#snapes worst memory

[poitionsprince]

And if I said Remus Lupin...

[simon-snowing]

lupin chilling at the grimmaulds place when harry decides to use the floo powder to call out both sirius and him (since he is already there) for being brats and bullies,,, yeah harry's "im fifteen too!" when sirius tries to justify james' actions just cut so so deep

he is fifteen too and he never even thought about being a bully like that cause he knows what its like to be singled out and mistreated and how much he actually sympatizes with snape is crushing him,, the abuse parallels between harry and snape wow i am crying again

[iamnmbr3]

I reached the Snape's Worst Memory chapter. Honestly I find this to be one of the hardest things to read in the whole series. The protracted, wanton cruelty is awful - and especially horrifying is the way most people in the scene look on and do nothing, or laugh.

The fact that Snape can never just relax on a nice day. He has to hide himself in the shadows for fear of being attacked and tormented is so sad.

We know what kind of person Wormtail grew up to be and we see here that he was always attracted to hanging around powerful, cruel people who could provide him with sadistic entertainment. He traded James & Sirius for Voldemort once he got out of school of course. But I think it says a lot about the kind of people they were at the time. This wasn't an isolated incident that went especially far, but a regular type of entertainment.

It's really just sick what happens here. They're basically magically waterboarding him at this point. James is exactly the kind of person Harry would have stood up to if they'd gone to school at the same time. I mean after this memory he is so shaken he falls into a depression and wonders if James and Lily ended up together because he forced himself on her.

And to be clear I actually like the narrative potential of Harry discovering that the father he looked up to so much actually was the type of person he despises. I wish a bit more had been done with this though.

The fact that James takes out his frustration with Lily's rejection by tormenting and humiliating Snape more says a lot about him. I also think it's really interesting Sirius is the one who says "[i]f you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals" but he never really connects that sentiment with how he and James treated Snape.

(As an aside I will also never get why JKR thinks James and Sirius are redeemable for this behavior even though we never get to see anything in canon to prove that James or Sirius ever truly acknowledged the depth of how wrong what they did was or regretted it, but somehow she gets all mad at people for suggesting that Draco, who did canonically regret his actions and change his ways and who never did anything like this, was anything other than irredeemable.)

[lunar-skylar]

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I don't understand the argument that "SWM isn't reliable and could have been, or was, messed with to make the Marauders look bad."

Did Snape not literally take that memory out and set it aside so that Harry wouldn't see it at all? Why would he have tampered with it if he wasn't even expecting Harry to see it? And he was visibly upset that Harry had seen it, but if he had fabricated the whole thing, why would he be? It makes no sense.

[severussnapemylove]

TW; talk of sexual assault

———-

James Potter fans trying to defend him about SWM are seriously warped.

“But pantsing is common in schools.”

“But Snape was a mean teacher.”

There is no excuse for sexual assault! Forcibly and non-consensually removing someones clothing, indecently exposing someone, is a sexual assault.

So many Marauders fans need therapy, it’s frightening.

[ollywander]

I’ve noticed a phenomenon that I will call Marauders Amnesia. I was talking to a girl — I guess she’s a friend — who likes Snape, but also likes James. I mentioned James’ sexual assault of Snape, heavily detailed in the chapter “Snape’s Worst Memory” in book five, OotP. Despite having read the books (albeit a few years ago), and having seen the movies, she had zero recollection of this whatsoever. None! In complete denial. I described the incident and told her that it had even happened in the films. She was thoroughly confused. This is something I’ve noticed with a lot of Marauders fans. If they don’t excuse the Marauders actions, it’s because they straight up don’t remember it happening, although usually it’s a mix of both.

[hbpseverus]

okay, one thing about james. he is the only marauder (casting peter aside) who i just can't forgive. i like remus, and while i dislike sirius i can at least appreciate his strenghts and his good sides. but i can't forgive james for the swm incident and many people seem to have trouble understanding why this isolated event ruins his entire character. because i am willing to believe that he worked on himself and became a better person after hogwarts (mainly because i don't think lily would have ever married him otherwise). i completely believe that even at hogwarts, he was considered a likable person by many. that he was fun to be around and friendly to most. that he wasn't all bad or only a bully.

but here's the thing. there are things you only have to do once to be irredeemable, and what happened in snapes worst memory, to me, is one of those things. i do not care if james was an amazing person outside of this one incident. and i understand that everyone has different morals and that other people can forgive james - or not forgive severus. unlike james, severus got a chance to redeem himself and he took it. he was still a bully, but here's where my personal perception comes into play again. i had many awful teachers who were bullies and i know how much it sucks (in my country, teachers are insanely hard to get fired, meaning they truly can get away with almost anything including obvious discrimination). i can't justify his mistreatment of students, but to me his good sides outweigh it, so i can forgive and like him despite this flaw while others can not which is valid too. but sexual harassment is not something i can forgive no matter the circumstances or the person who did it. i would feel the same way if the roles had been reversed and james had been the victim - i wouldn't be a snape stan. ultimately we all have our own individual morals that play into how we perceive these complex characters.

tldr: it doesn't matter to me if james was a balanced character and a good person outside of swm because committing sexual harassment 'just once' is still one time too many and makes anyone permanently irredeemable in my eyes

[remusawoooo]

Snape's worst memory is so wrongly framed by fandom because it wasn't the incident with the marauders that was the worst part. It was unfair towards him, yes! But that alone never made it his worst memory at all. also, James and sirius didn't pick on him for being poor or abused? that's a complete hc. they didn't get along from the first train ride (house prejudices snowballing further and lily).

His worst memory is of lily finally breaking away. It's him letting slip a slur against the one person who was his actual friend. that's the point of swm

[halfblood-princes-crown]

Guys wtf-

Tell me why I just saw a post that said

"Since swm was his worst memory, that leads me to believe James didn't bully him that much"

Omg being waterboarded and stripped in front of a crowd while being taunted, mocked, AND losing your best friend is your worst memory? That's not that bad, your bullying was probably over exaggerated!

It was described as RELENTLESS bullying...

Imagine hypothetically that this was domestic abuse we were talking about. "Being stripped and tortured was your worst memory of the abuse? The abuse couldn't have been that bad then"

WHAAAAAAAATT!?

Imma keep it a buck, Snape haters out themselves as abuse apologists very frequently. Even when they "stand up for the bullied students" it's only to feed their anti Snape narratives, then they ignore the abuse their faves inflicted on others. I'll die on this rock happily.

[scarlicbread27]

WHO SAID THAT-

[snapeshuggy]

In SWM, we have this iconic monent:

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as he is. …”

“What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a — you-know-what!”

“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”

... In which Lily says James Potter is as bad as Severus Snape calling her a mudblood. And she expands on that, equating James being a show off, conceited, walking around and hexing people for trival cause is equal to calling Lily a mudblood. It doesn't seem like the insult from Snape meant that much to her by this comparison of it equalling petty silly teenage dunderheadedness that isn't even personal to Lily. Pissed her off, certainly. Hurt her? It doesn't seem so.

I contend that the "mudblood" moment was of little importance to Lily - it was only a trigger, a last straw, the final pebble to break this friendship. But to Severus, it was a mountain; he didn't understand or see what had been building on Lily's side and of course he hung the fallout on the tip of the iceberg that was all he could see.

That was mean of her. She had no obligation to stay his friend but given his apology attempt and their 7ish years of (best on his sidd) friendship, she cannot have not understood how big this was to him. She chose to kick him away instead of just shutting the door.

[yallthemwitches]

The "Official" Illustration of Snape's Worst Memory (Snape and Lily) by Jim Kay

Sorry it isn't the best quality, I had to do a lot of sneaky photo taking. Interested that A. this photo hasn't really been talked about in the community and B. that of all the illustrations of the book, THIS one was the hardest to track down online??? Anyways, here it is, the "Official" depiction of Lily (and Snape) as of the newest illustrated editions of HP.

Interested to hear thoughts ( as an aside I found it immensely disappointing he didn't illustrate the marauders...)

[chocoramo-cow]

Re read snapes worst memory and I just have to say holy shit dude the marauders were like actually pretty damn shitty to remus! Wtf you mean “i wish it was a full moon” when your friend who experiences extremely painful transformations which you have seen is right there! Immediately making haha werewolf jokes after the OWLs at your werewolf friend while other people were around???? Also fuck wormtail all my homies hate wormtail but you cannot convince me they didnt keep that boy around for ego feeding reasons (*cough* James *cough*) and on tap bullying (*cough cough* SIRIUS *cough cough*). Anyway James and Sirius were such douchebags and Remus deserved friends that didnt treat him like a novelty for having a horrible incurable disease. (That being said Sirius is still my little meow meow idc)

[lunar-skylar]

The people who say “well someone needed to do it” or “I would’ve done it too” when referring to what the Marauders did to Snape in SWM are so weird.

You shouldn’t/don’t need to be a Snape fan to understand what they did to him was wrong and distasteful (because it was, very much so). There’s quite literally no excuse here. They saw him alone and decided to go pick on him for the hell of it. You shouldn’t be proud of it and praising them for it. I mean, Harry himself was disturbed by it, and Sirius and Remus tell us that it wasn’t their proudest moment. So I don’t know why you guys are spinning it around to be a good thing, it’s not!

[i-drew-remus-lupin-again]

his hair is relly long in these...

[angelskysposts]

Every time I watch Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2 Snape's memories I cry... It's one of the most saddest scenes of all time... And the sad music makes me cry even more 😢😭🤧💔