stratiotis-nth

“Damn,” Sirius said smugly, looking down at the Marauder’s Map spread wide on the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place. “We really were bloody geniuses weren’t we?”

“And so very humble, too,” Hermione said lightly from her place at the entrance of the room, her eyes turned to the hall in case Mrs. Weasley appeared. “Right role models, you lot were.”

“Too right,” Sirius smirked, nodding happily. “But look, Moony!” he turned to Lupin, who was also looking over the Map, along with Ron and Harry. “We got everything! All the secret passageways, that hidden room by the first floor, even that stupid trick stair that always got Prewett when we were young, remember? We didn’t miss a thing!”

Harry, however, was quick to interject. “You missed the Room of Requirement,” he told his godfather. He was a bit proud, he had to admit, that he’d found something the four Marauders had not.

Both Lupin and Sirius turned to him, aghast. “The what?” they asked at the same time.

“The–it changes into whatever room you want. It’s on the seventh floor. Here–” Harry pointed to the appropriate location, which was empty on the parchment.

Instantly, both of the men relaxed. 

“Nah, we found that fourth year,” Lupin laughed, smiling at some long-ago memory. “It’s just unplottable. 

“Snogged in it a fair few times too, didn’t we, Moons?” Sirius chuckled, elbowing the taller man.

At this, Harry’s mouth flew open and he and his friends burst into conversation. 

“Ha!” Hermione yelled triumphantly, spinning around and pointing at both of the boys. “You two owe me a galleon each!”

“No! That doesn’t prove anything!” Ron argued, standing and slamming his palms on the table, his ears turning red. “Doesn’t mean they’re together now, just that they were before!”

At Sirius’s questioning look, it was Harry who explained, though somewhat abashedly. “We were trying to figure out if you two were…” he mumbled, avoiding direct eye contact.

Sirius and Lupin exchanged another amused glance before grinning out at all of them. “Well, it seems Hermione is owed some winnings,” Lupin chuckled, wrapping an arm around Sirius and pulling him close. 

harry who gets out of the shop holding —a slightly confused— regulus' hand hostage, almost screaming "pa! i found pretty boy! he was free!!"

the ship has already been bombed twice during previous attempts at approaching gaza.

my only hope is that if we make enough noise this time, israel won't dare bomb it with such prominent international figures on board, from fear of making them martyrs and turning the rest of the world against them.

so talk about it, post about it, and expect, demand their mission to succeed and their safe return 🙏

ON INTERNATIONAL WATERS.

This is ILLEGAL.

Their ship has no weapons, carrying only food and supplies for Palestinians in Gaza.

The activists were ordered to throw their phones into the ocean, but were allowed to send a prerecorded video message telling the world their ship has been taken and their crew kidnapped.

The IDF posted a photo of the crew claiming they were safe and given food, but we all know how seriously we can take their word, which is to say, not at all.

The Madleen was flying the Swedish flag, and the crew are citizens of these countries—

Sweden, France, Germany, Brazil, Türkiye, Spain, and The Netherlands.

If you live in any of these countries, please PLEASE contact your government officials and demand they call for the safe release of the Madleen crew and the food and supplies to be given to Gazans.

Sweden, Greta’s home country, whose flag The Madleen flew, denied to call for the crew’s release and for the aid to be given to Palestinians in Gaza.

While relieved Greta and some of the crew are safe, the hypocrisy, the cruelty, and the illegality of Israel’s actions remain.

Starvation is a tactic of war. Commandeering a ship on international waters and kidnapping the crew is an act of piracy. Barring access to food and supplies to innocent civilians is an inhuman act of cruelty.

the ship has already been bombed twice during previous attempts at approaching gaza.

my only hope is that if we make enough noise this time, israel won't dare bomb it with such prominent international figures on board, from fear of making them martyrs and turning the rest of the world against them.

so talk about it, post about it, and expect, demand their mission to succeed and their safe return 🙏

ON INTERNATIONAL WATERS.

This is ILLEGAL.

Their ship has no weapons, carrying only food and supplies for Palestinians in Gaza.

The activists were ordered to throw their phones into the ocean, but were allowed to send a prerecorded video message telling the world their ship has been taken and their crew kidnapped.

The IDF posted a photo of the crew claiming they were safe and given food, but we all know how seriously we can take their word, which is to say, not at all.

The Madleen was flying the Swedish flag, and the crew are citizens of these countries—

Sweden, France, Germany, Brazil, Türkiye, Spain, and The Netherlands.

If you live in any of these countries, please PLEASE contact your government officials and demand they call for the safe release of the Madleen crew and the food and supplies to be given to Gazans.

but like…Becky, of course LGBTQ+ people existed before Stonewall. We’ve all existed since the beginning of time. But the movement got a shock to its senses, a jump-start, a rocket-into-space when that glass shattered via Marsha P. Johnson, and when Sylvia Rivera was up on-stage protesting guess who was on the sidelines heckling her?

Without a trans black woman, LGBT+ rights would not exist. Never forget. Never “pay it no mind”.

she fucking should have

except ONE PERSON decided that this was secret knowledge, that it could never fucking be shared because Someone Might Find Out and it wouldn't be the perfect weapon anymore.

So Lily Potter died and the only people who knew about her sacrifice and what a powerful fucking witch she was to be able to do that in the first fucking place either DIED before the end of the book, or were convinced by their leader that it could never be spoken about.

Lily Evans Potter fundamentally challenged the rules of magic by making her sacrifice and tying it to the life force of her son. This was magic that was implied to be unheard of. The stuff of myths and legends. She proved that it was real, and tangible, and had a DIRECT BENEFIT to the person blessed by it. That shit should have been in history books, in magical theory classes, all of it.

Instead it was a fact used to weaponize a child because as much as Voldemort bought into that prophecy and started this catastrophic clusterfuck, he wouldn't have even heard the shit in the first place if Dumbledore didn't buy into it first.

"Thank you for meeting with me, Mister Black and Mister Lupin," Professor McGonagall said stiffly as she led the two men to her office, looking tired. "I know the hour is late."

"It's Mister and Mister Lupin now, Minerva," Sirius corrected, gripping his husband's hand and peering around the halls, memories flooding through him. "I seem to remember you getting rather tipsy at the reception."

"Hm. Well, old habits and all," McGonagall said as she seemed to fight back a blush. "But no matter. We are here about-" she opened the door and led them into her office, "-your godson."

The godson in question was sitting in a chair, head down, looking both upset and angry.

"Harry!" Remus called to him, making him look up. "What happened?"

A furious mumble fell from Harry's lips, but nobody in the room caught what he said.

"What?" Sirius asked, confusion clear on his features.

"I-" Harry cleared his throat and bit his lip before continuing. "I turned Snape's hair pink. And...and when he tried to turn it back, I made it so it just...fell off."

A shocked silence followed, both Sirius and Remus fighting for their lives trying not to laugh. In a choked voice, Remus tried to say diplomatically, "That...Harry, you can't..."

But Sirius burst out in tearful mirth, his laughs echoing in the small office. "That's bloody genius, that is! Gods, what a prank! Prongs would have been so proud, Haz!"

Relaxing from his defensive posture and breaking into a smile, Harry lit up. "Really?" he asked, like he'd just been given the best compliment in the world.

"Of cou-"

But McGonagall stepped in, looking livid. "You two are obviously no help," she growled. "Just leave."

THE MARAUDERS

“bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve”

Remus : Alright I smell...new books, c-cigarettes, tea, chocolate, what the fuck is that Lily's ribbons?- and Oh. um, raspberries apparently...

Sirius, grumpily reapplying his raspberry-flavoured lipgloss and muttering: I wonder who the bloody hell it is that he smelled that smells like fucking raspberries..🙄 Because I know he sure as hell doesn't eat them.

James and Peter, flabbergasted: *silent tears of agony*

Severus Snape did not call Lily Evans a Mudblood because he was ‘under duress’ or ‘being bullied by James and Sirius,’ he called her a Mudblood to hurt her.

To explain this I’ve got to digress a bit.

Firstly, I just want to touch on the fact that Snape and Lily’s friendship almost directly mirrors that of an abusive relationship, with Snape playing the role of the abuser. Abusive relationships often begin with emotional, not physical, abuse, and we’ve seen evidence of that from Snape’s own memories. His treatment of Petunia, insulting her, searching her room, etc, most certainly indicates both a disdain for Muggles and a desire to separate Lily from other people. His primary focus was keeping James as far away from her as possible, but his memories most certainly give a strong indication that he was very likely jealous of every single person in her life. He wanted her all to himself. He watched her ‘greedily.’ He told her he ‘won’t let you’ involve herself with James Potter as if he could claim some sort of control over her behaviour. In short, Snape wanted Lily to conform to a specific set of choices and actions that he deemed acceptable. This makes him an abuser.

“But his childhood! His father was an abuser! This excuses everything!” you might cry, to which I say, dude, that I’m a living example of a victim of childhood and adolescent abuse from a parent, both physical and emotional, and I’ve never treated another living soul in the way Snape treated Lily, or her son, or anyone else, for that matter. I’ve got no tolerance for that kind of shit in relation to Snape’s behaviour. It’s a crutch for a weak-ass argument. Oh, but JKR forgives him? She defended Johnny Depp. Like her opinion means a damn thing anymore.

Yeah, Snape was a kid, and a ten or eleven-year-old is bound to need guidance in differentiating between right and wrong, but again, speaking as a victim of abuse, it’s NOT that fucking hard to learn it yourself as you grow, simply by meeting others and observing their actions, especially when you’re spending ten months out of the year away from your abusers. Snape had Lily – a beautiful, rich wealth of decency and kindness - for a best friend, and he learned jack shit from her.

I firmly believe that Lily was spared from further evolution of this abuse by two things – one, she was a Gryffindor, two, she never actually dated him. Being a Gryffindor and living in separate quarters meant that Lily spent a significant amount of class and leisure time away from Snape. This meant that Lily had ample time to pave her own way through Hogwarts, make her own friends and establish herself as a separate entity to Snape’s Best Friend, all without the unhealthy influence of his presence. It makes sense that as a new student, and a Muggle-born, Snape may have represented a sort of safety to Lily in the early days. However, she was a bright, confident little girl who became a bright, confident young woman. It wouldn’t have taken long for her to find her feet. Snape was co-dependent. She wasn’t.

(Side-note: You just know that Snape went into frequent rage spirals as he sat in his dorm in the dungeons, thinking about Lily up in Gryffindor where he couldn’t get to her, couldn’t watch her, couldn’t regulate the contact she had with other people – specifically James)

Because she never dated Snape, she denied him a form of ownership that abusers often feel when romantically involved with their victim, because a romantic relationship has a singular quality (unless you are in an open relationship, in which case, more power to you girl/boy/person) that holds distinction from others. Most people still conform to the monogamous norm, wherein you can have many friends but one partner. He never felt that exclusivity. He never came close. There was something he wanted from her that he could not have, and she probably didn’t realise how much that spared her from.

Maybe Snape always thought he never would have hurt her. Maybe he really, really thought that their relationship wouldn’t have devolved further into darkness had Lily ever been interested in him romantically. But I don’t believe it.

So, why did he call her a Mudblood? Two reasons.

One, take on board the above, and then recall that Lily caught him in a moment of extreme vulnerability. Abusers do not like appearing vulnerable in front of their victims. A great example of this in fiction is from the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones (or, indeed, the show) where Joffrey is beaten and humiliated by Arya and Nymeria, and rage-shouts at Sansa, ‘his lady,’ when she rushes to his aid with tears and sympathy. Obviously, there’s a difference between the Joffrey/Sansa scenario and Snape/Lily, because Snape was being set upon by two other students, but it doesn’t matter. Lily came to his aid in a moment of weakness and he resented her for seeing him in that state. He wanted her to think him powerful, impressive, and commanding. She didn’t. It made him mad.

The second reason is because of James, but not for the reason people often argue. It’s clear from Snape’s memories that despite Lily’s poor opinion of James’s behaviour, she was attracted to him regardless. She blushes when talking to Snape about him, for one, but more telling is that when she rushes over to stop James and Sirius from bullying Severus, her attention is on James basically the entire time, and boy, she most certainly had a big ol’ list of observations on his behaviour to throw in his face. Do you notice that someone has a habit of ruffling their hair if you’re not, you know, paying attention?

Wouldn’t you notice that your friend fancied someone else if you, too, were paying attention? Close attention? Snape knew. Of course he knew. Likely he knew before she did, even. Lily behaved in a certain way around James, reacted, looked, moved, probably, in a way she never did around him because she wasn’t attracted to Snape, and that formed the basis of his insane obsession with James. Nothing mattered to Snape as much as ‘Potter,’ and keeping Lily away from him, so when she charged over – earnestly, decently – to save her friend, with whom she had almost had it up to here because he was well on the road to becoming a fucking Death Eater – and he saw that James was commanding most of her attention, it pissed him off. He wasn’t just angry with Sirius and James, he was angry with Lily, but it was a scarier, unhealthier and totally unwarranted form of anger. It is the anger an abuser feels towards his victim when he cannot exert his control.

So, In conclusion, Severus Snape did not call Lily Evans a Mudblood because he was ‘under duress’ or ‘being bullied by James and Sirius.’

He called her a Mudblood to hurt her.

I got a very irate Snape apologist giving out about one of my posts and I have no wish to get involved in silly to and fros because I’m never going to agree with them and vica versa but they did say I “need to be slapped with knowledge” which is a tad rude, so I just wanted to make an additional point here:

They said James sexually harassed and threatened Lily. That’s just not the case. He asked her out in a stupid way and she basically told him to fuck off. End of story. There is no canon evidence of anything else.

They excuse Snape joining The death eaters cause “he was a mixed blood kid surrounded by the equivalent of white supremacists”. Firstly that’s not true, completely pure blood families were not very common. Plenty of other students in Hogwarts were half bloods and muggles, but decided not to join Voldemort cause it was the wrong thing to do???

Also, he didn’t just join up in a “minor role”. He became one of his inner circle, literally one of his most trusted, with a seat at the top table, as we see in the HP books. He knew more dark magic than most kids entering Hogwarts and had a group of friends who were also wannabe Death Eaters and was chummy with Lucius Malfoy (older, prefect). There’s no fucking excuse. At all. He got the dark mark of his own free will. He wasn’t forced into it. He wasn’t a low ranking member at all… anyone who has read the books knows that…

As someone who’s fucking family were actually involved in fighting the real Nazis in Europe I really take offense at the “ah poor guy sure he had no choice really, he HAD to join?” BOLLOX.

They mention “he was trapped in a job he loathed for years and it’s implied he was depressed and suicidal”. That’s just not the case. Plus everyone thought Voldy was dead. Snape could easily have gotten another job. Wtf… nobody was forcing him to stay?? And if being an ex wizarding Nazi didn’t look great on his CV, well, it didn’t. He should never have joined. Get over it.

Snape apparently “outed Remus cause he risked the safety of everyone at Hogwarts” … Er, no. He outed him because he hated James and his mates. End of.

Also apparently it was all fine that he outed Remus cause Remus ended up “working” for the order the following year “and had faced prejudice before”. Oh.. well then that makes it all okay, I see… weird to think Remus was a half blood who was poor and faced huge problems and could oh so easily have joined Voldemort only he didn’t, did he? No.

And please just read the first post cause that summarizes everything so well. Lily was fiery, no push over, and very intelligent. She called Snape out on his bullshit of thinking he could stay friends with her yet be part of the wannabe Death Eaters. She said bullshit and fuck off. She then made up her own mind and married James, who was one of the “white supremacist” equivalents and so completely safe. Except he grew up, deflated his head, and fought against Voldemort CAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO and died trying to safe his family.