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@deathdaydungeon, @ th1syearsgirl

It’s interesting to see how people expect things to be because I for one would condemn Lily for daring to tell Severus what HE supposedly did even if they weren’t best friends. Hell they could be just classmates and I still would side eye the hell out of her.

Making judgments of a situation you were NOT in and going to berate/talk back to one of the parties of said situation without first listening to their version of their story is.... like how the hell does that sound?

Who without an obvious bias and a side of stubbornness and meanness doesn’t have enough decency to listen to all versions of a story before making a judgment? Especially when you intend to talk to one of the main parties about it.

I would expect that even less of a friend. I would expect that about someone with decency, or at least someone that doesn’t hate me.

Hell I could get philosophical and dip a toe in the concept of “testimony” and how people can  easily fall back to believing the randomest shit and claim to “know” something because they never bother to actually check for themselves.

But you can clearly see the bias here. The topic of discussion was not about Severus, the topic of discussion was about the things Lily claims to be and the things she ends up doing. But of course it’s easier to excuse her take on “friendships” because apparently Severus is so deserving of contempt for all the things he did that Lily obviously doesn’t have any moral obligation to honour her own word, not when it comes to Severus, right? Because he totally deserves it.

That’s why these posters jumped right on the train of explaining all the misdeeds Severus committed to somehow explain why Lily not only wouldn’t listen to his version of the story but why she “shouldn’t”, right?

It’s even funnier that they somehow mention Hermione because she still would ask Harry and Ron first before making judgments. HELL, if it came to that, she would be there right along with them breaking the rules, if canon is anything to go by. Which makes me question the validity of the Lily/Severus friendship. Not because Lily wouldn’t risk her life at eleven for Severus, but because she wouldn’t even give him the barest show of empathy.

The idea that Severus’ life was in actual danger was a non-issue for her. She clearly didn’t care about that. There was no concern about his well-being or the supposed threat to his life.

If my best friend came to me saying they did something incredibly stupid but they almost died, I would at least show some concern to the idea that they might have died, even if they didn’t. Meanwhile Lily only cared that Severus “broke the rules”.

Even Hermione wasn’t that sanguine.

And she probably did get the information from the Marauders, if not from any third party as J.K implicitly implied rumours travel fast at Hogwarts. Why would Dumbledore and McGonagall say anything to her? Why take for fact that she got the information from them when there is no evidence to it, and no logic to it either because again, why would the Headmaster and the Headmistress of Hogwarts bother to tell some random girl about something that had nothing to do with her?

One thing I don't get is how Lily took James word so easily against Snape's. The thing I got was that she thought he was stupidly sneaking around and James saved him from the goodness of his heart. She knows James bullies people and that he's a braggart. Why didn't she say "Sev, Potter was going on about how he saved you from something? What happened? Are you okay?" She was ready to believe the worst of him and was influenced by her house. People don't want to believe it but she had her flaws.

I’ve got to be honest, this is the thing that I find really difficult to deal with when it comes to the Potter series; I think I’ve written about it a few times before.

To be clear, this is not criticism of Lily for not continuing to be friends with Severus - it is more an investigation of ‘what was their status as friends’ during their years as friends.

I am uncertain as to how deep the friendship between Lily and Severus was.  I think it’s plausible to argue that it was very strong, and perhaps waned over the years as they drifted apart whilst at Hogwarts.  Equally, I think it’s also possible to argue that it was convenience, and Severus’ actions were a perfect excuse for Lily to finally wash her hands of him.

I think there are several other very plausible readings of their friendship - but the only one that I give zero credence to is the one we see in canon, where Lily reassures Severus that they are indeed best friends…because in that very scene, Lily proves that they’re not.

Of course, it is important to recognise and appreciate that by this point in canon, Severus was already behaving in a way that was causing Lily concern.  I think that no matter how strong their friendship had been previously, she was bothered by the people he was apparently socialising with, and given the way Severus throws the Marauders back at her as a retort, it seems that he probably felt the same about her.  It is clear that from both sides, they are being affected and led by others in their house.  By Snape’s Worst Memory, Severus has been using slurs to refer to Muggleborns and in this scene itself, we see that Lily has sided with James’ version of events.

As you say in your ask, and it’s something I’ve lamented before, I do not understand Lily’s reaction to the werewolf incident.  Importantly, it is very plausible that Severus didn’t explain to Lily the depth of how the Marauders were bullying him - it’s perhaps logical to think that she only knew that James et al were generally troublemakers, and she didn’t know that the extent of their behaviour towards Severus.  …because Lily berates Severus for not being grateful that his bully saved him from ‘whatever’s down there’ by the Whomping Willow.

Something doesn’t quite add up.  If that was my best friend, I wouldn’t have waited a few days to catch up with him to see if he was ok.  I wouldn’t berate him not being grateful at being saved; I would’ve been concerned about his health and wellbeing.  …if that was my best friend, I would’ve been asking him for his version of events, and not relying on information from people I know he - at best! - dislikes.

The fact that Lily does none of that suggests to me that they’re not best friends at all, despite her early platitudes.  She has already pitched her wagon to Gryffindor and James by taking his version of events as gospel.  In itself, that’s not a crime.  It is, perhaps, unfortunate that she does so in the same conversation where she assures Severus that she’s his best friend, because her actions speak louder than words.  Of course, what’s most pitiful of all is that Severus doesn’t seem to register any of this - he has so few frames of reference for friendship, love and appreciation that he doesn’t seem to question Lily’s reaction and see it for what it was.

Lily didn’t have to be Severus’ friend; when you’re friends with someone, it doesn’t mean a lifelong commitment to be their friend forever, and I think given the circumstances (the background of war, the rise of the Death Eater rhetoric, the animosity between Gryffindor and Slytherin), their friendship didn’t have a chance.

However, all that considered, I think that whilst it’s important to recognise that Severus’ behaviour wasn’t stellar and Lily was within her rights to call the friendship off, it’s equally important to recognise that Lily’s own behaviour was hardly wonderful - it’s just that Severus has no grounding to recognise it, and be able to call her on it.

Best friends?  Quite possibly in the past.  At that point in time?  Most definitely not.

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reason #1 why snape haters are wrong

its professor snape, not antifessor snape

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                                              “LIly? After all this time?”                                                             “Always” 

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Severus Snape Headcanons.

- He has dimples.

- His teeth are crooked and yellowed but the rare time he smiles, you know he has a really nice smile. Not too much gums, a nice curve to his lips.

- His lips are overall thin but his lower lip is plumper.

- He has long eye lashes.

- My head canon of him is descendant of Spaniards, which in turn have ancestry from the Middle East. I imagine he is super pale but with a yellowish/warm undertone.

- He is bisexual.

- He has awesome eyebrows. Bushy but sharp and formed for maximum sarcastic/snarky use.

- He looks older for his age, but his eyes still showcase how young he actually was. He has a few more lines across his forehead and his smile lines because of his scowls and his frowns, but he doesn’t have crow’s feet because he never smiled much.

- He likes classical and rock music.

- He denies liking beer, as denial of his lower working class upbringing.

- He always wanted to be poised, elegant and cool, but he knows he isn’t, even after he does something petty or vindictive. He knows he is not a nice person, but he prides himself in his self-awareness.

- Around the 1980′s, right after Voldemort “fell”, he put on some weight, at least enough to marvel at his soft tummy. Not pulled tight over his bones anymore.

- He secretly liked his wiry arms from Potion making.

- He took a lot of self-made potions to care for his gastritis, result of stress, his lack of eating, etc.

- He knows it was his Wizarding bloodline that kept his hair abundant, instead of becoming bald from the emotional, physical and mental pressure. Especially because he never really groomed himself, nor did he care to, much.

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commission for BlacKety, an illustration to russian snarry-fic written by Doriana Grey

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Fic Rec: A Good Buy by Minx.

Title: A Good Buy.

Author: Minx.

Status: Complete. One-shot.

Word Count: 9k+

Summary: The Gryffindors hold a slave auction. Guess who buys Harry?

Genre: Romance.

Warnings: Harry is still in school. Chan 16-18.

Themes: UST.

Narrative: Minx has this way of making everything really sweet and tingle and then super sexed/erotic/hot. But the transitions are never jarring. On the contrary *cough*

Brief Character Breakdown: Well, what can one expect of a really old story with almost to no background information on Severus Snape? Severus is decidedly mellow here, in comparison to other stories, and certainly in comparison to canon!Severus. But there is still this air of mystery and stoicism that surrounds him. It’s just that the usual slow-burn personality we come to love is watered down. He is more poised and elegant here. Too well put together, too sexy and brooding. But other people might like that? This Harry certainly did.

Shout out to Harry here too. He is more energetic and snarky. Something that I think not many people know how to exploit about Harry. He is just so wonderfully complex. Selfless but jaded and sarcastic, with a dash of darkness hanging there. Harry is all of those things here.

My Opinion: This is my nostalgia talking but A Good Buy was one of the first Snarry one-shots I read, and it holds a dear place in my heart so I can’t see much fault in it. It’s super cute, and it’s really sexy. Minx is just really good and writing porn so.... there is that. If you like that kinda of thing, which I do.

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Fic Rec: Pantogogue by BC.

Fic: Pantogogue.

Author: BC.

Status: Complete.

Word Count: 136+

Summary:  Potter is changing in front of my eyes, gaining a disconcerting resemblance to Tom Riddle. As usual, it falls to me to save the brat… for the price of ‘only’ my soul.

Themes/Genres/Warnings:  (spoiler free) Dark!Harry. Plenty of violence, maybe a little bit of psychological horror, although it’s not “in your face”. Still, read with caution if easily triggered. Depression, self-destructing introspection, I think are part of the biggest vehicles of the story. Also, back when I first read it, I read a few comments saying the narrative showed the author’s first language was not English. Because my native language is not English either, I thought I should add that in. I read it again a few years and a CPE certificate later, but no better than a native to judge, still found no problem with it though.

Another warning I should point out for people that are looking for specific fics: this is basically a pre-Snarry fic. Them getting together doesn’t happen almost until the end, if you are willing to read even if they aren’t rounding each other since the beginning, I promise it’s worth your while.

From the author themselves: slash, chan, sexual situations, strong language, suicidal tendencies, violence, character death, attempted non-con, Dumbledore bashing, Lupin bashing, light McGonagall bashing (it is Sev’s POV).

Narrative: Maybe should include this in warnings, but it is in first person POV, which I know is a little bit of a pet peeve for a lot of people. I still found no issue with it, otherwise I wouldn’t be recommending it :P The narrative I think is marvellous. I tend to like stories that are in the middle when it comes to description, and this is excellent. Not maudlin, but not dry either. The narrative is constantly washed with darkness, and the author does a good job of it, especially because as far as I remember, the entirety of it is from Severus’ POV, which makes it trickier. There are certain narrative turns and phrases that are very poignant, which I think are important to engage readers. 

Dark!Harry is quite an oddity here. I still don’t know how to describe him, but I feel that that element is used very weirdly here. If people asked me how, I don’t know how I would answer to that, but I’m in love with it. Both Severus and Harry are deeply damaged people with their hearts in the right place, so the author lays that on thick. 

Character breakdown: All characters have a certain appeal to them, and it is enhanced and made clear by Severus’ perspective on things. I found him, the central part of the story, decidedly dark but oddly vulnerable. There is no tenderness in his character, but there is something definitely soft about him. Or maybe weak?. It IS a dark fic, and considerably depressing, so maybe that’s where it comes from. But in a “fog in a swamp” way. Feels cold, and slimy, but also a little muted, melancholy. All characters are lovely, and have very well made developments even in Severus’ partial views of them. 

My opinion: One of the main reasons I needed to make this archive heavy blog. Awfully underrated along the lines of Unwell. Probably even more. I have read it three times, and all times I loved it. 

Spin-off/Side-story: Metamorphosis at Dawn.

It’s not necessary to read this one to understand Pantogogue, but it is the only instalment where we get to see Harry’s POV, and I think it makes the story richer, if a little more frustrating (in a good way). It is Bill/Harry though. Still utterly beautiful. And helps explain some of the most beautiful literary ideas I’ve seen regarding Charlie and Bill Weasley. Truly stunning.

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Snape Appreciation Month - Appearance - Submitted by plutoplex

In my mind, Snape cares about how he is perceived, but doesn’t give a damn about what he looks like.

Or, to put it another way, he cares about how people think of him, but not about his physical appearance.

Sometimes, I think of him as tall (6 feet or so).  He is an inch or two shorter than Sirius, who uses that extra height as part of his attempts to intimidate Snape.  Sometimes, though, I think that Snape is only average height, but that he seems taller due to his presence.

Always, I imagine him being thin.  As a child, he was scrawny and undernourished.  As a Hogwarts student, he grew to fear eating in the Great Hall due to pranks from the Mauraders, and never managed to gain much weight.  During the first war, when he was still a loyal Death Eater, he was ironically healthier, becoming merely thin.  Once he became a spy, he lost weight from the stress, becoming more and more gaunt as the war went on.  Lily’s death sunk him further into depression, and he continued to lose weight.

Intervention from Dumbledore eventually got him eating again, but he never managed to fully regain the healthy weight from his early Death Eater days.  When Sirius escaped from Azkaban and Lupin came to teach, the stress caused Snape to lose most of his appetite.  Lupin leaving at the end of the year didn’t help, since his Dark Mark began returning shortly thereafter.  When Voldemort returned, some of the Death Eaters had to expand their old uniforms.  Snape was the only one who had to shrink his.  Voldemort noticed, and punished anyone who had to modify their robes for not keeping in fighting shape during his absence.  Even so, Snape kept losing weight.  By the time he died, he was emaciated.

Snape’s hair is lank and shoulder-length, and it is greasy.  As much as I like the “potions fumes” explanation, I have difficulty believing that – in however many centuries potions masters have been at work – not one of them has managed to create a working shampoo or fume-protector.  I therefore lean more towards the “can’t be bothered to clean it” explanation.  It takes more time and effort than he feels it’s worth, and he has more important things to deal with.

Similarly, his teeth are crooked and yellow.  He could fix them (again, the “working shampoo” issue works for toothpaste as well).  He doesn’t bother.  A cleaning charm takes less time.  So long as his teeth are reasonably healthy, he doesn’t care what they look like.

His skin is sallow.  Sometimes, I read this as a reference to some non-European heritage (along with his nose).  Sometimes, I read this as “extreme Vitamin D deficiency.”  Sometimes, I read this as jaundice.  Perhaps he, like Tobias, drowned too many of his troubles in alcohol.  Perhaps he suffers from liver damage from some other cause (a curse? potions side effect?).

He has scars.  Some are from Tobias, some are from the Marauders, some are from Voldemort and the Death Eaters.  Some are from himself.  He wears robes that cover as much skin as possible to hide them.

His eyes are black.  Not dark brown, but a true black.

His nose appears too large for his face.  It is hooked.  Usually, I imagine that this is hereditary (Tobias also has a hooked nose).  More rarely, I imagine he once had a straight nose that was broken too many times before Hogwarts and never healed properly.

He cares more about the state of his clothing than the state of his person.  Immaculate, well-tailored clothing makes him feel like he escaped from Spinner’s End, at least somewhat.

Maybe Snape knows that he would look better if he took more care with his appearance (washing his hair, whitening his teeth, etc.), but he feels the time spent is too extreme for everyday care (like Hermione’s comments on sleakeazy after the Yule Ball).  Maybe he tried once, but the best he managed was to appear homely.  He decided that if he couldn’t be at least average-looking, there was no point in trying.  Maybe he is simply too afraid to try.  Maybe he just doesn’t care at all.  Maybe he thinks that anyone who bothers seeing past his exterior is worthwhile, as so few do.

Regardless, to me at least, the most important point of his appearance is this: Snape is ugly.  As fans, it’s too easy to make him “not conventionally handsome, but still compelling” or “attractive in his own way.”  We like him, therefore he is not ugly.  But I think it’s important that, no, he is unattractive.  It’s too easy to fall into the trap of “heroes are attractive, therefore Snape must be, too.”

But let this hero be ugly.  Let there be little to recommend about his appearance.  Let that not matter.

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Why Severus would love Rickman’s Snape

I rarely talk about Alan Rickman as Snape, because I tend to discuss the books, and I treat the films as their own canon; equally valid, but fundamentally different.  But given Rickman’s passing this week, and given that he was one of my favourite actors, I feel it only right to comment on what he brought to the role of Severus Snape.  The biggest disappointment for me with Rickman’s Snape is his sheer lack of screen time.  I struggle to understand the logic behind having such a talented actor and not making the most of him. Still, the most perfect part of Rickman’s Snape is his voice:  smooth, silky, dangerous.  Based on those descriptions, there’s no other person you’d think of casting.  Yet Rickman is far too old for Snape.  But more than that - he’s too handsome, too suave, too sophisticated.  He plays Snape as an emotionally closeted man; his feelings rarely exposed, and his entire persona is literally and figuratively buttoned up.  And that’s not how I read Snape in the books.  Snape is a thin young man with greasy hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin (although this happens with all of the characters in film; they’re always more attractive onscreen). 

As much as Snape clearly keeps his emotions on a tight string when before Voldemort, he’s utterly explosive in other scenarios.  He’s an insecure mess who doesn’t fit in anywhere, who is manipulated from every angle - and when he tries to direct a situation, he’s usually undermined or ridiculed.  But the thing that struck me with Rickman’s Snape is that he plays Severus with aplomb, and gives him gravitas.  He’s composed, feared and controls situations effortlessly.  He might be a myriad of emotions beneath the surface, but barely anyone is able to peer past his cool demeanour. Rickman’s success, for me, is a rather idealised version of Snape.  He grabs the essence of the character, and brings him to the screen in a very plausible manner.  Indeed, if Severus were real and sat in the pub discussing who should play him in his life story, you can’t help but feel that Severus would feel a little smug thinking that Rickman was the man for the job. Rickman’s Snape is the Snape that book Severus would aspire to be.  And that’s a brilliant interpretation to watch.

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“My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. If not always in the ways we expect". 

Make me choose Anonymous asked: Hermione or Luna?

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from 2015

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Fic Red: Outside the Lines by Meri.

Title: Outside the Lines.

Author: Meri.

Status: Complete.

Word Count: 70k+

Summary: Snape is willing to do anything to be free of the Dark Lord.

Genre: Romance.

Warnings: Forced sex on both ends? Both say yes but don’t want to... at first.

Themes: Surrender.

Narrative: Meri has this way of narrative that might seem a little clunky, but it adds a certain flavour to the story. It’s not overly poetic, but there is something about the tone and pacing that adds an edge to the story, rather than leaving it bare in random patches, hence why it might feel clunky at first. Then you realise it’s a stylistic choice. It stands out because of that. There is overall, a very specific feeling with her stories, and you get to know when Meri is the author of something you read, which I think it’s amazing.

Brief Character Breakdown: The whole story could well be a Porn With Plot. But there is something in the way each scene is handled, and curated, that you can’t help notice more where it transcends outside the bedroom. Where the shift of “grudgingly good sex” to “holy shit i’m craving this” happens, and the things outside of the main plot that help shift the whole focus of their relationship, and their place to destroy Voldemort, all tying back together with the simple act of having sex for power.

My Opinion: This is just brilliant. Again it could well be just Porn With Plot, but it’s much more than that. I’m particularly fond of Meri’s Golden Trio. They are always so nuanced and complex with this underlying sweetness to them you can almost taste. A shout out to Meri’s Ron in particular.

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perfectly timed for snape appreciation month 🙌

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Harry Potter A-Z Challenge | ozzzymandius vs ibuzoo ↳ K → Knights of Walpurgis

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REMINDER that tumblr is not indicative of how everyone feels about Snape! 

This is about the same percentage in favor of Snape as the last time they had a poll about him. It just feels like everyone hates him because they’re so loud and angry about it, but the Haters are the minority!