the half blood prince

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A hidden snapshot of a gossip moment in the headmaster’s office?

Maybe this would be discovered by their subject of discussion much later, who then decides to keep it for a good laugh.

Something i’ve been kind of mulling over and thinking about in regards to Snape– and which I find frustrating, but endearing– is how… he is continually disadvantaged and disregarded by systems of power and persons of authority… but he chooses to work within their framework, anyways. 

Snape is Lawful-neutral, to his own detriment. Hear me out.

Like, as a student, he gets bullied. It’s 4 against 1, and he’d have a hard time picking them off if he wanted to go a more aggressive or lethal route. In any case, he tends to be reactionary, rather than necessarily going out of his way to find and attack them… So, he tries to get them expelled, because that would be a way to remove all 4 of his threats at once, and it’s not as if they don’t consistently break the rules… Shouldn’t people who break the rules and mistreat others be punished? So when he’s almost lead to his death at the Shrieking Shack, he appeals to the system of authority (of whom Dumbledore is the purveyor, in this case) with what he feels is a pretty airtight case against his bullies… 

…and he gets written off, and blackmailed into keeping his mouth shut.

If it were me, that kind of slap in the face would ensure i never respected another authority figure again in my life tbh. The Law and the gods that govern it would be dead to me. Anyways…

Being a werewolf does not inherently make Lupin a bad person. But being a good person does not make Lupin inherently safe. The point is: when you transform into a werewolf, you lose control of yourself, and that can result in you killing, maiming, or infecting other people. Lupin knows this. He’s known it for over 20 years,

As of 1993, there was this great new discovery: the Wolfsbane Potion, which helps to curb the effects of lycanthropy, right? It’s super expensive and super hard to make, but it’s an effective way to mitigate the more vicious effects of a transformation– it turns the drinker into a harmless wolf, rather than a werewolf, at the time of the full moon. A wolf, who is easier to control or subdue if one is confronted with it, and who seems to retain some semblence of control during the transformation (Lupin having described himself as curling up in his office during his transformations).

You may be thinking that wolfsbane potion is the closest thing to a preventative  that the Wizarding World has circa 1993, and you’d be right. It’s not a cure, and people who drink it can still infect others, but damn, it makes it way more manageable.

We know that Severus, on more than one occasion, goes out of his way to give Lupin his potion (whether Lupin continually forgets to take it, or purposefully “forgets” to take it as a small power play/intimidation game against Snape is up for interpretation). Either way, we know that Lupin regularly forgets to take the life-changing potion unless prompted, which kind of makes him out as reckless. A timebomb. 

Severus, who is not only a virtuoso on the Dark Arts and all that it entails (and thus, academically, very informed on the dangers that (non-medicated) Werewolves pose), is also intimately and personally aware of the threat Lupin poses to a school full of children as well as the staff, because of his experience in the 70s. Snape brings all of this up to Dumbledore… 

…who repeatedly dismisses his well-founded and logical fears. 

Snape is still beholden to Dumbledore’s insistance that he keep his mouth shut. Which he does for most of the year. The very explicit parameters of the system are: do not tell anyone that Lupin is a werewolf. 

So, being the logical thinker that Snape is, he looks for (and finds) a way to achieve his desired outcome (informing people that Lupin is a werewolf) in a way that does work within those parameters. He can’t tell anyone outright that Lupin is a werewolf, but like… what if someone figured it out on their own?

Then we have Snape in the Shrieking Shack with the kids, Sirius, and Lupin. 

Harry, in the moment after Black disarmed them all, straight-up wanted to kill Sirius. He gets his wand back, and he is about to fucking murder this guy, until crookshanks sits over his heart.

Snape comes up the stairs to the 2nd floor of the shack, right? He’s wearing the Invisibility cloak. No one knows he’s there or hears him coming. He could have killed Sirius in an instant, without anyone knowing. He could kill Sirius AND Lupin if he wanted to, and dump the corpses on the ministry steps, and convince the minister that he had deduced that they were working together months ago. 

He could easily explain to the minister that he knew they were childhood friends, that Lupin started working at Hogwarts at the exact same time Black “wanted to infiltrate” Hogwarts, and that his speculations were dismissed. He could say all of this with the kids and Dumbledore to corroborate his story (since he arrives at the Shrieking Shack BEFORE the kids get the low-down on Pettigrew) and he would STILL get his order of Merlin (maybe 2?) But instead of killing them… 

…he disarms and restrains them. 

He’s like “Yeah, I’m handing you off to the Dementors, dickhead” but it’s important to remember… he disarms them, restrains them, and is willing to turn them over to the “authorities.” Even though, at this point, he whole-heartedly believes that 1. Black is a murderer, who killed like 23 people, and who broke out of wizard prison and 2. Lupin, a werewolf who has consistently not taken his potion and whom Snape believes has conspired to kill him in the past, is aiding and abetting said murderer… Severus Snape does not take the law into his own hands. He’s not about Vigilante Justice.

And… he gets disarmed, thrown against a wall, and almost ends up attacked by a werewolf for it later. heh

This is just up to the first 3 books, because i just finished re-reading them, but i’m certain there are more examples of these types of exchange in subsequent books. In any case, I love how the books have this consistent theme of “Harry distrusts authority, disrespects it, and challenges the system,” that’s all very good. 

As a child, Snape wholeheartedly believes in the Wizarding world as the solution to all of his oh-so-Muggle problems.  He’s already rejected everything Muggle – his father, Lily’s sister, even his Muggle clothes the second he boards the Hogwarts express – and he can’t understand why Lily still cares about anything outside of escaping Cokeworth.  He blows past her sorrow at Petunia’s anger: “‘But we’re going!’ he said, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. ‘This is it! We’re off to Hogwarts!’” (Deathly Hallows, ch. 33).  He has absolute faith in the Wizarding world as his salvation, and in his ability to succeed in a society he believes will be fair where the world of his birth never has been.  He longs for the systemic power that his childhood denied him (social respect), and he believes that magic will provide a fair playing field in which to achieve it.  Childhood faith is a powerful thing, and it takes years of relentless bullying culminating in (as @the-witches-son points out) his public assault and near-murder before it finally shatters.

Once it does shatter, adolescent Snape finally tries to abandon the system – he joins the Death Eaters, the ultimate anti-establishment movement of his era.  He rebels completely against mainstream Wizarding laws and society, and the result is the murder of the only person he’s ever loved in the world.  His attempts to save and then honour her lead him to Dumbledore, and by the time Harry meets him the system is all that Snape has available to him.  I doubt very much that renegade behaviour like murdering Black and Lupin in the Shrieking Shack would go over well with his new boss; his loyalty to Dumbledore and to Dumbledore’s cause has hemmed him in.

Of course, despite it all, he does still in his heart of hearts long for institutional respect.  (Not love, mind you.  He couldn’t give less of a damn at this point that society doesn’t like him.  He only wants them to admire him.)  He infamously takes advantage of his position of authority within Hogwarts, bullying his students and emphasizing that Harry must use his titles of respect (‘professor’ or ‘sir’) at all times (Order of the Phoenix, ch. 24).  He’s clearly very pleased when Fudge, still believing him to be the hero who captured Black, tells him that “it was lucky you were there, Snape” and that he’ll surely deserve an “Order of Merlin, Second Class, I’d say. First Class, if I can wangle it!”  Snape’s expression and tone in this exchange (somewhat uncharacteristically) aren’t described, but he responds first with “Thank you, Minister” and then with “Thank you very much indeed, Minister,” which I can just hear in his quietly smug voice.  He also knows exactly how to speak to and manipulate authority figures, taking the opportunity to clear Harry and co. of assaulting him by telling Fudge that “Black had bewitched them, I saw it immediately. A Confundus Charm, to judge by their behaviour. […] They weren’t responsible for their actions” and yet simultaneously to forward his case that Harry’s routine recklessness deserves to be punished (Prisoner of Azkaban, ch. 21).  He gets the Minister’s ear and he hangs onto it, and he later flies into a caps-locked rage when he sees all of that power slipping through his fingers (ch. 22).

Speaking of punishing Harry, I was also thinking yesterday about the relative fairness of Snape’s teaching and grading methods.  I’d never in my life argue that Snape is a responsible educator who should be allowed within 100 yards of children; he’s cruel to Neville, he favours his own house and pet student (Malfoy), he bullies the Gryffindors, he probably deliberately mind-fucks his students with his exam subjects, he uses public embarrassment as a pedagogical methodology.  All that said, the only student he ever tries outright to grade unfairly is Harry.  Hermione, despite having to endure Snape’s usual Gryffindor-directed taunts as well as the flack she catches for being Harry’s friend, apparently does quite well in potions.  Even Ron scrapes by, as do the rest of the Gryffindors.  It is, of course, heavily implied that Snape tries deliberately to fail Harry in third year: “Harry was amazed that he had got through Potions. He had a shrewd suspicion that Dumbledore had stepped in to stop Snape failing him on purpose” (Prisoner of Azkaban, ch. 22).  It’s also heavily implied that he deliberately smashes Harry’s exam submission in fifth year: “He had just turned away when he heard a smashing noise. Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of laughter. Harry whipped around. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor and Snape was watching him with a look of gloating pleasure. ‘Whoops,’ he said softly. ‘Another zero, then, Potter’” (Order of the Phoenix, ch. 29).  Apart, however, from the very special case that is Harry Potter, Snape appears to toe the system’s line, deriving part of the systemic respect he craves from his classes’ academic performance.

I absolutely think you’re right – Snape sees his favoritism toward Slytherin and his harshness toward Harry as a justified leveling of the playing field.  Snape consistently frames his behaviour toward Harry not as unfairness but as simply treating him “like any other student” (Prisoner of Azkaban, ch. 21), refusing to allow him the indulgences that he sees others allowing due to Harry’s fame.  He’s wrong, of course; as Dumbledore says, “You see what you expect to see, Severus” (Deathly Hallows, ch. 33), and what he expects to see is James.  Nevertheless, in Snape’s mind it’s specifically fairness, rather than unfairness, which motivates his nastiness toward Harry and his friends.

These two quotes from @the-witches-son and @professormcguire respectively really do encapsulate the way that I typically interpret Snape’s perception of his behavior as a teacher, specifically towards Harry. I’ve alluded to it before but I would also suggest that Snape’s own experiences at Hogwarts as a student may also have influenced his perceptions of appropriate teaching behavior. As @the-witches-son notes, had Snape attempted to do some of the things Harry did or take the risks he did it is possible his own behavior would not have been rewarded. 

Indeed, we know that the one canonical occasion where Snape behaves like Harry and breaks curfew to investigate where Lupin went using the Whomping Willow (comparable to Harry breaking curfew to investigate Draco’s involvement in any number of suspected schemes from book two to six) not only does he almost lose his life (or at least risk being horribly maimed by a fully transformed Lupin) attempting to get his school bullies expelled but the headmaster of Hogwarts threatens him with expulsion instead. Rather than uncovering an instance of rule-breaking by the Marauders, he learns that Dumbledore has arranged for Lupin to use the Whomping Willow so he can attend the school. While Dumbledore was at least formerly unaware of the Marauders involvement or the fact Lupin had been leaving the Shrieking Shack to romp around as a werewolf with his friends, nonetheless, he’s forced to protect Lupin and his own position as headmaster of the school by using his position of authority to force Snape into silence. 

One might loosely compare this experience to the one Draco Malfoy has with McGonagall when he spies the Trio sneaking out after curfew and informs McGonagall only to get detention with them for being out after curfew himself. Meanwhile, we know Harry makes a regular practice of breaking curfew via the Invisibility Cloak that Dumbledore gifted to Harry, that he uses the Marauders Map and on one occasion Polyjuice potion to spy on his classmates and any number of other offenses that would typically merit a student being punished or even expelled. The reader may be joining Harry and, from Harry’s perspective, feel that the end justifies the means but ultimately Harry is basically a repeat offender when it comes to rule-breaking at the school and on multiple occasions breaking the rules is something that comes with rewards for him. In HP: PS ignoring Hooch’s threats of punishment and expulsion, Harry’s rule-breaking gets him a spot on the Quidditch team and a top-of-the-line broom, for instance, and even Hermione remarks sourly on Harry feeling he was being rewarded for rule-breaking. 

Re: Snape’s perceptions of fairness:

He starts teaching in the immediate aftermath of Voldemort’s downfall, when the side claiming Slytherin as a figurehead and ideal, and associating Slytherin with the Dark Arts, bigotry, and terrorism, has just lost a major power struggle; it is highly likely that Slytherin House is catching a good amount of the blame for the war and its causes, and is perhaps being treated like defeated enemies often get treated after wars: judged, forced to shoulder blame, perceived as owing reparations, and treated with resentment and hatred by the people it harmed, who might feel that even cruelty from them is justified, honorable, and good because “they deserve it.”

This would be a highly familiar refrain to Severus Snape, who’s been targeted for his House and his Dark Arts affinity ever since James Potter showed up in his compartment on the Hogwarts Express. He has suffered all his life from people who claim to be Good while reveling in their own cruelty, alternating with people who simply claim status of some kind while reveling in their own cruelty. (Tobias Snape might have claimed fatherhood; Petunia, money/class and later normality; Dumbledore, the “greater good” of protecting Remus’ reputation and quality of life. James and Sirius got both the use of their pureblood ancestry and the rejection of it, and seem to think there’s nothing too cruel about tormenting someone whom they can accuse of getting involved with the Dark Arts.)

He would absolutely see Slytherin as the disadvantaged and unfairly maligned House at Hogwarts, disliked and ganged up on by the other three, with himself as the only person who would bother to advocate for them and demand their fair treatment. His use of the points system is in line with this, as is his strictness towards other Houses while offering respect and praise to the Slytherins.

His treatment of Harry as well falls under this paradigm. We could compare his perception of Harry to Dumbledore’s pronouncement of judgment on Dudley: in Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore flat-out declares Petunia and Vernon’s spoiling of Dudley as an appalling mistreatment that is worse than the neglect, abuse, and resentment they’ve heaped on Harry. We are meant to agree with this: look at Dudley at age eleven, with “only” thirty-six birthday presents being a cause for misery, and compare him with Harry a few days later, delighted with his first-ever birthday cake. (Of course, both are terrible ways to raise a child; Harry’s simple delight at such a small thing is not worth the decade of deprivation he went through. But we are meant to agree with the message that Dudley’s indulgent upbringing, and Draco’s, do them a great disservice.)

Snape, seeing Harry get away with a multitude of sins due to the other visible authority figures giving him a pass, might view his harsher treatment of Harry as not only justified but as a necessity and even a kindness: correcting errors in Harry’s self-perception that would lead him into greater danger and personal tragedy if left unchecked, and instilling in  him valuable concepts like self-discipline and the ability to work rather than coast. Snape is probably familiar with spoiled pureblood children at this point, and has his work cut out for him undermining those effects in his Slytherins from a less “bad cop” position; he likely considers it a relief, in a way, to be able to correct such budding character flaws in people of the other Houses, especially Harry Potter, in a more direct way.

(This includes Neville; his perception, misguided as it is, probably started out being an assumption that a spoiled-darling Gryffindor pureblood just can’t be bothered to read instructions, pay attention, or put the slightest bit of effort in. Why expect fear and intimidation from a Gryffindor? If he was really that frightened, that timid, how did he get into that House? Of course we the audience know how wrong he is. His terrorizing of Neville is the go-to evidence of his cruelty. Yet it is not credibly different from the treatment we’re supposed to cheer for when given to Dudley, who is given a pig’s tail at age eleven, given a massively swollen tongue at age fourteen, and attacked with a Dementor at age fifteen, and who is depicted as terrified all three times. The only distinction is that we are showed Dudley being cruel beforehand, positing the magic-induced terror as just desserts, and Snape’s assumption of Neville’s character is only an assumption, and incorrect.)

(I should make clear: Snape is responsible for the effects of being wrong here. I am not condoning his treatment of Neville, just providing a possible explanation for it.)

All of this would have served to solidify Snape’s perception of unfairness toward Slytherin House from his childhood experiences, when Slytherin House’s status was such that he was a convenient target for bullies from another House to torment with relative impunity.

What he took from the whole situation, though, is sort of the inverse of Harry’s takeaway from his own mistreatment: while Harry lost faith in the authorities early, dismissing their power as he condemned their worth, Snape acknowledged and credited their power enough to covet it and to seek to use it, rework it, make it more fair. These are, absolutely, chaotic and lawful alignments personified.

Lily wasn’t unlike Petunia. In all her pictures, she was so young and pretty–but in person, Harry saw the way her neck was a little long, her face a little sharp, her gaze a touch cruel when it landed on select members of the Order. Sometimes, when her voice rose, it was shrill and cutting, and Harry found himself wincing as he was unwillingly thrown back into some ancient childhood memory of his aunt looming over him. But when she turned toward Harry, she was warm. He wondered if Dudley could only see Petunia in that way, or if he would ever see all of her ragged edges as Harry intimately knew; he was cursed to see both from the beginning, beauty and ugliness and all.

The sisters shared a vice or two as well. Lily did so openly, defiantly, filling Sirius’s kitchen with cigarette smoke as she leaned back in her chair, unconcerned with Mrs. Weasley’s dark muttering. Petunia had hid hers, a secret rebellion in her purse, and only when Vernon was out; she would go out in the back garden, leaning against the house and staring into the sky, leaving behind only the ghost outline of her sin.

She liked to wear Muggle clothes and barely remembered to put on shoes if she had to leave. She cut her hair herself–just above her shoulders, just barely enough to tie back–and wore dark red lipsticks, the stains of which she left on various glasses around the house. She didn’t have her wedding band anymore, but she’d dug up the Potter family ring and took it for herself, promising Harry she’d give it to him when he was of age. He caught her scrutinizing it at times, her knees pulled up to her chest while she puffed along on a cigarette after dinner.

When Snape came over, they would tear into each other in a familiar way. Sirius would disappear then, as would nearly everyone else; no one wanted to interrupt their strange rituals. Harry, drawn to his mother’s presence more so than he was repelled by Snape’s, had dared linger in the same room while they mostly ignored him, too caught up in themselves. Harry hadn’t understood it at first–how anyone could be friends with Snape–but now he saw it with increasingly clarity, the way they’d really had no one but each other, both too vicious for anyone else. But when Lily’s attention was inevitably drawn back to her son–and it would be, because she loved Harry, loved him so much it was overwhelming–he found he didn’t mind Snape’s sneering replies as much. He was still an asshole–there was no denying that. But Harry could smirk and laugh and get him back, and have Lily’s approval before she, too, attacked.

 Remus was friendly with Lily, though it wasn’t quite the same as she was with Snape. She was quite soft with him, and she asked after him in an almost maternal way. She was not friendly with Sirius, which had puzzled Harry at first, for he’d believed that they’d been friends. However, for all the bad blood between them (most of which seemed centered around Snape), Lily did not try to keep Harry from Sirius, and Sirius did not try to keep Harry from Lily. That, and Sirius didn’t dare speak ill of her in front of him, despite the fact Harry could tell he was on the verge of it.

 “Lily loves you so much,” Sirius had told him sincerely. “She’s so proud of you, no matter what you do.”

 “Sirius loves you,” Lily had told him not long after when they sat alone in the living room one night. “You and James. He loves you both so much.”

 His mother claimed to like his friends, though Harry wasn’t sure he always believed her. He knew she liked Hermione–she asked after her a lot–and while she was friendly toward the Weasleys, she gravitated toward Ginny over Ron or even the twins. She was quite neutral about Mr. Weasley, but Harry could sense that Lily and Mrs. Weasley were at odds: Mrs. Weasley was too stuffy for Lily’s tastes, and to Mrs. Weasley, Lily was much too wild and innappropriate.

 And then there was Dumbledore.

Petunia had spoken ill of Dumbledore, and for some reason, Harry had assumed that Lily would have a contrary opinion to her sister. But Lily was quite cold with him. Everyone had to leave the room when she demanded to speak her mind to him–and she never held back. She had made it clear from the beginning that she would never forgive him for leaving Harry with her sister–but once she reconciled with Snape, she was furious about whatever business there was between Dumbledore and Snape, too. She didn’t like how he was leading the Order; she didn’t like how he was withholding information; she didn’t like that Snape was his spy; she didn’t like that Harry was constantly in danger, and seemingly no safer at Hogwarts than anywhere else. And, even though she didn’t like Sirius much, she was angry about that, too–constantly threatening to go to the Ministry herself to clear his name.

Apparently, James had been the loyal follower of Dumbledore, not Lily. She hadn’t gone into detail, but from the sound of it, surviving as a Muggleborn in the late seventies had been a feat. Because of her blood status, she hadn’t been able to work or even frequent certain establishments. It hadn’t helped that she wasn’t someone to keep her opinions to herself. When she’d married James, she’d been young and in trouble.

 “Of course I loved James, Harry,” Lily had assured him, taking his hand. “But we definitely married much sooner than either of us intended because of the war. Twenty is very, very young.”

Initially, upon Lily’s return, Dumbledore had been kind and welcoming toward her. But as time wore on, Harry realized that he didn’t completely trust her.

He didn’t seem to like it much when Snape and Lily got to talking after their reconciliation, either. Harry supposed that having his spy talk with the woman who opposed his position of spy was, in general, dangerous for everyone in the Order.

“Look…at…me…” he whispered.

The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.

― Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Created for the 2020 Snape Big Bang!

Based on the fanfic “Everyone Needs A Friend” written by Claude Amelia Song on FFN. 

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