kathyjaeger

[kathyjaeger]

[kathyjaeger]

I absolutely can't get over the fact Albus brought a fucking 21yo traumatised child to teach a dangerous obligatory subject and be a head of House. With some of his students being 18. He was a 21yo responsible for teaching and managing 18yo people. And Snape totally did it. He actually nailed it. Snape's house (that kinda just lost the war, in fact) started to win the house cup when Snape was 24 and kept the streak going for 7 (8 if we are fair and don't give Harry and Co points for breaking the rules) years.

I am so proud of him, you don't even understand.

[kathyjaeger]

There are Voldemort fans who acknowledge their favorite is evil, so why can't Snape fans do the same?

Because Snape wasn’t evil. He was a unpleasant person but being unpleasant isn’t the same than being evil my dear.

[kathyjaeger]

GET IT RIGHT

I like Snape both as a character AND AS A PERSON, GET IT RIGHT 🫵

[kathyjaeger]

So what you're saying is that you don't care if Snape mistreated people who likely had nothing to do with his bullying just because he was bullied? Or because you assume they might’ve been involved, even though there’s no actual evidence of that? You’re basically making up headcanons to excuse his actions. He had every right to harm the marauders but why should it be acceptable for other students to be on the receiving end of Snape’s anger?

What I'm saying is that your "likely had nothing to do" thing is just your headcanon and not confirmed canon, and considering the info we got from Sirius and Remus, it's not even a very likely interpretation, so you coming to me with accusations over a headcanon YOU have is totally irrelevant. Everyone who was in the backyard this day watched and did nothing, many laughed, and laughing at someone being forcibly undressed is sure worse than using a bad word.

[kathyjaeger]

At fifteen, Lily told Severus he was obsessed. That he should be grateful James saved him. That he needed to stop fixating.

Years later, she marries James.

And one day, she stumbles across a map that shows every student’s movements in real time. An invisibility cloak that lets you follow anyone, anywhere, unnoticed. And she learns Remus was a werewolf—had been for years, right there at school.

And maybe, just for a moment—just one— she feels the weight of that realization:

“He wasn’t obsessed. He was scared. He didn’t feel safe… and I didn’t listen.”

[kathyjaeger]

I’ll never stop being shocked by how some people excuse the fact that Severus was stripped, humiliated, and nearly murdered as a teenager by pointing to the fact that he later became an adult with a difficult personality. Like, do these people not understand the basic concept of cause and consequence? Do they not grasp how trauma shapes a person?

It’s astonishing how casually they erase the violence he endured in his formative years—systematic bullying, public humiliation, attempted murder—and somehow believe it’s justified or irrelevant just because he grew into a bitter, emotionally damaged adult. As if that personality came out of nowhere. As if social isolation, poverty, neglect, and abuse don’t leave a mark.

And what’s worse is that these same people will turn around and offer endless compassion to other characters whose traumas are more palatable to them. The fandom bends over backwards to defend their favourites, but when it comes to Severus, suddenly trauma doesn’t matter. Suddenly it’s all his fault.

This isn’t just about character interpretation, it reflects a broader issue in how society treats trauma survivors, especially those who are lower class, emotionally repressed, or don’t perform their pain in a way that’s comfortable to others. Severus was a working-class kid in a hostile environment, with no safety net, no support system, and no institutional protection. And to this day, people are still blaming him for how he turned out, rather than the structures and individuals that failed him and harmed him in the first place.

That’s not just bad reading comprehension. That’s a complete lack of class consciousness and emotional honesty.

[kathyjaeger]

“The Snape fans are always excusing his crap and trying to paint him as a good person, when the whole point is that he wasn’t a good person, he was a bad person who did some good things.”

No, sorry, but that passive-aggressive take is rubbish. Snape wasn’t a bad person, he was a person with a terrible attitude and a difficult personality, and that’s very different from being bad. We, his fans, are fully aware that he was insufferable, and we like him for that. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to attribute to him a kind of cruelty or wickedness that simply isn’t there.

Because a bad person doesn’t spend their life trying to make up for their mistakes. A bad person doesn’t give up their own life to repay a debt. A bad person doesn’t risk everything to protect people who constantly scorn him, distrust him, judge him, and throw dirt on his name. A bad person doesn’t die to help bring down the villains. That’s not what bad people do.

What makes Severus such a complex character isn’t that he was a bad man who did some good, it’s that he was a good man, deeply flawed, often harsh, and far from pleasant or likeable. And that, precisely, is what makes him so compelling.

[kathyjaeger]

How can Snape simultaneously be the cold, unfeeling friend who wouldn’t change his path for Lily even if it meant losing her forever and the pathetic stalker who revolved his entire life around her, abandoned everything else, and obsessively chased someone who didn’t love him back? Those aren’t just different narratives—they’re fundamentally incompatible. Unless, of course, the goal was never consistency. Just easier ways to hate him.

[kathyjaeger]

I like to think that because Snape rarely shows skin aside from his hands and face, that to everyone else every little sliver of Bare Sneep™ seems outrageously scandalous and lewd. Severus Snape has no idea whatsoever that the tiniest slip of his sleeve to expose the tiniest bit of his wrist gets the entire wizarding population scandalized and flustered, like a bunch of Victorian fools seeing a woman's ankle for the first time.

[kathyjaeger]

And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver-white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoof prints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped towards him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high. Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but at her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment, that they had arranged to meet. His impulse to shout for Hermione, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone. He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone ... At last, she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head towards him once more, and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he opened his lips to ask it, she vanished. Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, her burnished image was still imprinted on his retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he lowered his eyelids, disorientating him. Now fear came: her presence had meant safety.

Severus Snape y'all.

[kathyjaeger]

“And My Soul, Dumbledore?” — The Case for Snape Never Killing Before That Night

We often talk about The Prince’s Tale as the final reveal of Severus Snape’s true loyalties—but there’s a moment in that chapter that gets overshadowed by the big memories, the Patronus, the “Always.” And yet it might be the most damning and revealing line in the entire series.

It’s this:

“And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?”

Let’s sit with that for a second.

Snape is being asked to kill. Not for power, not for punishment, not for vengeance—but out of mercy. Dumbledore is dying. The end is already written. All he’s asking for is dignity.

And Snape balks.

He doesn’t recoil at the strategic risk. He doesn’t flinch at the morality of sparing Dumbledore’s life.

He flinches because of the possibility that this will damage his soul.

This isn’t the voice of a killer.

That one line unearths so much about who Snape is beneath the persona—beneath the spy, the double agent, the snarling teacher. It reveals that he has not taken a life before.

Because if he had? This would be a non-issue. He wouldn’t need to ask. The damage would already be done. The soul, already torn.

But instead, he stops and asks:

Will this be the thing that breaks me?

That’s the cry of a man standing on a line he hasn’t crossed.

And the fact that he still believes in the soul at all is deeply significant.

Let’s compare him to real killers in the series:

• Voldemort doesn’t flinch at murder—he does it for power, to fracture his soul on purpose.

• Bellatrix (and many other Death Eaters) kills for sport.

But Draco, when faced with the same choice, cannot do it. Harry, even in war, casts Expelliarmus.

And Snape—the supposed villain of the early books, the morally ambiguous double agent—asks if his soul will survive it.

He’s not worried about punishment. He’s worried about what killing will do to him.

That is not the thought process of a man with blood on his hands.

Dumbledore’s response is everything:

“You alone know whether it will harm your soul.”

Not “Your soul’s already lost.”

Not “It won’t make a difference.”

Not even “You have no choice.”

Dumbledore leaves it to him.

That means he believes Snape still has something to lose.

He wouldn’t ask this of someone whose soul was already fractured. He asks it of Snape because he knows this will be his first and only kill.

The implication is enormous.

This is a man who has done horrific things. He’s served Voldemort. He’s used dark magic. He’s endangered children.

But he has never killed. Not once.

And when he finally does, it’s to:

• Honour a dying man’s wishes.

• Spare a child’s soul (Draco’s).

• End suffering, not prolong it.

And even then, it tears at him.

So what does that make him?

A villain? An anti-hero? A deeply damaged man trying to atone? Maybe all of the above.

But not a murderer.

Not by choice. Not by pattern.

Just once. And it nearly breaks him.

[kathyjaeger]

"Harry also had a shitty childhood and was bullied, but he didn’t turn out like Snape."

True, because:

Harry found refuge at Hogwarts, where he felt welcomed, supported, and protected from the very beginning. Severus did not.

Harry had adult figures who protected him, cared about him (Hagrid, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius...), and showed him affection over the years. Severus did not.

Harry had two friends who would have torn apart anyone who dared to strip him in front of the entire school. Severus did not.

Harry and Malfoy had a rivalry because they were on equal footing. Severus was bullied by a group of guys who attacked him together and were far above him socially and economically.

Harry was rich—disgustingly rich, to be exact. Severus was disgustingly poor.

Harry felt loved from the moment Hagrid came for him just after his 11th birthday. Severus never felt loved in his entire damn life.

Harry was favored by Dumbledore and other school staff on multiple occasions. Dumbledore forced Severus to stay silent about an attempted murder against him.

Harry had choices. Severus had nothing.

[kathyjaeger]

Am I the only one who thinks Mitsuki wouldn't care that much about Orochimaru's past crimes? Like might be kind of surprised by some of the specifics but then goes "Huh. Interesting. Anyway-"

[kathyjaeger]

HBP Chapter 28 vs DH Chapter 32: right after Dumbledore’s death and a few moments before Snape’s.

[kathyjaeger]

Sometimes I think this fandom forgets that the Marauders and Snape are boomers. I just saw an "rip Lily Evans you would have loved Dolly Parton" post and like... Dolly Parton began her career in the 60s. Lily most definitely would have listened to "Jolene" as a 13 year old kid. And as a fanfic writer myself, I don't want to unnecessarily dunk on anyone's hard work, but it is a pet peeve of mine when I search for fics set in the Marauders era during the 1970s and the characters all sound like they are heavily involved in 2024 tumblr discourse. These kids would have never heard the term "genderfluid." They would call themselves transsexual or a butch dyke and there would be 212% more cigarette smoke, just everywhere. Fuck there was a designated smoking area at my boomer parents' high school for students and so long as the parents signed the permission slip the kids could go there and smoke. This was incredibly common (at least in American high schools) pre-1980s. Like, I can see the Evans family playing a game of lawn darts, Mr Evans with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in his mouth, throwing highly dangerous lawn darts that would eventually be recalled because of all the deaths it caused. Severus Snape had most certainly absorbed lead from the leaded paint in his house. Nobody was going to call the cops on any abuse they might see going on in the Snape's house because its the 1960/1970s and "how Mr. Snape disciplines his son is his business." War rationing had just ended 6 years before Snape, Lily, and the Marauders were born. Mental illness was extremely taboo, dyslexia wasn't really recognized in schools or talked about until the 1980s, after the Marauders had graduated, a lot of people were still calling PTSD "shell shock." For Muggles, there was no real DNA testing (it was in its infancy), no cellphones you had to pray there was a payphone nearby, and you wpuld talk to a telephone operator. It wasn't until 1966 that the UK switched to an all-digit telephone numbers. Before then instead of an area code it was a central office in every city/region that used letters. So if Lily, as a six year old girl, wanted to talk to her grandma in Manchester, her mother would have dialed something like MAN-9126 (I actually have no idea what Manchester's central office code was lol, this is just an example). Cokeworth is likely a Victorian mill town, and the major push to replace outdoor plumbing with indoor plumbing didn't start until the 1960s. Severus would have most likely spent his early years without indoor plumbing while living in a rowhouse built in the 1860s. Tubs would have had to be filled by hand, laundry scrubbed by hand and hung out to dry, he would have used an outdoor toilet and considering he is in a poor urban area he most likely would have shared this toilet with his neighbors in the other rowhouses.

These characters' story are shaped by the time they lived in, and sometimes I think the fandom doesn't realize how different the 1960s and 1970s really was.

[kathyjaeger]

Snape wears all that shit to hide the fact that he’s shredded