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that preternaturally perceptive Gryffindor girl who reads Snape too correctly for his comfort?
She gets her teeth fixed and goes on to be the belle of the Yule Ball in Cinderella style, dating a surly, large-nosed, gifted wizard who has not forfeited his right to romance in life.
The mark hidden under his clothing no longer mirrors who he is on the inside, but for those who see it or know that it’s there, it does reflect who he truly used to be.
conversation between a helpful man who wants to hurt Harry and a hateful man who wants to protect Harry,
The defense that Snape taught thus becomes Harry’s signature magic.
From this point in the story until the day he dies, Snape is going to have to apply the same standards of subtlety in guiding students against Voldemort and his followers.
That is a rather weighty equation. In Dumbledore’s eyes, Snape has had a true self all along that is no more like that public image than Sirius Black is actually a dog.
Snape may be alone, but there are others who are thinking about what he’s doing, and by including these silences from two of the series’ most insightful characters, the author signals that the reader should, too.
Like Dumbledore, Voldemort would have found that there are some things only Snape can do.
In his absence, the reader sees Harry experience many of the emotions that we have seen in Snape.
In an almost unbearable show of immaturity, these two men in their mid-thirties name-call each other like children, leaving the actual child in the room to hold them apart.
he regresses to taunting Sirius about something that Gryffindors find intolerable: forced inactivity during crisis.
“I am about to attempt to break into your mind,” said Snape softly. “We are going to see how well you resist. I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. . . . You will find that similar powers are needed for this. . . . Brace yourself, now. . . . Legilimens!”
Blanket permission for Harry to use his wand against Snape. Acknowledgment of one of Harry’s strengths, in a manner that is useful for the lesson. This is what it looks like when Snape actually teaches Harry magic. It’s a private lesson tailored to him because he needs the protection, delivered as sincerely as Lupin’s Patronus tutoring.
A compliment. Snape has paid Harry a compliment. In his own negative way, of course, but still. “For a first attempt that was not as poor as it might have been” is high praise when it’s from Severus Snape to Harry Potter.
Harry has physically hurt Snape, and Snape is not angry. He meant it when he said Harry could defend himself in any way. He has seen flashes of Harry’s memories; he has seen the pathos, and he is curious. Jealousy: Snape understands that feeling. Child abuse from people whom, as Rowling hints in this volume, Snape has actually met. So Harry didn’t exactly have the “famous Harry Potter” arrogant childhood Snape has long assumed. So the Sorting Hat considered Slytherin for Harry; Snape didn’t know that before. That would have been interesting, perhaps not in a good way. Hermione: never mind
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That’s more thought than Snape has ever given to the real Harry Potter.
He is responding sharply and with anger, the way he always responds when he is anxious because someone is not adequately defended.
For once, Snape can tell the truth. It gives Snape that “curious, almost satisfied expression.” He has been seen.
faith. Meanwhile, Harry is adjusting to his newly mature power to see the humanity of an authority figure he dislikes.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix provides young readers with extraordinarily precise insight into the thinking of tyrants.
Rowling is showing that it was Snape’s own response to Lily that makes this his worst memory. His shame is one reason why he orders Harry not to tell anyone what he saw.
We don’t know yet that Lily knew and loved Snape before his eyes turned dark and cold and Occluded. Lily saw his true self; she knew how to read the person who became this inscrutable man.
The unnamed force in this oft-quoted passage is “love,” true, but it is a specific sort of love: protectiveness. It need not contain affection, although affection, empathy, intimacy, romance, and gratitude are among the things that strengthen it. Snape uses this force to hide his protection of Harry from Voldemort, who would not be able to understand why anyone would protect a person they truly dislike. This is what powers Snape’s Occlumency.
It’s as if he’s gone back in time. Slughorn is back. Voldemort is back. A young man takes the Dark Mark and will never be able to remove it. Potter wins at Quidditch and dates a redheaded girl. Snape’s old Potions book resurfaces, and along with it, the Dark Magic spells he invented in his teens. And just below the surface of the story, never mentioned but nearly tangible, is the haunting memory of his ruined friendship with Lily Evans.
There will be nobody left alive who knows Snape’s true self.
“You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realized how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. I believe it to be the greatest regret of his life.
For Narcissa, class distinctions, wealth, and blood status mean nothing anymore compared to the qualities in Snape that she needs: his cleverness, his long friendship with Lucius, Draco’s respect for him, the trust he’s earned from Voldemort. In crisis, she values him for his true self.
the furnishings suggest, unsurprisingly, a man who feels at home as long as he has books.
The wall of books conceals a hidden door and a passageway: reading was child Snape’s secret escape.
Loathing of Wormtail is the one unanimous opinion that unites everyone in the series, be they Death Eater, Marauder, or even the author.
When Snape feels fear and then relief for someone else, he often expresses it as anger.
