did with Dark Magic, so spare me if I don’t buy the “poor innocent Snape” narrative. He was a bully at school, going after muggleborn with his band of magical equivalent to the Hitler youth. But aside from that, please do tell me more about how Snape was innocent and never gave as much as he got when even LILY calls him out on his bullying of Muggleborns and admitted herself that she couldn’t excuse him anymore.

“Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.”

Excuse me? We should admire him because he backed off after HE threw a slur at her and still tried to talk to her when she didn’t want to, even saying he would sleep in front of the common room if she refused to have that talk?

And above all, we should think Snape is such a great guy because he bargained for her life? WHAT? Snape - may I remind you - was the reason why her life was even in danger to start with! Snape is the one who sold a BABY’S LIFE to Voldemort without second thoughts and only backed off when he realized that the baby in question was Lily’s. And not only that but he only partly backed off because he didn’t give a shit about what would happen to Harry and James, AKA the man she loved and HER SON. Dumbledore himself called him out on it:

“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?”

I genuinely cannot believe my eyes that some people are trying to paint this as a selfless act on Snape’s part. If it had been Neville he would have let him die without blinking, just like he was ready to let Harry die, a ONE YEAR OLD BOY and the son of the woman he claimed to love. I do not doubt that he loved her, but his love was entirely and completely selfish and none of what he did was for her. He did what he did for himself and to feel better about what he had caused. Snape was not a good person. Snape was bad guy who did the right thing for the wrong reasons. All his life he remained the same bitter bullying douchebag, he bullied kids as a gorwn ass man, he never got over it unlike James.

The point of Snape isn’t “good is not nice”, the point of Snape is “you don’t have to be a good person to do the right thing”. “Good is not nice” is in fact the point of James. Was James an immature “toerag” (as Lily colourfully put it) when he was 15? Sure he was, but his heart was always at the right place which is something we cannot say of Snape. And he grew out of it, which is another thing we cannot say of Snape.

The fact that James bullied Snape isn’t the only thing we know of him. We also know that James welcomed Sirius in his home when the later had nowhere to go, we know that James accepted Remus for who he was and became an Animagus to help him, we know that James befriended three outcasts without caring about how uncool they were, from what family they came from or what disease they had to deal with, we know that James was ALWAYS disgusted with pure blood supremacy as evidenced by his reaction when Snape calls Lily the m-blood in front of him. We know that when Snape was busy joining the Death Eaters fresh out of school, James was joining the Order and fighting against Voldemort from the start (a war that as a pure blood he could have stayed entirely out of). We know he defied Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale, we know that he died throwing himself between Voldemort and his wife and child without even a wand to try to give them time to escape. James was a good person who wasn’t always nice and grew out of his bullying way.

Every characters aside from Snape always describe the Marauders as this generation Fred and George (who by the way also did a number of questionable things, such as shoving Montague in the vanishing cabinet, feeding Dudley their toffees or turning Neville into a bird). Were they always nice? No. Did they bully Snape?  Yes. Where they still good people? Yes. James included.