#swm

Severus, who sneaks a look at himself whenever he walks by a mirror. Severus, who thinks no one notices him shrink in on himself. Sirius, who does notice. Sirius, who now feels guilty, who has to deal with the fact that he's part of the reason for this.

Sirius, who traces over Severus' face with his thumb. Severus, who shifts away before he can get to his nose.

Severus, who only wears long sleeves and pants, who refuses to show even a little skin after SWM. Sirius, who feels his eyes sting every time he notices Severus put back clothes with short sleeves. Sirius, who feels his shoulders sag whenever it's hot out, who sees Severus suffering in the heat.

Severus who washes his hair twice a day, leaving his skin dry and damaged, same with his hair. Sirius, who has to tell him how bad that is for him, who has to swallow past the lump in his throat.

Severus, who hates crying. Severus, who burrows his head in his pillows and blankets so he won't be heard. Severus, "Sorry for snivelling." Sirius, who feels his stomach drop every time. Sirius, who holds him close, even though Severus refuses to turn around.

Summary: Your best friend finally gets back out into the acting world after a long hiatus. When you come to visit him on set the two of you get wrapped up in your feelings for each other.

Warnings: None. Author's Note: I have a lot of feelings for our boy and have been wanting to write this since he dropped those selfies the other day. 

In the lot, where are you?

You groaned as you looked down at your phone. You were late, very late. Stupid traffic. Your best friend, Choi Seunghyun had finally gotten back out into the world after years of hiding and you’d promised him you’d be there for the first day of shooting. You however hadn’t been expecting to sit in traffic for 30 minutes.

Ten minutes out.

You texted back, slamming your phone down next to you as traffic finally started moving. You sped off, keeping your attention on the road, ignoring the butterflies in your stomach.

It was just Seunghyun, it wasn’t like he was your boyfriend. There was no need to be nervous, you two had been best friends for as long as you could remember. Did you find him attractive? Sure, but who didn’t? Did you constantly put off relationships because you held onto hope that one day maybe he’d see you differently? Maybe but that was beside the point. 

“Finally.”

You sighed as the set came into view. You fished around for your credentials and drove towards the back lot. You spotted him and his mess of purple hair before he could see you and you grinned. This was the Seunghyun you remembered, before the military, before he’d shut out everyone but you. Standing confidently, hair colored something crazy, waiting for you.

“Hey you.” 

I wish it was the full moon.

Put it away before Wormtail wets himself.

I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited mate.

She is supposed to be 'the brightest witch of her age'. So . . . why did she just stand there and yell at James, and then laugh as though Severus deserved to be strung up, half stripped naked and have soap shoved in his mouth?

Like, even if she was non-violent person, there are several defensive spells she could have used to protect Severus. There are spells she could have used to cover him up. She could have used the Expelliarmus Charm on James to disarm him.

Personally if it were my best friend someone did that to, I would rearrange their face, but that's just me.

I don't understand why, after years of putting up with James' bullshit, she thought screeching at him like a harpy would do fucking anything.

Yet when Severus, while under severe distress, having been humiliated and assaulted, calls her a bad word, he is considered the problem. And then when tries to apologize, she has no sympathy for, no amount of care, won't even speak to him.

Lily Evans is a bitch, and I don't say that lightly.

Because James turns her on and she doesn’t care that he’s abusive, she doesn’t want to confront him to the point where she might lose his attention. That’s it. She’s playing at being righteous and hard to get because she has an image and she likes that image, but she’s not going to expose herself or get more involved than necessary precisely because then she might lose her status as Gryffindor’s golden girl. And if that means walking all over her supposed best friend, so be it. That’s all there is to it.

I genuinely don’t understand how people argue that the Levicorpus scene in Snape’s Worst Memory isn’t at least sexual harassment — or even sexual assault, depending on how you view the context.

The common defense is that James didn’t physically use his hands to remove Snape’s clothing, but in the magical world, that logic doesn’t hold. Magic is an extension of the caster’s intent. Whether the act is done with hands, a wand, or a spell doesn’t change the nature of the violation. If someone forcibly manipulates your body, exposes you in public, and threatens to go further, the tool they use is irrelevant — the power dynamic and intent are what matter.

What often gets ignored is that the scene cuts out before we see what James does next. People assume Snape wasn’t further exposed because the story fades to black — but that’s just it: we don’t know. James threatens to remove Snape’s underwear in front of a crowd, and nothing in the text tells us definitively whether he stopped or followed through. That ambiguity should concern people, not comfort them.

Another argument people use is that Levicorpus became a popular joke spell later on. But the book specifies it was used among friends. There’s no reason to assume those later uses involved public exposure or humiliation, and definitely no reason to compare that kind of consensual teasing to the targeted bullying the Marauders inflicted on Snape. Context is everything — and this was not a prank between equals. This was a public attack meant to shame and humiliate someone the Marauders had already been tormenting for years.

The intent here is key. James didn’t just flip Snape upside down and leave it at that. He escalated it. He exposed him, mocked him, and threatened to strip him completely. If the goal hadn’t been humiliation, he would’ve stopped the moment Snape’s underwear was showing. Instead, he continued. There is no interpretation of threatening to forcibly strip someone in public that isn’t inherently abusive — and yes, sexually abusive. that point, we’re no longer in “boys will be boys” territory. We’re in a very real space of harassment — one that, if it happened in real life, most people would recognize immediately.

I find it telling that so many people minimize this moment simply because it involves a character they like. If it had happened to anyone else — especially a girl, or even a character who wasn’t already widely hated — the reaction would be very different. But because it’s Snape, and because it’s James, people twist themselves into knots trying to argue it wasn’t “that bad.”

You don’t need to pretend your favorite characters are morally perfect to enjoy them. It’s entirely valid to like flawed, even terrible characters. But pretending this wasn’t a serious violation — or arguing that it’s harmless because “magic isn’t physical” — is both intellectually dishonest and morally inconsistent.

And that’s the thing. I’ve asked people outside this fandom — real-world friends, family members — what they’d do if something like this happened to their 15-year-old child. Almost unanimously, they called it either sexual harassment or sexual assault. If this had happened to any other character — a girl, a fan-favorite, someone considered “good” — I honestly doubt the same people would be rushing to defend it or minimize it.

So it makes me wonder: is this really about how the scene was written? Or is it about how uncomfortable it is to admit that characters you love have done indefensible things?