One of my favorite Snape moments is during Harry's first Occlumency lesson, when Harry asks him a million questions and Snape gets all measured and deliberate. Obviously he's got to be careful because he's imparting a lot of high-level Order information, but also, if you've ever spent any time with academics, I dare you to read that scene without immediately calling to mind one (or several) of those folks. The pauses, the stares, the tracing of the mouth, and the palpable irritation just so perfectly capture the overworked and resentful research professor trying to work out how to answer the deceptively simple questions of an incredibly green undergrad… I can’t 😂
I also love the fact that he took Harry's questions in the ernest way they were intended when he asked them and he did make the effort to answer them to the best of his ability. It's the very first occasion where we see Harry and Snape in the same room having a constructive student-teacher conversation.
Importantly, Snape didn't dance around his questions; he didn't dismiss them in the way Dumbledore was prone to doing at that point because he couldn't be certain Voldemort wasn't gaining information through Harry. All that year, Harry had been shut out and it's Snape who first sits down with him and answers his questions sincerely and with as much careful detail as he feels he can provide.
Up to the point that Harry invaded Snape's privacy by viewing his memories in the Pensieve, the truly unfortunate thing is that Snape was making an effort. He didn't hiss and snarl at Harry when he used a defensive spell and a Stinging Hex on him reflexively or for the fact he managed to break into his mind by pure accident and see memories of his childhood. He even offered praise in his own way when he felt Harry showed some progress and the questions he asked Harry about his own memories seemed less mean-spirited and more curious.
It was only when Harry looked into the Pensieve that everything shifted, which is what convinced me he stored the memories that he felt were most dangerous for Voldemort to see in there including the fact his feelings for Lily were more than simple desire.
Yes!! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head… these lessons actually mark an important shift in Snape’s attitude towards Harry; Snape gives Harry what he’s been craving all year and speaks with him as a young adult, not a child. Sure, he’s still cold and unpleasant, but he speaks honestly and does not shy away from the nuances & complexities of the topics at hand. He is not dismissive of Harry's questions and extends a previously unimaginable level of trust to Harry by disclosing some pretty high-level Order information, all the while carefully considering the implications of the information he provides and withholds and making sure to only share what Dumbledore has allowed.
The slight change in Snape's attitude towards Harry points to this being a genuine effort on Snape's end to fulfill his duties and teach Harry to the best of his ability. (It's just unfortunate that his ability is pretty low, due to his limited teaching methods, his dislike of Harry, and the tenuous trust between the two of them that collapses spectacularly within a couple of chapters...)
And despite the tussle for authority that drags the level of discourse down over the next few pages, Snape explicitly lays out for Harry information he has been starved for all year. Snape tells Harry that the connection between him and Voldemort defies the normal laws of magic, that the connection can work both ways, that with Legilimency Voldemort can access this connection between them, that Occlumency can shield him, and that a consequence of not mastering Occlumency could include mental manipulation. I remember being on the edge of my seat the first time I read this chapter, feeling like finally the pieces were falling into place. I remember being utterly baffled by Harry’s reluctance to study, but of course it became clear with Harry’s growing curiosity and even his anger at having his dreams interrupted that Harry wanted the dreams to continue.
I was doing some speech analysis for my own writing research and thought I'd share it with all of you. Essentially, I wanted to examine when Snape uses titles (Professor, Mr./Miss) versus full names versus last names only versus first names, and what this might signify.
Using Titles
The most obvious instance that comes to mind is Snape addressing Voldemort as "my Lord," which is also his last usage of any form of a name chronologically. This title was probably required by Voldemort, however, as all the Death Eaters use it, despite their different personalities. Similarly, Snape's use of "the Dark Lord" falls into this category; as Harry observes in OotP, the Death Eaters use this name for Voldemort. Snape reacts in a strongly negative way to Harry's use of "Voldemort," saying by implication that he does not feel secure in using this name. (It is interesting to note that Dumbledore constantly uses "Voldemort" around Snape, and while Snape never corrects him, Snape also never deviates from "the Dark Lord," which Dumbledore also never corrects.)
Snape has a high awareness of titles of respect, both for himself ("This may not be an ordinary class, Potter, but I am still your teacher and you will therefore call me 'sir' or 'Professor' at all times," OotP) and others. Snape himself is never said to call anyone "sir" (or "ma'am"), but he does use "Headmaster" sixteen times (ten as indirectly referring to Dumbledore, six directly addressing Dumbledore), "Headmistress" once (to Umbridge), and "Professor" eleven (once for himself when he's trying to compel the Marauder's Map, four times as direct address, six times to indirectly refer to someone). All of these forms of respectful scholastic address take place in books 2-5. Snape sometimes refers to Dumbledore as "the headmaster" when he is speaking about him to an adult with children apparently not present (as when he speaks to Fudge in PoA), but he only addresses Dumbledore as "Headmaster" when he is expecting to be observed, and he only uses "Professor" as a way of referring to his colleagues when speaking to or in front of children. Conspicuously, while he generally speaks of Lupin as "Professor Lupin" in front of the DADA class in PoA, he speaks to Lupin as only "Lupin" whether students are present or not. In a reversal of this formality dynamic, Snape uses "Minister" when speaking to Fudge, but "Mr. Fudge" when speaking about him. (This might have something to do with the fact that, in the first case, Fudge was helping work against Sirius Black, while in the second, Fudge had just allowed a Dementor to Kiss Barty Crouch Jr.) Filch is "Filch" to his face when students aren't there, "Mr. Filch" when being referred to. Hagrid is always "Hagrid," but that's what everyone seems to do.
When it comes to students, Snape is generally inconsistent about calling them "Mr./Miss" or simply using their last names. "Draco" is the only student we see him use a first name with, and that begins in OotP, after a good deal of "Malfoy" and "Mr. Malfoy" in the books before that. Ron gets both "Weasley" and "Mr. Weasley." Seamus gets both "Finnigan" and "Mr. Finnigan." In general, girls always get "Miss," with the exception of the Ravenclaw girl Snape catches in the rosebushes in GoF (and possibly Hermione, who is referred to as "Granger" in Snape's report to Fudge in PoA, though this might be by parallelism with "Potter" and "Weasley" in the phrase "Potter, Weasley, and Granger." "Finch-Fletchley" is mentioned once with no courtesy marker, as is "Stebbins," but once is too little to establish a pattern. Snape uses "Crabbe and Goyle" without any markers, but everyone does that. Neville and most of all Harry are conspicuously addressed without any "Mr." at any point.
Full Names
Used mostly for emphasis. "Harry Potter" gets this eleven times, mostly to evoke Harry as a concept rather than an individual, often tied to his fame — "the train isn't good enough for the famous Harry Potter," CoS; "famous Harry Potter," PoA — or to speak of Harry in Snape's capacity as Death Eater — "If I had murdered Harry Potter," HBP; "the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter," DH; "Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva?" DH. If Snape's saying "Harry Potter," he is Not Doing Well.
Similarly, Snape uses "Sirius Black" either to report ("Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black," PoA; "it certainly helped dispose of Sirius Black," HBP) or to remind Dumbledore of his trauma ("Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen," PoA).
"Barty Crouch" gets an exclamation of surprise using his full name, but only after Snape uses the more familiar last: "Crouch! Barty Crouch!" (GoF). He also gets the full-name treatment in a report to Dumbledore. "Mad-Eye Moody" gets a very unusual usage of a nickname, but his nickname seems to be taken as a first name by nearly everyone. This again happens in a negative context: "Now, Mad-Eye Moody might have joined your fan club," GoF.
"Lucius Malfoy" gets the full-name treatment in the middle of Snape's fight with Sirius in OotP, where it parallels Sirius's own use of Malfoy's full name.
"Albus Dumbledore" and "Emmeline Vance" get the full-name treatment in Snape's conversation at Spinner's End in HBP, which is full of full names and cautious distances.
"Dolores Umbridge" gets her full name used when Snape is talking to Harry, thus showing his distance from her (other professors get their titles or their last names).
Lily gets one "Lily Evans" during Snape's initial distress over the prophecy, one first-name only, and one "Lily Potter," in that order, thus showing the progression of Snape's thinking, as many Snape commentators have pointed out.
Interestingly, Snape gives himself his full name twice, once to invoke his authority over the Marauders' Map and once to distance his inner personhood from betraying Dumbledore in the clause "[Dumbledore] has never stopped trusting Severus Snape, and therein lies my great value to the Dark Lord."
Last Names
Using last names is very much Snape's default. Both Lupin and Karkaroff attempt to address Snape by his first name, thus establishing a less formal relationship than he wants with them; he responds by using their last names instead, though he acquiesces to using "Igor" with Karkaroff when they are not in class. When Sirius calls him "Snivellus" in OotP, Snape responds using his last name too.
Snape's last-name preferences date from childhood, where James and Remus are "Potter" and "that Lupin." Nor are they restricted to enemies only; the last words reported as Snape's in the story (as opposed to his chronological last words) are "Don't worry, Dumbledore. I have a plan..."
First Names
The people Snape addresses or refers to by first name alone are few in number: Igor Karkaroff (the first to be so, in GoF); Draco (the only one in OotP); Narcissa, Bellatrix, Lucius, Nymphadora Tonks (the lack of nickname here has been discussed elsewhere); Alecto, Minerva (the last to be so, chronologically); Lily (the last to be so, in terms of what we see in the story).
Oddly, Snape uses "Aunt Bellatrix" when talking to Draco in HBP; perhaps he is putting things in Draco's terms here? Though it's "Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency, I see," not "Your Aunt Bellatrix..."
Draco gets his first name used the most, 17 times. Narcissa gets it 10 times, all in the Spinner's End conversation; Bellatrix gets 9, 8 of which are in that conversation; Lucius gets 5, three here and two with Dumbledore; Minerva gets twice. The others get once.
Nicknames
"Wormtail" and "Mad-Eye Moody." (And, arguably, "the Dark Lord.") Snape using your nickname is not a good sign. Perhaps this stems from his feelings about his own?
Concluding Thoughts
Snape's uses of different name forms do not follow a straightforward rule, but several things are clear. The name he uses for someone is always intentional, showing the sort of relationship he has with the person in question (or that he wants to project that he has). Snape and McGonagall, for instance, enjoy a mutual "Professor Lastname" status in their dealings in front of students (rarer, for McGonagall), but "Severus" and "Minerva" without students apparently present (which we see in DH — markedly, this is one of the only times Snape responds to his first name by switching everyone to a first-name basis, although he usually reacts to antagonism by taking the distancing road of a last name). Students sometimes get a "Mr." to show they're not "Potter," sometimes merely as a normal form of address when they're not misbehaving (which ups the chances of no "Mr./Miss" for everyone, though not Hermione). Sometimes, though, a last name is just quicker to say. Full names mean more distance; the person is treated as a concept. Nicknames are not friendly. First names show either projected friendliness or genuine friendliness, to an equal or a student (never to Dumbledore); most cases could go either way (though I think Snape has no real fondness for "Alecto").
We talk about Potter as a timeless series, as quills and parchment will never date, but there are a few key elements which are of their time, and I sometimes suspect that eventually, their original meaning may be lost.
Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is one of these. If you visit Surrey, a house akin to Number 4 on Privet Drive can be found on hundreds of identical estates. Indeed, the three-bedroom house with a garage, and both front and back gardens, situated on a private housing estate in leafy surburbia is one that most British people will have strolled through at some point.
But Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is the opposite of the Dursleys’ aspirational abode, and is somewhere that few modern readers will have seen in its original form with their own eyes. Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is a traditional two up, two down through terraced house, mired deep in a maze of identical cobbled streets, overlooked by a looming mill chimney, and seemingly – by the 90s – entirely abandoned.
The difficulty that some may have in accurately picturing this scene is because these houses, in this state, no longer exist. A large percentage of two up, two down terraces were demolished as part of slum clearance, which should tell you all that you need to know about the state of the houses.
Those which remained have been extensively modified – usually knocking down the privy (outside toilet), and then building a two storey extension across the bulk of the yard to create a third room downstairs, and a bathroom upstairs. Some houses only have a single extension; it is rather common in some areas of the Midlands to have a bathroom that leads off the kitchen downstairs – because the bathroom was the missing room, and it was cheaper to build one storey than two.
Pottermore had an article earlier in the year which explained how the filmmakers originally wanted to film on location, but could not, because the houses simply did not exist in their traditional state.
The houses were typically constructed with two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs with a tiny backyard entry leading to the outhouse. Craig actually considered shooting on location, but even though the buildings were intact, they had been brought into the modern era, with up-to-date kitchens and plastic extensions, so the set was built at the studio.
Throughout the 20th century, cobbled streets were routinely replaced by various other road surfaces, namely tarmac and asphalt – and, of course, the scarcity of cobblestones now means that such streets are aesthetically desirable. However, the cobblestones in Spinner’s End are not an indication of affluence, but an indication of an area left behind. This is further illustrated by the rusted railings, the broken streetlights, and the boarded up windows.
These were workers houses, often funded by the owners of the mill, and therefore tied – meaning that rent was deducted from your wage before you received it. There were benefits to being in tied accommodation, including being close to work and having a guaranteed landlord – but that was as much benefit to the mill owner as the worker. Seeing great competition, some mill owners invested in their properties to entice workers – but Spinner’s End is not an example of this; Spinner’s End would’ve been regarded as little better than a slum even when fully occupied.
The narrow streets are indicative of when these houses were built, presumably in the late 1800s – cars were not a concern, and the attitude was to build as many houses on as small a piece of land as possible.
By the time the 90s roll around, and we see Narcissa and Bellatrix descend upon the street, Spinner’s End appears to be mostly deserted. With the closure of traditional manual industries, families would be keen to relocate to where work could be found. Estates which hadn’t already been cleared by the 60s would find themselves left to rack and ruin, their former occupants long gone – whether seeking a new life elsewhere, or having died.
For once, Bellatrix is not being anti-Muggle when she sneers at the Muggle dunghill; she is unnervingly accurate. It is a slum by her standards, but most importantly, it was a slum by everyone else’s standards as well. By the time Severus was born, work should’ve been well under way to clear the area, or to renovate it. This evidently did not occur – which itself explains how undesirable the area is; nobody wanted to spruce it up - they wanted to leave. There were no jobs, no amenities, no services – and eventually, no people.
We often ponder why Snape remains at Spinner’s End, but perhaps there lies the answer; he wasn’t just hiding from the magical world, but he was also hiding from the Muggle world as well…
It always fucks me up when people and fanfictions ignore the fact that Snape was CANONICALLY born in a slum and lived his childhood in a slum. It is a part of his character that is so rarely explored in fics. Because from young Snapes’s point of view, even the Weasleys would have looked rich. And then he had to share dorms with people like Malfoys and Blacks. It just fucks me up.
The cycle of poverty that informs Snape’s behaviour and the classism inherent in the bullying that Snape experiences at Hogwarts are endlessly fascinating to me, and something that fandom as a whole does not take into account nearly enough. I wrote once about the potential psychology behind Snape’s decision to remain in Spinner’s End, but this visceral – and historical – reminder of exactly how desperately poor the Snapes were is important.
Americans especially don’t have a native understanding of this – for Americans, these kinds of industrial slums were largely already a thing of the past by the 1950s, when America was experiencing a post-WWII economic boom. This is not to say that no American in the 1950s was trapped in poverty, but overall American society was made richer by the war. British society, on the other hand, was still recovering from wartime scarcity, rationing, and destruction, and industrial slums were still very much a part of its makeup.
The Snapes were poor in a way from which it was virtually impossible to escape. The Snapes were not poor like the Weasleys, who are poor by wizarding standards but never go hungry and never live in literal filth. The Snapes are poor by Muggles standards, by post-WWII Britain standards, by anyone’s standards. The Snapes were the kind of poor that seeps into your pores at the earliest age and never leaves. The kind of poor that informs almost everything about Snape, from his idolization of magical society, to the way he deals with social humiliation, to his arrogant rage masking a deep-seated self-hatred, and especially to his resentment of popular, loved, pampered, wealthy James Potter.
I saw a post a few months ago that talked about how Snape going to Hogwarts was almost analogous to a poor kid in the UK getting a scholarship in a really fancy public school (like Eton) due to his intelligence but then gets bullied by the richer kids because he’s not one of them. It is a comparison that I found very interesting because of course in some of these private schools kids can get scholarships and stuff but they never truly belong in that same social circle, i.e. they would never go on nice fancy holidays or school trips etc. It is certainly an interesting mirror of Snape always seemed to struggle fitting in Hogwarts due to his poverty and I feel like its something thats very specific to the British social class system
This is very true. My partner was one. He was sufficiently impressive at primary school to be scholarshiped into the posh private school. He was even moved up a year as he was truly gifted. And it was unmitigated hell for him. Kids he grew up with shunned him as a class traitor, for putting on airs, for trying to advance out of a fairly shabby area. The kids at his school? Shunned him for being a jumped up oik reaching above his station. He was never one of them in their eyes. Despite his intelligence he did not go on the tertiary education. He was so beaten down by the expectations foisted on him and the social exclusion it entailed he went straight off to get a job as soon as he could. These are the ways that the classist segregation in the UK in the 1970s and 80s worked. I imagine they still work like that now. Severus would very much be in the same state of “crab bucket” but even worse because he cannot talk about his school, or his achievements. Middle class Lily going to a school for the gifted? Wouldn’t raise an eyebrow with the neighborhood gossips. Snape the gutter snipe going to a boarding school? The curtains wouldn’t stop twitching over it. And most of the people on his street would actively want him to fail. That lie about St Brutus secure school for the incorrigible would have been far more feasible and acceptable to the residents of Spinner’s End. It would satisfy their resentment of him “rising above” his natural station and confirm their prejudice that he’d come to a bad end. There is still a huge prejudice around poverty, the very concept of worthy and unworthy poor still permeates the media, any articles about poverty and the benefits system will be riddled with these underlying assumptions that the really poor, the most desperate and least likely to ever get out of the grinding poverty, have brought it upon themselves. They are often painted as deserving their misery. Severus position straddling both worlds but belonging to neither, not being welcomed on either side of the divide is truly one of the most resonant aspects of his character to me.
You only have to look at George Osborne being given the nickname ‘oik’ in his days in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, for the crime of going to the third poshest school in the country (St Paul’s, rather than Eton or Harrow) and for his father being ‘in trade’. His father, of course, founded Osborne & Little - and as the wikipedia article cites, Osborne holds a 15% stake in it, worth between £15m - £30m.
Indeed, you don’t have to go as far as public school for this to be true; Snape is of the grammar school era. Snape is the kid who comes from the sink estate who passes his 11+ entrance exam against all odds. When he reaches the school, where he’s fairly earned his place on intellectual merit (or in Hogwarts’ case, magical ability), he sticks out like a sore thumb. He has the aptitude, but not the social background.
It’s why the depiction of James is equally important. He’s similar to Snape in his magical ability - but he’s got the background that Snape hasn’t. He’s wealthy, pampered, entitled. James meets Snape and simply can’t comprehend why such a boy is also at the same school - remember, he meets Sirius at the same time, who also states that he’s from a Slytherin background and James’ reaction isn’t quite the same as it is with Snape. “Blimey, and I thought you were all right.” (or similar) James had already made that value judgement; he’d already recognised that Sirius is from a similar sort of background.
When their journeys start, both boys are brimming with confidence (remember how Harry saw Snape by the river as cutting an impressive figure), but it doesn’t take long for James to be the boy who is regarded as popular, sporty, talented etc whilst Snape visibly wilts. He’s twitchy, anxious, an oddball…as the text says, it’s as if he’s a plant kept in the dark.
Indeed, it’s no mistake that James - and in the modern era, Draco - is talented on a broom. It’s no mistake that Harry, as a toddler, is given a broom. It’s no mistake that the Weasley family are all talented with broom in hand, their prowess at Quidditch undeniable. It’s no mistake then, that Snape picks up a broom and fails - some will claim it’s talent, but we see him mastering flight as an adult…it feels to me that this is a very clear indication that Snape wasn’t given the same opportunities. He got to the school, but he didn’t have the extra-curricular assistance that others had the benefit of.
There is a very important parallel that James and Sirius don’t accept Severus because Severus’ background makes him other - just as the Death Eaters and their ilk don’t accept Lily because Lily’s bloodline makes her other.
Snape succeeds against the odds - and what’s wholly tragic about the entire thing is that he succeeds against the odds because he’s a tool in the war. He doesn’t become a professor, or a housemaster, or headmaster on merit. He succeeds because he’s being used.
Saw this article on Moss Side in Manchester on BBC News, which feels pertinent to this discussion:
There was a rise in poverty in the whole of the North West in the 1970s, as a lot of jobs moved to London and old industries began to disappear.
A programme of “slum clearance” took place, where lots of working class people’s houses in the area were demolished.
“This forces people who are very happy to be in a place like Moss Side into different suburbs, away from their networks, churches, extended families and friends.
“So you see a very sudden rupture of strong communities,” says Dr Wildman.
I think a lot about the Cokeworth that Eileen Prince moved to when she first encountered the Muggle world, and the one her son was left with when he had sole occupancy of the family home in the 90s.
This website has a gallery of photos of life in city slums in the late 1960s early 1970s (coincidentally, probably around the time Lily and Snape met) for several cities including Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield, Manchester, etc. It’s really worth a look when considering Spinner’s End.
The images and captions cover life and conditions living in the slums, in condemned housing, demolished areas, sanitation and health issues, etc. I’ve put some that stood out to me below (all captions from the photographer unless I’ve added Thoughts in brackets):
Letter regarding health and slum property, Birmingham 1971 [under the cut bc it got long]
How would younger snape react to older snape? I believe they would hate each other. Younger snape was intelligent but weak because ehe was tied to all these rules whereas the marauders would break. I believe they older him would be ashamed of his past, tuck it away like an unwanted child, because to him, his younger self would be a whining and useless kid.
Whereas the younger him would be digusted by the older him. He'd rather have an incompetent Slughorn as a teacher than himself. He can't believe he became this bitter adult with nothing to live for. Didn't achieve anything younger him had set as goals. The snarky and bitter adult would remind him of his own father that didn't have joy in anything. Just a useless adult, blaming others for their problems.
Both wouldn't have that victim remorse we Snape fans have towards the character. Action-reaction thing.
One thing they would have in common is that they don't realize just how strong they truly are. A child living through abuse without a helpline yet somehow didn't resort to murder his bullies despite the many chances he got and still finding it within himself to love and show kindness in his way. They older Snape shows strength and resilliance to please the people that ruined his life for the greater good, even if it meant tearing his own soul apart.
In that bitterness lays injustice that was left untreated for too long. In that hate lays the love that was trampled far too often and then cast away. In that fear hides the sorrow of what could be and what was. Both fail to realize that they were survivors and survivors hold scars.
This is how I would see older and younger Snape reacting to one another if they met each other.
I actually read a fic about this recently and I think it's influenced my opinion on this quite a lot. It's called A Part of Me by PhantomTF on ffn.
I think younger Snape would have respect for his older self, with him being Head of Slytherin and the potions master at Hogwarts, as well as the reputation he's cultivated as someone not to fuck with. And I think that he would seek guidance from him in some ways, because he would want to learn how to adopt those traits for himself.
I think older Snape would look down on himself, because he does seem to be quite self loathing. And I think he would want to take the opportunity to stop his younger self from making the mistakes he made, and would want to guide him. He would also understand that i's an opportunity people never get, that he could influrnce and teach his younger self better than any adult possibly could.
I think the best chance at them having a good relationship would be potions. Slughorn was a terrible teacher for a student who wanted to excel, and younger Snape would probably appreciate a teacher who had an understanding and passion for the subject, and would let him experiment. I also think that older Snape would be a much better teacher to his younger self than with a class full of students who mostly weren't interested. He doesn't seem like he ever wanted to be a teacher, but young Snape is probably the most interesting student he could have. He would follow instructions, pay attention, and would be genuinely interested in learning, and I think that interaction would have an impact on how both of them behave.
I think Snape is so insistent on being called "Sir" or "Professor", because when he started teaching, students who called him "Snape" weren't doing it out of carelessness or because they call every professor by their last name. They called him that because that's what they knew him as when he was a student.
He insists on it more than the other professors do because he had to get in the habit of correcting his students, and not allowing them to view him as a student.
No wonder Snape was so angry during occlumency lessons
We know that he used the pensieve before each lesson, putting his memories in, and then taking them back afterwards.
I don't think we get a lot of information about how the pensieve works. But it makes sense to assume that, to put a memory in, you have to think about it, or visualise it.
That means that, every Monday night, Snape had to think about all his worst memories. His childhood abuse and assault, his worst mistakes, and the crushing knowledge of how the war has to end.
Then, immediately after thinking about those memories, experiencing them again, and feeling those emotions again, he had to teach a very difficult skill to the person who looks identical to his childhood tormentor.
I've just started rereading HBP, and Spinner's End is such a fantastic chapter for so many reasons. But one of the highlights is the implication that Snape has been making Wormtail clean his house and bring him drinks. He might not have been able to get revenge against the rest of the Marauders, but at least he got Wormtail! I would love nothing more than to read that interaction.
My headcanon is that Severus is the type to have a very complicated coffee, with cream and sugar and caramel and almond and whatever else. It's similar to potion making in a way, and I think he would find comfort in the routine of measuring out and combining ingredients every morning.
I saw a post about this and it's been making me think. Neville's boggart takes the form of Snape, but I don't think his worst fear is Snape himself.
Look at Lupin's boggart. His takes the form of the full moon, which is rather ridiculous when you think about it. If boggarts were more literal, surely his worst fear would be himself in werewolf form, perhaps hurting someone he loves. But it isn't, it's just the actual moon. This makes me think that a lot of boggarts are more representative than literal. Lupin is scared of the moon, not because the actual moon is a threat, but because it represents his transformation.
I think the same logic can be applied to Neville's boggart. It takes the form of Snape, but what does Snape do that scares him? He points out his failures and shortcomings, mostly, and ridicules him for not being up to standard. We know that Neville struggles with magic in a lot of ways, and his parents are talked about like heroes in front of him constsntly. I think Neville's real worst dear is his own inadequacy. I think he's scared of never being a skilled wizard, of never growing into a man that his parents would be proud of. And Snape is the form that represents this fear because of how blunt he is about Neville's mistakes.
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