Severus Snape, who spent half of his life trying to appear posh and respectable.
But who cannot help the Midlands grit from his youth clawing up in his throat during sex. Something vulgar that would bleed despite his best efforts and cling to his tongue.
And he'd be ashamed of it until his partner tell him they love it.
"Y'want me raw like this? Bit o' gutter filth in yer bed?"
Raw.
The real him.
It would do something to him, to be accepted for who he was to his core. This rotten core he despised but could never ever get rid of. And it'd unleash/heal something in him because not having to pretend would feel so fookin' good.
This exchange between Snape and Bellatrix in the Spinner’s End chapter is SO interesting, because Bellatrix is doing exactly what she accuses Snape of here; just as Snape is avoiding Bellatrix’s last question, Bellatrix is avoiding the last thing Snape just said - avoiding acknowledging Sirius’s death and that she killed him.
It can be compared to many such dynamics of characters who unintentionally got their (biological or surrogate) family killed and blame themselves for it - Dumbledore avoiding speaking of Ariana, Snape avoiding speaking about Lily, and most prominently, Harry himself avoiding speaking of Sirius in the same book (“he did not like talking about Sirius if he could avoid it”).
Harry and Bellatrix mirror each other repeatedly in the Department of Mysteries battle, just as they both mirror Sirius (more in this in my meta “When Lily Cast Her Life As A Shield: Analysis of the Shield Charm”), which has several meanings and significant connections, but most relevant here - they are both Sirius’s family, they both get him killed. You could easily read this as both of them also grieving him in similar ways.
Also interesting is that Bellatrix’s murder of a family member (intended to be read as cold blooded by the author) is directly contrasted with the “last question” Snape is avoiding - Snape’s refusal to kill someone who is narratively framed as pseudo-family to him (though that of course changes later).
A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies...
never given this line much thought before but it fits with what Bellatrix says about Spinner's End being a "Muggle dunghill" and the dirty river etc, on top of the infamous collection of information in Two Up, Two Down post I love so much.
what follows is another moment for me of realising just how hard snape had it and the likely conditions he grew up in
he didn't have any older siblings (that we know about) to borrow clothes from, which was why he was in his parents' clothing; the fact that he wasn't loaned any clothes that fit marginally better or were even for boys from the neighbours suggests that the Snapes weren't particularly close to the other families, and i expect a large number of flies in the house (enough to be shooting down, enough to spot when harry only saw the memory fleetingly) suggests poor sanitation in the home
It's not just a case of Bellatrix being judgy about a Muggle neighbourhood, currently falling apart with houses on the cobbled streets boarded up and with broken windows, and a dirty, smelly river; Snape's home growing up was considered "a poor recommendation" even when he was a child. Two up, two down houses were, in that period (and even before) often falling apart, known for being unsanitary and unsafe, as well as damp and cramped together. they were never intended to be nice; they were thrown up so that workers could be near the factories, and that was about the only concern at the time
There's some really vivid descriptions of living in these sorts of houses around, but I've just found this one from facebook (with images I've added from flashbak.com):
The house had no electric supply and relied solely on gas for everything.
One wall in each room had one gas mantle fitted to it for light and when the mantle became faulty it would smell and the light would become less bright and eventually cease to do the job and need replacing.
There was a coal fire grate in each room but only the living room fire was kept lit to keep the costs down because although people worked long hours wages were low and money was in short supply.
In the kitchen the heat from the stove when cooking provided some warm that also made its way upstairs into the bedrooms.
During the winter months when the house was particularly cold overcoats were placed over the blankets on the beds for extra warmth for the children in the front bedroom. While the parents slept in the smaller back bedroom.
There was only one water tap in the house situated in the kitchen and the kettle or pans had to be filled when hot water was required. They were heated on the stove and because there was no bathroom the young children were washed in the large sink or a tin bath while others went to the public baths situated nearby, local to the area.
The toilet was in the back yard and was also unlit, leaving the gas light from the kitchen to light up the yard through the window.
Toilet paper was old newspapers that had been cut up into squares and made ready for use.
All flooring in the house was covered with lino with the exception of the living room that had a rug in the centre for comfort and to help prevent wear and tear. Since the end of the world war II there had been shortages and many households struggled to get basic food stuff and clothing.
The black market had been active for some years and those that had the money would get what they needed, while for those that had little depended on the rationing system introduced by the government to make sure that everyone got at least basic food stuff.
The I.D. card had been introduced because of the war and was proof of who you were and was used for the benefit of rationing. There were often queues at the butchers and many families got the scrag ends and scraps that were left over.
When it came to clothing, families would put aside what was worn by one child until the next child had grown enough to wear them and every item including shoes were cleaned and repaired if possible and put away and saved for later use.
In those days children at play preferred to play outside and regularly would play along the canal and the neighbourhood streets and alleyways. There were very few cars around and despite the unclean air from the surrounding factories they would play all day outside until they were called in.
In those days there were very little restrictions on pollution and it was normal to wake up in the mornings to smog that sometimes lasted all week. A real pea souper as they say
but like... imagine snape growing up there, like that, with no sense of community and parents who couldn't afford to or weren't able to care for him properly. this is so far beyond 'weasley poor' with their warm, cosy home and plenty to eat; this is gaunt poor, improper housing, and conditions that regularly made people ill
perhaps the Snapes had to rely on the black market to even eat enough, if they could afford it; I'm picturing chest infections and frost on the insides of the windows over the winters, and flies crawling in the house in the summers - and apparently limited use of magic at the time snape was growing up to rectify any of it, else the descriptions wouldn't be so consistently negative (and evocative) with a potential swarm of flies in his bedroom
(wonder if he was underage here, and using his wand since his mother would've had one, or whether it's a snippet of post-hogwarts snape; the next memory is of snape on a broomstick, so presumably that's at hogwarts, and he was underage in the fly memory, trapped/hiding/sulking in his room)
then he gets to hogwarts with the likes of the malfoys, who have a whole mansion and peacocks and house elves and can afford anything they want, and they look down on the weasleys and their comfortable one-'moderate'-income supporting a seven-child home as if they were cockroaches. what on earth would they have thought of snape, if they knew? he had factual knowledge of the magical world, but i doubt he had that "raised in the magical world" vibe they so desperately want to protect
What's your opinion on Lily's parents? I usually headcanon that Petunia's class prejudice towards Severus was something she learned from her parents, and that they weren't very enthusiastic about Lily and Severus' friendship and disapproved of Lily inviting Sev to their house (but considered that a better option that Lily spending time at Sev's in Spinner's End). I think they might have been especially concerned about it when Lily was in her teens, fearing that their friendship might develop into something else.
But this headcanon doesn't seem very popular in the HP fandom, even among Snape fans. Maybe they assume that because the Evanses are said to have been proud and loving parents to Lily, they couldn't possibily be prejudiced against a poor kid from a bad neighbourhood associating with their daughter. Most people, in fact, headcanon that they were actually kind to Severus, and in the past I even received hate from another Snape fan for expressing a less favorable opinion about the Evanses regarding their judgement of Severus. What do you think?
I’m not a Petunia defender because I do think she’s a horrible person, but let’s talk about Petunia before Harry.
First of all, she wasn’t just the older sister —which already comes with being seen as the responsible one, the one who’s “already raised” in the family dynamic— but specifically the older daughter with a younger sister who had powers. A younger sister who not only naturally got more attention for being the youngest, but who suddenly became “special” in a way that was completely unattainable for her. Let’s talk about Petunia spending most of her life with her parents, dealing with them, their problems, their dysfunctions, their arguments, fighting with them like any teenager would, living through both the good and the bad at home, while her sister was off living a magical life and only saw them during holidays. And when Lily came back, they probably put on their best faces, because when you see someone so rarely, you want everything to feel perfect.
So Petunia likely had to deal not only with being a “normal” kid —with everything that implies in terms of affection and attention— but also being the one who was always there, the one her parents saw every day. Meanwhile Lily became a kind of “novelty” because she was away at boarding school. Lily had stories and experiences her parents didn’t know, while Petunia’s daily life was completely familiar to them.
I think Lily had it easy in many ways, and that her parents were very loving toward her, which makes sense, because she represented something exceptional, and they didn’t have her around all the time. Meanwhile, I think they were probably emotionally neglectful with Petunia. They likely didn’t pay much attention to her, and she probably had far more conflicts with them.
It’s canon that Petunia leaves for London to work as a secretary, and considering both she and Lily marry young, it suggests they were raised with a traditional mindset centered on finding a good husband. So the fact that Petunia chose to work tells me she wanted to get out of Cokeworth as soon as possible and get away from her parents, which honestly makes perfect sense.
That said, I imagine the Evans as a typical lower middle-class family. Not wealthy enough for luxury holidays abroad, but comfortable enough for occasional trips within Britain, a decent house, and financial stability. They were probably born in the 1920s or 30s, so they likely had a very traditional upbringing. The father working, the mother a housewife, raising their daughters to secure a “good future,” which they equated with marrying well. And that tracks: both Lily and Petunia marry men who are socially above them. Vernon is solidly middle class, and James is basically aristocracy. Both sisters end up living above the means they were born into, not through inheritance or careers, but through marriage. That aligns perfectly with a worldview where a woman’s value is tied to her husband.
We also get hints about class dynamics: Petunia refers to “Snape’s boy from Spinner’s End,” which suggests both Tobias and that area had a bad reputation. That implies the Evans girls grew up in the “better” part of Cokeworth, while Spinner’s End was the rough area. And as often happens with people who aren’t poor but aren’t rich either, the Evans likely had a certain sense of superiority, a kind of class insecurity mixed with pride at being “better off” than those in worse conditions. So they probably spoke about that area —and people like Tobias— in a dismissive or negative way.
My headcanon isn’t that they despised Severus. If anything, they probably found the friendship somewhat acceptable because he turned out to be “special” too; a magical child. But I’m sure they didn’t exactly miss him when Lily started dating James, who wasn’t just special, but also wealthy and high-status.
I do think they were good parents to Lily and terrible ones to Petunia, and that this imbalance fueled her resentment. I’ve always thought that the way she overindulges Dudley is her way of overcompensating for how she felt growing up. Which suggests that, as a child, she probably saw Lily receive most of the attention while she had to fend for herself.
That said, defending the Evans feels pointless to me. Parents who raise a child who ends up feeling so displaced, invisible, and resentful that she mistreats her own nephew that way cannot have been good parents. If your daughter turns out like that —and she’s the one who was with you 24/7— you must have seriously messed up.
i don't think we talk enough about the fact, that in the spinner's end converstation, bella doesn't mind cissy betraying the dark lord, and it's clear she isn't about to snitch. with all of her loyalty to voldemort she shows a lot of care towards narcissa
I've read a lot about Snape's childhood growing up in a poor slum town in 60s/70s Britain (this thread has a good discussion on it), but I'm a visual person and nothing quite puts things in perspective like photos and video. I went down a researching rabbit hole tonight while looking for info for a fic I'm working on, and thought I'd share a few things I found. I didn't realize just how bad the poverty was in the UK at that time (Snape was born in 1960 and would have started Hogwarts in 1971), but holy heck do these give perspective on just how destitute his childhood probably was.
