Severus Tobias Snape
Who is he?
Snape is a character from the Harry Potter franchise. He's often a red herring antagonist throuout the series, he's one of the better written characters in the books (although the movies gave him insane PR).
He was born sometime in early 1960 (1-9-60, makes him a capricorn) and died at 38 in '98. (5-2-98) He was raised in Cokeworth, in a poverty sticken neighborhood beside a mill. By the time he's an adult, he doesn't really live there most of the year.
Describing his character consisely is reductive. He is a bitter old man, and while taking on great personal sacrifice to help Harry, is pound for pound the most vindictive dickhead in the franchise. (his only rival in this regard is Umbridge.)
He is a double agent for Albus Dumbledore, feeding selective information to both the Death Eaters and The Order of the Phoenix. Ultimately his loyalties had always remained in one place, with his first love (unrequited) Lily Evans. He had no intention of siding with Voldemort, and he later dies when his betrayal is uncovered.
Why do I find him Interesting?
My interest began really young, I had watched the films pretty young (as all kids did) and i'm not ashamed to admit that I thought that Alan Rickman's performance was got me invested initally. When I actually got around to reading the books, I love-hated him? He's comically petty, and is actively getting huffy with 11 year olds. Half Blood Prince got my ass in a chokehold as I had a thing (still do) for misunderstood antagonists. I saw alot of my own angst in him, corny as it is? I was really misanthropic in middle and highschool, I had maybe two friends and I was convinced that people were fundementally cruel and apathetic. (Cringe) So having a character who was ALSO bullied AND who displayed a general distaste for people? sign me UP!
Any romantic fixation developed late highschool, but I've recently rediscovered affection for him in my 20's. Still a Love-Hate thing actually, I find him genuinely pathetic as a person. I would HATE to know a guy like him, but theres also a sorta relatability I have for him from my own experiences. He's my fictional stress ball for angst ideas or more developed headcanons I have for HP. (I find the sandbox of the universe infinitely more interesting than I find the actual writing.)
Headcanons, ideas and AUs
Headcanons
Headcanons i have regarding Severus, mixed bag of homelife and small habits.
- Closeted Bisexual
- Wheezes and snores in his sleep
- Repeated Cruciatus Curse Exposure has led to chronic nerve pain, which he self medicates for using a backlog of potions he's prepared for himself.
- This resulted in a resistance to some variations of pain killers. (he's taken to having a revolving schedule of various potions to combat against developing further resistance.)
Concepts
- Snape's relationship with femininity is so interesting to me. He has feminine attributes, not even centering on his hair. He exists as a kinda caricature of what a witch would be; an older bitter hag with a hook nose and who toils over a bubbling cauldron in black robes. It's obviously not super inntentional, considering the author, but it lets me float aroud ideas of Snape being queer in various ways.
- His homelife! We get like nothing on it. Harry has absolutely no way of ever seeing Spinner's End, so what we have is the small scene at the beginning of HBP. I feel the poverty Snape lived through is often overlooked in fan depictions, you can't undo behaviors like food and item insecurity. Ideas of Snape getting a deeper understanding of how to use every part of an ingredient, if only so that he'd reduce the cost of waste for when he graduated.
AUs
- High Fantasy AU: Snape is the court potions master, and is Actually trying not to poison the crown prince. (Harry who was chosen sword in the stone style)
