Rachael McLaughlin May 30, 2020
Severus Snape is probably the most complex and controversial character in the entire Harry Potter series. Some lovers of the series refer to Snape as a redeemer of the notoriously dark, and often misunderstood, Slytherin House. Others hate him completely and don’t believe that the actions that his work with Albus Dumbledore were enough to redeem his cruel and abusive behavior. Some simply see him as morally grey. I have to say that while I love to hate Snape, I was not as moved by his memories in the last installment of the series as others, and that his part in the Second Wizarding War did not at all change my view of Slytherin House (even though I, myself, am a Slytherin). This is mostly because I interpreted Snape’s actions as motivated by selfishness, and not by any change of heart he may have had for his previous behaviors as a Death Eater.
I do, however, still view Snape as one of the most layered characters I have ever read and I want to do an examination of his character from my own perspective starting with his early life and moving on to his time as an adult.
Others may have a different opinion on how I view these scenes and Snape’s character, and that’s fine. As readers, words and stories impact us all differently and since Snape is such a layered character, I don’t really think any assessment of him is wrong or right. I’m simply sharing how I viewed his character as I have read all the books and watched all the movies. So, here we go.
Snape’s early life is really easy to sympathize with. He’s skinny, greasy, and he wears ill-fitting clothing. His father is an abusive alcoholic and is constantly fighting with his mother. What’s also very apparent about Snape as a child is that he is already prejudiced against Muggles and Muggle-borns. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we see some of Snape’s memories from his childhood where he meets Lily and Petunia. On page 665 of the novel, Petunia accuses Snape of spying on herself and Lily. This is his reply, “‘Wouldn’t spy on you, anyway,’ he added spitefully. ‘You’re a Muggle.’” This type of remark tells us that Snape harbors some type of disdain for Muggles. And in his early life, it is slightly understandable. His abusive father, Tobias Snape, is a Muggle. And Petunia, who picks on Lily and also expresses disdain for Snape upon first meeting him, is also a Muggle. At this point, Snape is a child, and therefore his view of the world is most likely pretty simple. He probably could not separate his hatred for his father and his dislike of Petunia from his feelings about Muggles.
Later in his childhood memories, When Lily and Snape are talking about Hogwarts, Lily asks Snape if there’s a difference between herself, a Muggle-born, and pureblood witches. Snape hesitates before answering no. This hesitation may have spurned from the fact that Snape may in fact think there is a difference, but did not want to say so because of his feelings for Lily. Clearly, he had something to contend with before answering.
In the last few memories we get from his childhood, Snape torments Petunia. He causes a branch to fall on her when she is caught spying on himself and Lily and it is later found out that he and Lily went through Petunia’s room and found a letter she had written to Hogwarts. Whether Snape did these things because Petunia was a Muggle, or because he just didn’t like her, is really hard to tell. It could have been both. However, Snape later proves that he does look down on Petunia because she’s a Muggle. On pages 670–671, Lily cries to Snape on the Hogwarts Express because Petunia is upset that she and Snape went through her things and found the letter. Snape replies to Lily by saying, “‘She’s only a — ’” before he catches himself, giving us one last impression of what he really thinks of Petunia and why.
The memories in the Pensieve switch again and we see Snape and Lily a bit older. They are arguing in the castle courtyard and Lily calls Snape out for hanging out with Avery and Mulciber, two students who would later become Death Eaters along with Snape. Although they are still best friends, Lily cannot believe that Snape would hang out with wizards who perform Dark Magic on the other Hogwarts students. Snape replies to Lily by resentfully pointing out that James Potter, his arch nemesis, and James’s friends also break the rules. At this remark, Lily replies with exactly what I was thinking, ‘What’s Potter got to do with anything?’
I definitely read this moment as Snape deflecting the weight of his actions and trying to shift the blame elsewhere to compensate for his own insecurities. It’s apparent here that James and Snape both have their eyes on Lily and both boys hate each other. However, the pranks that James pulls on other students, though inexcusable, are not the same type of Dark Magic that Snape and his friends play around with. And Lily points this out to Snape. She calls James an “arrogant toerag,” but argues that the things Snape’s friends do are just downright evil.
Snape also exemplifies some controlling issues in this scene when he starts to think that her defense of James was a display of affection because he responds, “You’re not going to — I won’t let you — ” When reading this scene, I felt that Snape’s “love” for Lily was really more like an obsession or infatuation because he seems more focused on making James look bad to her so that her attention is focused on him instead. He’s a lot more intent on making himself look like the good guy to her, rather than actually listening to her and holding himself accountable for hanging around Dark Wizards. Perhaps it is Snape’s upbringing that corrupted his sense of “love” for Lily. With a neglectful, abusive, and alcoholic father, Snape probably never learned what true, healthy love consisted of and was supposed to look like. This could explain, but certainly not justify, some of his behavior towards Lily, especially later.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when one of Snape and Harry’s Occlumency lessons is interrupted, Harry spies on one of Snape’s memories in the Pensieve. In this memory, James and Sirius taunt Snape in front of several students and hang him upside down, revealing his dingy underwear. Lily comes into the scene and orders James to leave Snape alone and James replies that he will only do so if she agrees to go on a date with him. Snape, perhaps jealous, tells James in front of Lily and everyone else that he doesn’t “‘need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!’”
Fans of the series know just how degrading and unforgivable this word is and the fact that Snape says it is, to me, proof of his prejudices and in my opinion negates any “love” that Snape could have had for Lily. There’s no way someone can use a slur that is commonly used against someone of a particular race or blood and then claim to love that person. That is the equivalent of someone calling a black person the “n-word,” then claiming to love them in the same breath. And Snape does not redeem himself after this moment.
In the seventh book, we finally see the follow-up to this scene. Lily exits the Gryffindor Tower to have a final word with Snape. She points out that he is indeed intending to become a Death Eater and join Voldemort’s Army. And this is important, because this essentially means that Snape is joining a white supremacist, Nazi equivalent group of the Wizarding World that is intent on ridding the world of people like Lily and subjugating people like her family. When Snape apologizes, Lily answers, “‘But you call everyone of my birth a Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?’”
This scene is why I cannot understand why Snape’s feelings for Lily could have ever been seen as “love.” I do not think it is possible to hold such strong prejudices about a group and then “love” someone who belongs to that group. And this is basically what Lily tells Snape, that she is no different than the very same people Snape is joining a supremacy group to commit genocide against. Snape does not become a Death Eater because he was bullied, or because his friends were Death Eaters, or because he was pressured to. He joined the Death Eaters because he believes in the ideals under which they were formed. He supports Lord Voldemort’s principles of ruling over Muggles and creating a pureblood society. To say that he could have joined such a group and yet still loved Lily is the equivalent of saying a member of the Ku Klux Klan could love an African American. This is just absurd.
These memories put together my exact feelings of Severus Snape, despite what his later actions may say about him. To me, Severus Snape is a self-serving abuser and I think that everything he did in his life, yes even turning to Dumbledore and protecting Harry, all prove that.
To start, I think it is very telling that the memory of Snape calling Lily a “Mudblood” is his worst memory. This man was a Death Eater. It is very safe to assume that he has performed many Dark acts and killed many people. Even Lily’s very death was not his worst memory, despite the fact that he had found her in her home and held her dead body in his arms as he cried. No, calling Lily a Mudblood was the act of which he was most ashamed.
I interpreted this as typical abuser behavior because this was the moment that Snape knew he had not only lost Lily, but lost her respect for him. Up until this point, Snape had some place in her heart. He didn’t have her completely, and he could not make her love him, but she constantly defended his actions to her friends, despite what she knew of him, the same way that many survivors of abuse excuse and defend their abusers’ actions.
But this moment was where Snape knew he had messed up, and that Lily would no longer see him the same way, which is an abuser’s worst nightmare — their victim seeing them for what they really are. And yet none of this changes Snape’s mind on his prejudiced views or becoming Death Eater. He happily serves Lord Voldemort and his mission for a pureblood society. Until Lily becomes involved of course. This leads me to my next point, that someone having a change of heart and deciding to “do the right thing” just because they are now being negatively impacted by the very same oppressive ideals they once upheld does not make them a good person.
Upon hearing the prophecy, Snape immediately tells Voldemort what he hears from Sybil Trelawney, and to Snape’s horror, Voldemort goes after Lily and her family. He goes to Dumbledore, who mocks him and asks if Snape asked Voldemort to spare Lily, which he had. Dumbledore replies with my exact sentiment, “‘You disgust me…You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you can have what you want?’” Yet again, Snape is proven to be the abuser I had assessed him to be. This is exactly how abusers behave. Snape is selfish and essentially sees Lily as an object for him to have, no matter who gets hurt. He is not concerned with the pain and suffering she will endure from losing her child. As long as she’s alive, Voldemort can kill whoever he wants. This also proves just how deeply Snape’s darkness runs. He is okay with an innocent baby dying, even if that baby is Lily’s, the woman he claims to love. In fact, he saw to it that it happened when he ran to Voldemort and told him the prophecy. This child hadn’t even been born yet, and Snape was ready to have them killed.
When Lily dies, Dumbledore asks Snape to help him keep Harry safe, telling him that he loved Lily at all, this is what he would do. And this again proves my earlier point about doing the right thing for selfish reasons does not make someone good. This is the moment where Snape switches sides, as many of the other Death Eaters did when Voldemort had met his temporary demise that night in Godric’s Hollow. From this moment on, Snape played for a different team. And yet, this still does not make Snape a good person.
In the first novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone, Snape greets Harry with a load of contempt, regarding him as a “‘celebrity’” and then proceeding to bully and berate him during class. And throughout the series, Snape does not just treat Harry this way. He treats every student outside of Slytherin House this way. He treats Neville so terribly that in the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Neville confesses that his biggest fear is his own teacher, Professor Snape.
This is also the novel in which he calls Hermione an “insufferable know-it-all.” He reveals Lupin’s secret of being a werewolf to the Ministry of Magic after he learned that Sirius Black was not guilty, ensuring that Lupin would be outcast from society forever.
It’s okay for Snape to not like Harry. Children and adults do not have to get along and they certainly don’t have to like one another. But it is not okay for adults to repeatedly target children as Snape repeatedly targeted Harry and other students and went out of his way to humiliate and degrade them. Perhaps this is a result of the abuse Snape endured from his father or from James Potter and Sirius Black bullying him. However, being bullied or abused does not provide an excuse for one to do it to someone else. Victim or not, Snape is abusive, worse so than James because he is an adult abusing children who have nothing to do with his past.
Back in the Pensieve, we see how Snape truly feels about Harry after meeting him. He calls Harry, “mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to see himself famous, attention-seeking,” until Dumbledore calls him off, and says, “You see what you want to see, Severus.” I think this couldn’t be any more true because while it is possible for an eleven year-old boy to be all of those things Snape says Harry is, it is just not the case for Harry, at least not in this book. This is the first novel of the series, and at this point, Harry is just a young, wide-eyed boy discovering Hogwarts and magic. He does at times have a smart mouth, as many eleven year-olds do, but he has yet to become the sarcastic, angsty teenager he is in the later novels. Snape just makes an assumption about Harry, possibly because he looks like James, and treats Harry poorly because of it. He constantly tries to get Harry expelled and spends every moment he can insulting him. And while it is fair to say that this is one-sided because we read these books from Harry’s perspective, no matter what reasons we could’ve gotten if we had read them from anyone else’s perspective, there is no excuse to treat children like this. No matter the reason, abuse is abuse.
In another Pensieve memory, Dumbledore and Snape discuss the return of Voldemort. Snape tells Dumbledore that Igor Karkaroff, a retired Death Eater, is concerned about the Dark Mark growing becoming darker, signaling Voldemort’s return. He tells Dumbledore he thinks Karkaroff will run away if Voldemort does indeed rise to power once more. Dumbledore asks Snape if he will leave with Karkaroff and Snape replies “No, I am not such a coward.” I think this is where Snape’s complexity shines. At this point, Snape knows that his life is now at risk more than ever. Many Death Eaters paid the price for renouncing their allegiance to Voldemort when he met his demise after attempting to kill Harry. Those who remained loyal to Voldemort suffered thirteen years in Azkaban while those who denied him were reintegrated back into society.
Snape not only has to face Voldemort and tell him why he did not remain loyal to him after his “death,” but he also now has to play double agent in order to serve Voldemort and protect Harry. Running would perhaps ensure his survival, but would leave Harry in danger, and throughout the series, Snape definitely plays his part in protecting Harry both before and after Voldemort’s return.
He protects Harry from Quirrell in the Quidditch Match, he tries to stop Quirrell from resurrecting Voldemort, before learning of Sirius’s innocence, he tries to protect Harry from him as well, he lies to Dolores Umbridge and gives her fake Veritaserum to give to the students, he looks after Sirius when Harry tells him that Voldemort has him in the Department of Mystery, even though Sirius tried to have Snape killed when they were teenagers. Snape constantly put his life at risk for this cause and one cannot ignore that no matter how much they dislike him. Aside from Dumbledore and Harry, Snape had the biggest hand in defeating Lord Voldemort.
Many fans of the series believe that Snape had at some point had a change of heart and had come to respect and even care for Dumbledore and his cause. I honestly don’t believe this is the case. Again, this is all just my perspective, and I don’t think there are rights and wrongs, but I believe Snape remained self-serving and abusive until the very end.
In another Pensieve memory, we see Snape contain the poison in Dumbledore’s hand after he had tried on Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. I think a lot of readers interpreted Snape’s behavior here as an act of care and concern. Snape tells Dumbledore he was foolish to have tried on the ring and should’ve come to him right away. I don’t think this is Snape caring for Dumbledore. I think Snape just realized that the leader in the Army protecting Harry had only a year left to live and that all of their efforts would soon be in vain. It’s been said several times throughout this series that Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. And in this moment, Snape realizes that Harry’s biggest weapon of protection against Voldemort was dying, and they still had very little ideas on how to defeat Voldemort.
Snape, who knew nothing about the Horcruxes, was probably especially hopeless at this point, and he was upset that Dumbledore did not trust him with more information. It was clear to Snape that Harry knew something about Dumbledore’s plan that he did not, and I don’t think that Snape was hurt that Dumbledore did not trust him. I think he was insulted. On page 684, he says “‘Yet you confide much more in a boy who is incapable of Occlumency, whose magic is mediocre, and who has a direct connection into the Dark Lord’s mind!’” Snape clearly saw it as an insult that Dumbledore would make plans to defeat Voldemort without him, especially with Harry. I think that Snape and Dumbledore had a very complicated relationship that they had to contend with throughout the novels.
Nevertheless, Snape and Dumbledore become very trusted allies throughout this series, but I don’t think either of them came to care for the other. I think Dumbledore, an especially secretive man, trusted Snape the most because he had a ton of knowledge on Dark Arts, the Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself. Snape could provide answers many others couldn’t. Snape was also motivated by his “love” for Lily and because his motives were already selfish, there was no reason for Dumbledore to believe he would ever fold or turn his back on him. I think Snape trusted Dumbledore because Dumbledore was a very powerful wizard who was intent on keeping Harry alive and defeating Voldemort. And I’m sure Snape knew it was well within Dumbledore’s powers to do it since he had already defeated a notorious and feared Dark Wizard before, Gellert Grindelwald. I don’t think these two ever cared for one another, and Snape certainly never cared for Harry and he makes this clear when Dumbledore asks him.
Snape is furious when he learns that in order to defeat Voldemort, Harry himself must die. Snape tells Dumbledore that he thought the whole reason they were protecting him was for Lily. I think this moment says a lot about Snape’s character, and how he did not change his self-serving ways as the series progressed. Snape’s only motivation for keeping Harry alive was because he was still infatuated with his childhood crush. He didn’t protect Harry because he cared for him. Dumbledore even asks this of Snape on page 687 saying, “‘But this is touching Severus. Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?’” To which Snape replies, “‘For him?’” Then draws a Patronus the same as Lily’s, a doe. I think this is a bit creepy seeing as Lily’s Patronus matched her husband’s, James, whose Animagus form was a stag. Nevertheless, it just proves to me that all of Snape’s actions have been fueled by his unhealthy obsession for Lily. He does not value Harry’s life at all, and he once again proves that he couldn’t care less about protecting a child. Rather he objectifies Harry as an extension of Lily, who he had also objectified. Keeping Harry alive was his only way of keeping Lily alive, and now it was all in vain. I think the only reason Snape did not turn back to Voldemort in this moment is because Voldemort was the one who killed Lily. There was no way Snape would have served him after he had killed the woman he was obsessed with, his most prized possession that he could never fully have.
There is no moment in this series where Snape concretely and explicitly states that he is sorry for his actions and realizes how wrong he was. Obviously this was done intentionally and it certainly complicates Snape’s character a lot. How do we know Snape did not miss his time as a Death Eater? How do we know that while playing spy for Dumbledore, Snape did not cling to his old ideologies? I don’t think there’s any way to definitively say whose side he was truly on. But regardless of pureblood prejudices or Dumbledore’s Army, Snape is an abuser. Whether readers believe he abused Lily is up for interpretation since we didn’t see the full scope of their relationship. But one thing is undeniable, he certainly abused the students of Hogwarts, and there’s no forgiving that.
Regardless of all these critiques, Severus Snape is one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series. The series would not be the same without him. He’s fascinating, multi-dimensional, and plays such a huge part in the plot. Despite all of his work to bring down Lord Voldemort, I do not believe that Severus Snape was a good person. It is not enough to just be on the “good side.” To be a good person, you also have to be a kind and selfless person to others. Snape was neither kind nor selfless. His allegiance to Dumbledore was born out of pure selfishness. He never expresses remorse for his actions as a Death Eater, even when he asks Dumbledore to protect Lily from harm. And finally, I don’t think that Snape ever truly loved Lily. His prejudices and dark actions prevented him from truly loving her. However, while I don’t think Harry should’ve named his son after him, Snape played such a critical role in bringing down Voldemort and to not acknowledge that would be unfair and downright criminal.
