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world, even those whom he dislikes. And he does this all undercover, pretending to be evil, accepting that he will live and die without the chance to defend himself and clear his name.
His story tells us that hope and greatness are for everybody, not only for those who have always been good. When we learn all the harm he did in his youth, we learn how to understand without excusing, how to give ourselves and others a second chance.
As an adult, he becomes, not attractive, but something. Potent. Magnetic. He commands attention. When he is brave, he is almost beautiful.
Working for Dumbledore, he learns how to atone. He chooses what is right, never what is easy. He assumes a thankless life that guarantees he will be universally hated, universally mistaken for evil, and resists the human urge to protest his innocence.
Of his many sacrifices, we see that the costliest was the renunciation of his human right to show his true self.
A seething brew of bitterness, spite, and lilting genius:
There is a narrative to be read here about the Slytherin teacher who zealously safeguards the morale of his first-year students, who walk into a school that sees them as villains. But it is obliterated by the appalling spectacle of an adult singling out one child and teaching the other students to mock him.
I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power
of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if
“Subtle science and exact art”:
the loneliness of the gifted.
For the rest of the series, when we see Snape endure unspeakable pressures, we can remember that he revealed his secret in this first speech: as long as he could sustain a soft simmer, whether in a cauldron or in his own mind, he had a limitless source of joy.
love, the magical term for what we Muggles call oxytocin,
and he will come to use that knowledge to stopper death.
Harry and Ron receive Snape’s speech in silence, but it has an incendiary effect on Hermione, establishing the curiously fraught dynamic between Snape and Hermione that could fill a separate book in itself.
the degree of bitterness is remarkable.
From every angle, this unreadable man is formidable, a terror as an enemy.
Snape’s is intricately designed to challenge the puzzle solver on several skills with the charming addition of potentially lethal consequences for incorrect guesses; perhaps they were Snape’s idea of a personal touch.
This is the child who understands the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron, needing nothing more than what’s in her own mind.
Another series theme takes shape: the line between hating your enemies and believing they deserve to die.
the reader’s experience of seeing fragmented explanations for Snape’s erratic, unpleasant
behavior, the mystery of how trustworthy adults can work with him despite his violations of common decency, is a potent reminder that this is how it feels to be a child in a world run by incomprehensible adults.
Lockhart is the opposite of Snape in just about every way. He is all surface, no substance.
This is one of Rowling’s most important themes: that empathy is the basis of powerful magic.
She discovers, though, that overwork and sleep deprivation lead to irritability and fits of temper. This will be a useful insight into Snape’s temperament as his workloads increase through the series.
Anytime you want to know where the story is, look at Snape. Snape is always the story, whether he wants to be or not,
Snape.” Lupin then instigates collective mockery of Snape using a sexist, ageist image that the students would never have come up with on their own.
Lupin has legitimized a form of hatred.
The momentum of group laughter makes it even harder for anyone with an objection to speak out and be heard.
Ask anyone who was singled out in adolescence by a crowd of 13-year-olds and mocked in a sexist, homophobic, or transphobic manner for being unattractive and sexually invalid.
Lupin’s actions have identifiable consequences, including retaliation against the student who is shouldering the credit or blame after obediently following Lupin’s instruction.
At 13, Harry does not yet understand the phenomenon of being genuinely helpful to a person for whom one feels enmity.
regardless of whether Snape and Hermione get along personally, they have the same kind of academic mind.
Insulting or not, for Hermione, a teacher who expects others to function at Hermione’s pace is a treasure. It is disappointing that, once again, Snape will not receive what she has to say.
made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too.
Harry and Snape draw conclusions about each other that are wrong and yet understandable based on the evidence.
In one thrillingly dreadful moment, Harry sees both the kind of words he’d love to say to Snape and the kind of insults that Snape used to endure from bullies who outnumbered him.
He put his shame above the safety of the students and above Dumbledore’s good name.
If you hurt or destroy an innocent being—or even a guilty being with their own untold side of the story—because you refuse to hear their appeal, this damage cannot be reversed.
This girl is as sharp as Snape in putting clues together.
But Snape hears that the life debt he owes James was actually a different kind, an action that says: I will risk my own life to save yours. It may have meant: Not even my enemy deserves to die this way.
When it seems to him that Dumbledore is once again siding with the Marauders, Snape’s memories of that long-ago betrayal push him toward insubordination.
It may be that the private Snape is a better man than the public persona Harry usually sees.
it is Lupin and not Snape who has disappointed Dumbledore.
extremists at either end of the spectrum may have more in common with each other than they do with most of their ideological allies.
There will come a point when he learns to hide his true self so deeply that he won’t show up in mirrors at all.
The image of a spiteful Snape blasting rosebushes is an instant classic. In Snape, Rowling has given English literature the very archetype of the grumpy teacher who needs to get laid.
You might not want him as your teacher, but this character is a literary treasure. When it comes to awfulness you can savor, Rowling’s Snape always delivers.
This is retaliation. It shows how powerless he feels. He feels his Slytherins are bullied and he has no hope of fairness toward them, so he indulges in petty revenge on a blameless teenage girl. It is excruciatingly embarrassing to watch, as well as cruel.
