Severus Snape is a character from JK Rowling’s book and film series Harry Potter.

Professor Snape was born 9th of January 1960 at Spinner’s End, Cokeworth, Midlands, England, Great Britain to Muggle Tobias Snape and Witch Eileen Snape (née Prince). We first meet Snape in the Philosopher’s Stone where he is introduced as always wanting to be the Defence Against The Dark Arts Professor but it stuck as the Potions Professor. From the moment he is introduced he is conveyed as someone to be cautious of and as the story progresses through the books and films this cautious feeling turns into certainty that Snape is not to be trusted. 

A great divide in the fandom is over whether Snape’s love for Lily was right. Some say it was true love and others say it was an unhealthy obsession. I do have to agree with the latter. It was healthy. It was an obsession. An obsession that ultimately resulted in Lily becoming isolated from her sister and killing Lily and her family.

One thing I’d like to make obvious is Snape Never changed. From the age of ten or eleven (when he first meets Lily) until the moment of his death, he is the same person. He is infatuated with Lily Evans. Yes, Lily Evans because she was never Lily Potter to him.

But, how do I know this?

Well, let me explain.

When Snape and Lily first meet or at least during their first few months of knowing each other, Snape became infatuated with Lily. This obsession combined with his hatred towards muggles which stemmed from Snape’s very abusive father resulted in  Snape’s abusive behaviour towards muggle-borns and muggles starting with Petunia Evans.

One day when Lily and Snape are around nine or ten, the two are playing and talking about the magical world when Snape uses magic to break and branch off a tree which hits and hurts young Petunia. This action upsets Lily but Snape explains that Petunia will hate her as soon as Lily starts at Hogwarts. 

Ignoring the blatant and unacceptable abuse of power towards students, Snape puts his obsession for Lily above all else once again, for the wrong reasons. A bit of backstory, Snape overhears a young Tralawny telling Dumbledore about the prophecy of Voldemorts death and runs to inform the Dark Lord of what he has heard. This would be expected as nape was a loyal little Death Eater up until the next moment. Voldemort figures out the prophecy link directly to the Potter family, Lily Evans family. The prophecy refers to her and James Potter’s son, Harry, and Voldemort has declared that they must die in order for him to reign forever. Snape crawls back to Dumbledore explaining he needs help.

However, Snape only wants to save Lily. James and Harry can be left to the whim of Voldemort but Lily must be spared.

This man, around twenty-one or twenty-two, has gone to one of the most powerful wizards of this age and said let a man and his son die but save the wide and mother because I love her. Dumbledore has problematic choices and a past as well, he is not without fault, but at this moment chastises Snape for his horrific ease at which he would rip apart a young family for himself. 

 This incident would not be the last time he would have no issues letting a soul die.

Hopping forward to his time as a Professor at Hogwarts, and focusing on his mistreatment of Neville Longbottom. While teaching Potions class, Neville brews a potion incorrectly and Snape explains how what Neville has can be fatal if ingested. Snape goes on to tell Neville that his fatal potion will be given to his pet toad, Trevor, as punishment. Luckily, Hermione is able to step in and make the potion non-fatal so that if Snape kept true to his word, Trevor would be okay.

So, this grown-man, just about ten years older than I am now as of writing this (I’m twenty-four as of writing this), felt he was within his right to not only bully this child relentlessly but also threaten to kill his pet. Trevor, Neville’s toad, was given to Neville as a present from one of his family members for being accepted into Hogwarts and a representation that Neville was a good enough wizard to be taken by Hogwarts. This event is years after Neville relentlessly heard that he was never going to be good enough to be a wizard by his Grandmother who was his legal guardian as his parents were in the care of the first wizarding war.

Now for Snape and Slurs!

And, guess what! He uses a slur on Lily! Yup, and still people believe that he was a good man and his love for Lily was real.

While still in school, Snape is hanging out with his fellow Death Eater friends, when Death Eaters were cool, and he meets Lily. During this interaction, he refers to some of the muggle-born students as mudbloods, which Lily is a muggle-born. Snape then tries to justify this as it is what his friends say and it doesn’t include her and it is just a word. None of which works as Lily is already hurt, rightly so, and walks away.

This moment I feel was the nail in the coffin in my opinion. Had Snape tread a little more carefully, and maybe thought about how his actions would affect others and not just all about himself. This was the moment Lily stopped. She had tried to be his friend, be there for him and let him know he could always come to her, but over their time at Hogwarts, they grew apart and at this moment Snape lost Lily forever.

When I was reading the seventh book and got to this moment, I was gobsmacked! Like, jaw hit the floor type. I remember but mouth falling open as I read thinking Snape is bad but the entire time we’ve known this character he has always love Lily and suddenly he has insulted Lily by calling her a slur then tried to weasel his way out of it with a “yeah, but not you” rubbish.

Now, for Snape and the wedge he put between Lily and Petunia.

Snape’s action’s not only broke Lily’s relationship with her sister but also Petiuna’s relationship with magic.

This can be pinned back to a particular moment when Lily and Snape were playing together and Petunia came over. When Petunia got closer Snape used some magic to drop a branch on her. He used magic to harm Petiuna which allowed her to make the connection that magic is bad. Not only had magic hurt her but since the revelation of the existence of magic was made to her and her family she had lost her sister. Not as literally as she soon would within the next ten years but she was no longer close with her. They couldn’t talk about anything anymore. Schooling wasn’t the same for them. Magic had hurt Petunia in more ways than one, so they couldn’t talk about that.

And Lily wasn’t home during term time so whatever happened at home or in the family on a daily basis wasn’t any good anymore. Lily wasn’t there. And to top it off, their parents “were so proud from the day she got her letter”. Their parents never saw the abuse and bully Petiuna suffered at the hands of Snape. Lily told Snape to stop but at those points, Petunia had already runoff. Their parents would probably chalk up Petiuna’s complaints to jealousy or something similar so left her.

Over time this resentment towards magic only increased over the years until eventually, it was too late.

Lily was gone, dead by the hand of magic. And how did she find out? Through a letter that was written by someone with magic that was placed oh so carefully on top of a baby boy. Her nephew. The child she wanted nothing to do with because of magic. And now Lily is dead.

Snape took that from Petuina. He drove a wedge between Lily and her sister, isolating her, and Lily died having never had that relationship mended. 

I’ve got two younger sisters and I can truly say with all my heart that I would hate to die and they were left thinking I hate them. This is because I don’t. We fight, sometimes all the time, but I make a point of saying “I Love You” every time I say goodbye or night. I do it to everyone I love because no matter how much we’ve fought, no matter what we’ve said if I die I need them to know that I still love them.

So, for Petiuna to lose her sister and never know if her sister knew that she still loved her would haunt her forever.

But, Ryn, how do you know Petiuna still loved Lily?

Because in Harry’s seventh year and in the seventh film, when Harry is watching his family move out Petuina tells Harry that he didn’t just lose a mother.

Some can conisder Snape as grey. He grew up poor, hearing how pure-bloods were the be-all and end-all while knowing he was a half-blood and would never be considered anything more than that. The main Muggle in his life and the one to influence other Muggles around young Sev was his father, who was abusive and more than likely kept similar company. This would have imprinted the idea that all Muggles are awful people who want nothing more than to cause pain and destruction to magical folk. Therefore, upon meeting Petunia and falling for Lily, he wanted Petunia as far away from Lily so she wouldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, in doing so, he turned Petunia into the very thing he was against. 

This argument, however, doesn’t excuse him from his actions. He would have been taken through Hogwarts with peers who could have shown him how things are. Although, I say this coming from an upbringing where my parents gave my sisters and me the freedom to discover our own beliefs and opinions (discovering our parent’s opinions later when we could separate them from ours), so it can be said that different circumstances can result in a different outcome. The teachers at Hogwarts were poor at holding their own tongue and biases while Harry attending so it can only be said that they were worse during Snape’s time.

Plus, Snape was before the first war, so there was significantly less for them to worry about.

I, personally, believe that Snape’s so-called “love” with Lily Potter wasn’t something to be idolised or to be called healthy. It was toxic and dangerous. And Dumbledore knew that.

Bibliography

Severus Snape | Harry Potter Wiki | Fandom

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