Severus Snape Was Totes A Bad Guy
12th February 2015
Alas, poor Snape. Poor, hard-done-by, put-upon Snape. The kid from the poor family, the awkward nerd, the speccy, weird-looking kid, picked on by the popular, wealthy sports hero and spurned by his childhood love, who was so twisted by his suffering he could never allow people to see the great self-sacrifice his love led him to. The true hero of the Harry Potter books. *plaintive sigh, stares moodily out window, writes Snape poetry*
Except fuck it all. Because all that “Snape was a good guy working as a double-agent, striving for years to bring down the murderer of his true love” shit was a load of lies, from beginning to end. Harry was right, every time he swore Snape was scheming against him, even when his friends thought he was mental.
And I can prove it.
CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
In chronological order:
Is a total, utter shit to Harry Potter, consistently, starting from about five minutes after meeting him and to the end of the series. Unrelentingly. This is – we are told – the son of the woman Snape loved unceasingly from his childhood to this death; the child who has her eyes. The child for whom he goes undercover for years, risking exposure and death, and does things he finds questionable or terrifying, only so as to protect him. This child, he mocks, derides, squashes and harangues without the slightest provocation. And sure, he reminds him of horrible James Potter who bullied him at school (more on Snape’s memories later), but do you know what? Snape’s, what? Forties? He’s a professional adult. Things is, you leave that shit behind, and you certainly don’t feel the need to take it out on a prepubescent child.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
he’s attacking Harry’s self-esteem and keeping him off-balance for when the main man returns to finish the job he set out to do so many years ago.
Learns Quirrell’s plot to steal the Philosopher’s Stone and takes no action to prevent it, bar a little gentle threatening. At the very least – assuming at this point Snape still believes Voldemort to be dead and Quirrell’s goal is simply theft – it’d make sense to alert Dumbledore to the fact that one of the teachers set to guard the Stone is planning to steal it, and have it moved somewhere safer.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
Snape’s already been contacted by Voldemort and is complicit in the attempted theft, and the truncated conversation Harry overhears (“remember where your loyalties lie”) is to keep a scared Quirrell on mission.
Openly admits that if it were down to him, Harry and Ron “would both be expelled.” Okay, maybe hollow hyperbole, but this is what he says. And okay, they hugely broke school rules and everything, but he well knows that Dumbledore is certain Harry is in danger and needs to be kept safe at the school.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
that’s the whole point, and he would love to leave Harry out in the wild, unprotected, where Voldemort can get to him.
Deliberately works to expose Lupin’s condition to the children (and thus their worried parents) to get him removed. Okay, sure, Lupin was one of James Potter’s mates and he dislikes him, but Lupin was the voice of reason, even when James and Sirius were at their worst. Also, see above about “is an adult and should be putting this behind him.”
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
Voldemort is steadily planning his return and the completion of his prophecy, and Snape is ensuring that James’ old friends, who would no doubt be some of Harry’s most dedicated guardians, are at arms’ length. (Note also that he could have readily cleared Sirius’s name and fingered Pettigrew as a traitor, basically on the night the Potters died, but didn’t.)
Keen potions master, Dark Arts master and spy, yet fails to notice a) Barty Crouch under Imperius, b) Barty Crouch Jr. disguised as Mad-Eye, for a full year. Even when they’re specifically aware that there’s a probable threat in the school to look for, and eg. a new teacher has just arrived. Even when he realises someone’s stealing the components of Polyjuice Potion. And the new teacher’s regularly drinking from a hip flask.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
yeah, he knows. Even drops hints about how Harry’s name could have turned up in the Tournament draw, because he’s basically fucking with them all.
Fails to teach Harry Occlumens, in spite of being basically the best there is at it (on which, more below), eventually just ditching it without even asking Dumbledore to arrange another teacher. Okay, sure, the pensieve thing, the embarrassing memory (on which more later), and maybe there’s a clash of personalities here…
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
he’s deliberately sabotaging it. Harry even suspects – more than once – that Snape’s actually opening him up to Voldemort’s intrusions, and while this initially comes across as Harry’s basic teeny self-pity, considering how the story pans out, he could well be right.
Murders fucking Dumbledore. Let’s just put that at the top of the page in giant flashing lights, shall we? He straight-up enters into a magical-death-curse-oath thing to kill Harry’s main protector and the only credible threat to Voldemort, and then just fucking kills him.
Corrects Voldemort’s flawed intelligence as to when Harry will be moved from his parents’ house, when all he has to do is keep his trap shut. Okay, maybe he’s “convincing Voldemort to trust him,” because just fucking killing fucking Dumbledore isn’t enough.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
he really just wants Harry dead. Hell, he isn’t even expected to provide any information at this point, since his bridges with the Order of the Phoenix are thoroughly burned. Seriously, why would he do this if he’s still a functioning double-agent? How does it serve in any way? All it does is lead directly to the death of one of Potter’s closest protectors and damn near kills Harry himself.
CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
Note this is a shorter list.
Saves Harry twice, once from Quirrel’s hex on his broom and once from Lupinwolf. On both occasions, if he wanted Harry dead, he could have just let nature take its course.
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
assuming he even knows Voldemort’s alive at this point (I believe he probably does, per my suspicion above re: Quirrell), the Dark Lord is presumably already planning his body-B-back™ potion, and needs Harry intact. He’s probably also already laid down the law about Harry being his kill. Quirrell? Well… Quirrell’s not the sanest, is he? He could have just been having a pop in the confused belief that would make Voldemort happy, and Snape was sorting him out. Why else would Quirrell make the attempt at all, and why would Snape combat it so discreetly rather than just lamp him in front of everyone?
Promises Dumbledore he’s nice now, which is nice. Seriously, our second-biggest source of evidence for the Snape-as-nice-guy motif is Dumbledore telling us stuff than Snape told him. Dumbledore sometimes relays it to us – like his change of heart after discovering that the Prophecy relates to the Potters (not soon enough to save them, though, hah!) – and some of it, Dumbledore just tells us “He’s told me stuff and I trust him.”
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
Snape… lied? Maybe? Like maybe he’s really good at lying? Because he’s a double agent? Certainly he spends years lying to either Voldemort or Dumbledore, so it’s not a matter of whether he’s a liar, but to whom he’s lying.
Has lovely memories, which is also nice. So yeah, the number-one source of our information on what a great guy Snape secretly was all along was his own memories. So that’s good, right? You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to your own memory, can you?
UNLESS, PERHAPS…
…you totally can. Slughorn changed his own memories, and while he’s done it poorly (“clumsily,” as Dumbledore puts it), that just means it’s possible to do it well. Let’s see… who would be good at falsifying memories?
How about a world class master of Occlumens? Someone so skilled at deceiving others as to his thoughts and intentions that he consistently fools at least one (and potentially both) of the most powerful wizards in the world for more than fifteen years? Someone who was already inventing new Dark Arts spells in his teens? That guy?
So you can probably trust his memories of James Potter being a bully (although I have my suspicions; “Hey Harry, I’ll just leave this bowlful of memories that destroy your image of your father just here while I pop out for a minute”), and maybe his slightly creepy childhood infatuation with Lily. But the bit where he was helping Draco so he could “protect him”? The bit where he secretly gave Harry Gryffindor’s Sword?
The bit where Dumbledore asked him to kill him? You don’t find that even slightly convenient? “Yeah, I killed Dumbledore, but he totally asked me to; here’s my totally-not-faked memories of the conversation.”
So what if he’s seen the battle in Hogwarts standing on some sort of knife-edge, hashed together some fake memories that show him in a good light (and conveniently can’t be confirmed with anyone else, ’cause they’re all dead), and then when Voldemort snakes him to death and Harry turns up, figures, “whelp, I may as well use them since I got them ready.” Throws in the (real) memories of Dumbledore telling him how to kill Voldemort because fuck that guy, he’s just snaked me to death.
SUMMARY
There y’have it, m’luds. Either Snape’s a good guy, but an incompetent, small-minded prick – which doesn’t really gel with a guy who was able to suppress his feelings and lie to Voldemort for years – or he’s a card-carrying, Voldemort-adoring Death Eater who woulda got away with it too if it weren’t for you pesky kids.
Smart money’s on “bad guy.” If the wand fits, you must convict.