SNAPE equal to AWESOME by ficfandy

SNAPE equal to AWESOME by ficfandy
Essay for Snape Day
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SNAPE equal to AWESOME

For a start let this to be known to you: This essay is just a product of a 24-years old guy’s one hour break time. I know I’m a little biased about this very character but, all put aside, I write this through. Some parts will felt like very cliches, so... prepare yourself!



Now let’s start at the beginning. The beginning of a greasy-haired man, most-hated Hogwarts Professor for the first four book. A man named Severus Snape.



Okay. Now, let’s see. Snape got a heavy deal right before his Hogwarts time. Any boy that grew up in a broken family plus abusive home and still maintains a super drive of his sanity towards excellence and a big amount of ambition can be respected. And then he goes to Hogwarts, and got routinely treated like scum by the school 'popular boys' - James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter. And yet instead of cowering, he fought back - and for Pete’s sake, he did that on his own. He refused to take shit, he refused to be treated like scum.




Furthermore, let's consider his life in Slytherin: for all thoughts, intents and purposes, it probably was like a hell, because you can't tell me that with all their bloodline obsession they wouldn't have figured out Snape's not a pureblood as soon as possible. Sure, Sirius said that Snape was hanging around with a bunch of ‘Death Eaters boys’ or ‘bad boys’ in GoF, but let's look at that in a little more detail. Firstly, Sirius has tended to be an unreliable storyteller when it comes to their school days, and secondly, if all the Slytherins knew about Snape's bloodline and he STILL managed to be accepted by them, that means he must have shown some serious impressive skill and cunningness to get into their ranks.



Alright now let’s see this a little further: Snape is, unarguably, a genius. A prodigy of a wizard. He's one of the three wizards in the age of Canon who was cited with inventing his own spells - the other two being Dumbledore and Voldemort. Furthermore, he knew magic so well that he could:



1. Edit the contents of his textbook. Let's look more closely at this - the text was said being more than fifty years old when Harry received it. Trace it back, it would have been thirty years old when Snape used it. That's pretty impressive for him to being able to overrule thirty years of experimentation. (HBP)



2. He knew more about the subject materials than was ever expected on examinations, as shown during his OWLs (OotP). That mostly meant he either worked his ass off studying and becoming male Hermione or had an intuitive grasp of the subject material - or both.



3. He reportedly knew more curses than any other student at that time, according to Sirius. If we take Sirius' word as valid (a bit of a big if), and we take in the fact that in Snape's home, his father Tobias hated magic (DH and OotP) and would not have taken well to any spell books being stored in the tiny house (reminded you a bit about Vernon Dursley? Yeah, damn right), the fact that Snape could still get that kind of knowledge is quite remarkable.



4. Create new spells that could be cast regardless of any recognizable intent or emotion. We're talking about some powerful magic, cast without any driving emotion at all, witnessed by Harry's utter shock when Levicorpus and Sectumsempra turned out much more powerful than he ever imagined. Heck, the latter was nearly killed Draco Malfoy! (HBP)



5. Learn enough powerful magic to be accepted into Lord Voldemort's inner circle. Voldemort would have known of Snape's half-blood status, and the fact that he got all the way up to the inner circle of the Death Eaters would have required impressive skill. This also implies that since Voldemort used Snape as a spy, Snape would have learned Occlumency by that time as well - it makes sense, considering how intelligent Voldemort is and the necessary need for a spy to lie and protect his mind thoroughly. Then, the prophecy was given on a winter night before Harry's birth in 1980, this would have meant Snape learned the prophecy between 1979 and 1980 (HBP and DH) - when he was twenty years old - and he already got very strong Occlumency skills at those age.



6. He's the ONLY professor in Hogwarts that has ever been called a 'Master' of his profession (PS). Now although it's only mentioned in passing in the first book, let's take a look at this. At that point in his life, Snape is 31 years old, and is cited as a 'Master' in his field. At the very least, he's a respected Professor who has already been teaching for 10 years. That's pretty fucking respectable, particularly considering his age.



7. He becomes even Dumbledore's go-to person when it comes to the Dark Arts. That's right - the only person that Voldemort ever feared, the Head of Wizengamot, and member of International Wizarding Council, the most respected wizard in the world deferred to Snape when it comes to Dark magic (HBP and DH)



8. When the Ministry fell to Voldemort, Snape was appointed Headmaster of Hogwarts. Now that's pretty clear as glass of why Voldemort did it - Snape's an educator and a highly loyal and ruthless Death Eater. But let's look at this from a few more angles. First, as Neville testified to Harry, Hermione, and Ron, no students were ever died under Snape's watch (DH), and given the bloodthirsty tendencies that Amycus and Alecto have, that was pretty awesome. Second (and more interestingly), Hogwarts itself has the ability to deny access to the Headmaster's Office when it deems the Headmaster/Headmistress not legitimate. We saw that happened with Umbridge (OotP). And yet Snape was accepted. Did Dumbledore have something to do with that? Maybe, but I somehow doubt it. Even though Dumbledore was very good at his job, I don't think he had the power to order the ancient castle itself to accept Snape as a Headmaster for an entire year.



9. He can cast a Patronus Charm - a fully-formed Patronus Charm. I know, I know, that's not a big deal, but he's also a Death Eater, and from the comments Rowling has made in interviews (JKR interviews), despite mass amount of dark magic Snape has used, he can still cast that charm.



10. He's one of the two wizards in the world who can fly. Without a broom. I personally always imagine this as making him looked like Superman (DH book). The other one was Lord Voldemort.



11. He's good enough at Occlumency to block Voldemort of his head for all the time of his services - arguably one of the best Occlumens in the world.



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Okay, most cool things pretty much covered up. Now let’s move on: there are four things to be discussed when Snape comes up.



1. His treatment of Gryffindors and pretty much everyone he dislikes. Yeah, it's incredibly unprofessional - yet no teachers in Hogwarts call him on it. Okay, it's pretty disgusting he behaves like this in the classroom - yet Hermione still manages to pull top grades from him, regardless of his loathing of her. Even Harry manages to consistently pass the course, and Snape hates Harry with a passion (Book 1-5). I think it's more likely that Snape just hates incompetence in the Potions classroom and is too impatient to digest stupidity, and from everything we've seen, it's kind of normal. I mean, the he had to deal with classes of irreverent students who routinely cause highly dangerous accidents with toxic chemicals and concoctions - no wonder the he’s always on edge. As for hating stupidities and too impatient to digest idiocy... hey wait a minute, that sounds a hell lot like majority of college teachers the days, including my professor...



Ahem.

2. His treatment to Harry. It's explainable, and it's a very human flaw for Snape to have. James treated Snape like scum, and stole Lily away (I’ll talk more about her later). So for Snape to see him every day, behaving quite a bit like James, it must have been torture for the man. And let's go down the list: Snape saved Harry's life in first year.



In second year, Snape never treated Harry any worse, considering the fact that the school was actively deviling him for ‘being’ the Heir of Slytherin.



Then there's third year. Lupin's at the school - one of the bullies that made Snape's life hell, and who routinely sticks up for Harry regardless of Harry's behavior. Sure, we never actually SAW Lupin do anything to Snape, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen - he watched idly by in Snape's worst memory. For pete’s sake, he’s a Prefect! He should had stopped James and Sirius, no matter they were his buddies or not. And when Snape finally does snap at Harry during the Hogsmeade incident, upon retrospect, Snape was right. Snape's a disciplinarian, he followed the rules, and Harry kept flaunting them. He kept putting himself in danger with Sirius Black on the loose - remember, Lupin called Harry on this - and Harry doesn't show any single ion of remorse.



And then when Harry accused Snape, saying that James saved Snape's life, I'm inclined to support Snape here. That was a nasty prank that could quite have gotten Snape killed, and given what we saw James and Sirius behaving like when they was Harry's age, James was only covering his own ass. And then we have the famous scene in the Shrieking Shack (PoA). Keep in mind what Snape saw. Snape had no reason to believe that Lupin or Sirius are telling anything but lies, and let's face it, it's easy for him to justify that Lupin - a reasonably powerful wizard and also a Lycan - had Harry, Ron, and Hermione under his control. So yeah, he got caught by surprise and he didn’t believe anything Harry said, but why would he have any reason to, particularly when Sirius was goading him to attack? If anything, it would have made things a hell of a lot cleaner if Snape had held himself together and waited, but we've all had moments where we finally get a chance at revenge - and in Snape's mind, revenge against Sirius was righteous. No wonder he was pissed beyond everything when Sirius escaped, particularly when he guessed that Harry had something to do with it.



Nothing big really happened between Snape and Harry in GoF, so let's go straight to OotP.



Snape's undoubtedly under enormous pressure at that point - he's acting as a quadruple-agent, and still succeed to get around Umbridge. Now let's consider this - if he was actually running missions for the Order or Death Eaters while he's at Hogwarts, he was succeed in harassing a gazillion of security to do it, and that's pretty damn impressive. And so when Harry was thrust on him for Occlumency lessons, Snape's doing a job he hates with mutual animosity between himself and Harry, and while everything he did spectacularly unsuccessful, blame could be laid on both sets of shoulders here. Harry resoundingly doesn't try to clear his mind in the evenings (OotP) and refused to take the lessons with any degree of determinations, and as Snape had subzero patience for incompetence, it came out in his teaching. Take a bit of a closer look at Snape for a second here - he's trying to teach an unwilling hero boy (in his eyes) a very difficult magical branch that involving emotional control, which he had had to master to survive, and so when Harry refused to acknowledge the importance of the lessons, that's pretty frustating (trust me, it is. I’ve experienced it before).



Now we move to sixth year, where Harry's IQ drops into the negatives and he acts like a fucking smart ass to Snape. Snape gave him detention, and Dumbledore superseded it. Imagine how angry Snape would be with that. He had taken an Unbreakable Vow - meaning his very life was on the line - and he couldn’t even justifiably discipline a student without the Great Headmaster interfering, a Headmaster he's risking his life for.



Yeah, I stand behind Harry's punishment for using Sectumsempra against Malfoy. That spell is questionably dark magic, but it could have killed a student, and Harry chose to utilize it in a duel without knowing what it was. Snape didn’t know if Harry knows or not, but either way, Harry nearly killed Malfoy - a student whose life in inextricably tied to Snape's own. Remember, if Malfoy’s dead, Snape will also.



Finally, we have the seventh year... where Harry hardly interacts with Snape at all, and the only time they make any personal contact was when Snape was dying and following Dumbledore's last orders to give Harry all the memories he needs to off Voldemort. Yeah, loads of animosity there.



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I can’t continue this without discussing Lily, so here, let’s eat it all here.



First, let's clarify a few things: Snape came from a broken home, and it's unquestioned that he was not an attractive man (All Seven Books. JKR interviews. Harry Potter and Me). The second thing sucked for him - a lot. There's not much he could have done about his two problems.



His family didn’t have massive money, he didn’t have influence, the only thing he had for him was a load of intelligences and cunningness. Then one day he met Lily, and he fell for her. That's believable and natural. She was pretty, she was sweet, she liked him as a friend (it's debatable whether it's more than that), and for the first time, Snape's got somebody he can talk to and confide in. That means a lot to kids, especially considering the abusive that was going on at home, and the fact he couldn't likely confide in his parents.



After that, he went to Hogwarts, where he and Lily were sorted into opposite houses (DH). And Lily's with James, who hates and picks on Snape relentlessly. And yet for five years, amidst Voldemort's first rise to power, Snape and Lily remain friends across the border that separated their houses. Can you imagine the hell both of them probably went through for 'befriending with enemy'? (I can see Lucius Malfoy and James Potter, both of them, using those lines)



Then comes Snape's worst memory. Now I really can't forgive Snape for calling Lily a Mudblood - epically stupid decision on Snape's part. But is it any better when Lily called Snape 'Snivellus' - and then walks away, leaving Snape to be publicly humiliated. And then when Snape went to apologize, she blew him off? Not even a trace of forgiveness, friendship, everything was Snape's fault. Yeah, that was exactly what a physically unattractive, socially-awkward, mostly friendless, epically insecure sixteen-year old boy needs to hear from his best and likely only friend. Hell yeah.



Now, looks like like I'm the only one who was angry when Lily blew Snape off like that. Don’t anyone else thought someone else might have been pressuring Lily to be so cruel? It doesn't really seem like her, from the snippets I saw, from the descriptions of her that was cited by many people through the series, particularly to somebody who was supposed to be a close friend.



So let's jump the scenes and years. Snape just found out he's betrayed Lily to Voldemort - the only girl who has paid him a scrap of attention, he's now implicitly responsible in her upcoming death. Talk about tragedy, angst, self-blame, but what did he do? He ran straight to Dumbledore, and pleaded for them to be protected. And so Dumbledore protected Lily and James, and they still ended up dead. And in that moment, Dumbledore used Snape's grief and guilt, successfully gained a spy for life - and this was after Voldemort was already gone. And so Dumbledore kept Snape employed at Hogwarts.



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Now I've heard a million and a half times from every Snape-hating writer that Snape was weak and he should have just gotten over Lily and moved on. Come on! How was he supposed to do that when:



1. He's not attractive and he knows it (DH)



2. He's socially awkward and he doesn't have any true friends to help him. I hate to pile on sympathy for the guy, but he had hard teen life. Enough to put normal teenagers to guillotine their own heads if they were the one who experienced those life.



3. He's very introverted and despised failure, which makes him a very unenjoyable person for most people to get along with. And remember, he despised his own failure as well, so he's got a nice amount of self-loathing that he reinforces and justifies



4. After Lily's death, he is at Hogwarts - where, exactly, was he going to go out and meet new women? Who was going to accompany him? Where was he going to learn any of the social skills he needed, considering he pretty much didn’t have them at that point? Furthermore, I think many people are ignoring the massive label 'I WAS A DEATH EATER' that was well-publicized and would have hung over his head for years. Sure, Lucius has it too, but Lucius had money - what did Snape have?



5. He's bonded as a spy for Dumbledore for the rest of his life. Yeah, if everything else doesn't punch a man’s social life, I think this would. He was required to keep secrets for a living, secrets that could easily get anyone close to him killed very fast. Even if he wanted another relationship, his duties would stand stubbornly in his way.



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Move to this: Snape's death suck. Real suck! I am very disappointed with it. JK Rowling should have given one of her most developed and most human character a stronger exit - he totally deserved that. But even the best of us can be caught by surprise - and keep in mind, Voldemort is STILL one of the most powerful fucking wizards in the world - how could Snape have expected to survive if Voldemort told him his number was up and then sending a fucking, invulnerable snake flying at his face and bite his neck? The toxic clearly spread fast, how could Snape took them off, considering he could sealed the very dark magic in Dumbledore’s hand for a year? (note my sarcasm).



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And finally, the conclusion: Severus Snape got a very raw deal. But the fact that he managed to pull off everything he did and not get caught by Voldemort is pretty impressive. He had intelligence, brains, massive balls, and real Slytherin cunningness, all of them really applicable in his very jobs and life.



Personal note: if I encountered a man like Snape in the street, I would grin at him and shook his hand for being one of the most awesome man I ever know.