Everyone Dreams Of Going To Hogwarts

happy ninjaposting friday your ninjapost is this joke titled I Loved Season Four And Have Drawn Like 3 Different Versions Of This Same Joke

you know what i don't mind that I got a penalty because jesus christ that insult

21 year old Severus Snape waking up to an eleven year old slytherin quietly calling his name from the doorway outside his personal quarters. He throws on a robe and stumbles to the door, bleary eyed and thoroughly exhausted.

“Yes?” He manages to get out, praying to every higher power that he won’t need to actually contribute energy into a human conversation at this ungodly hour.

“…Sir…I—I frew up”

something endearing about Snape

Something i’ve been kind of mulling over and thinking about in regards to Snape– and which I find frustrating, but endearing– is how… he is continually disadvantaged and disregarded by systems of power and persons of authority… but he chooses to work within their framework, anyways. 

Snape is Lawful-neutral, to his own detriment. Hear me out.

Like, as a student, he gets bullied. It’s 4 against 1, and he’d have a hard time picking them off if he wanted to go a more aggressive or lethal route. In any case, he tends to be reactionary, rather than necessarily going out of his way to find and attack them… So, he tries to get them expelled, because that would be a way to remove all 4 of his threats at once, and it’s not as if they don’t consistently break the rules… Shouldn’t people who break the rules and mistreat others be punished? So when he’s almost lead to his death at the Shrieking Shack, he appeals to the system of authority (of whom Dumbledore is the purveyor, in this case) with what he feels is a pretty airtight case against his bullies… 

…and he gets written off, and blackmailed into keeping his mouth shut.

If it were me, that kind of slap in the face would ensure i never respected another authority figure again in my life tbh. The Law and the gods that govern it would be dead to me. Anyways…

Being a werewolf does not inherently make Lupin a bad person. But being a good person does not make Lupin inherently safe. The point is: when you transform into a werewolf, you lose control of yourself, and that can result in you killing, maiming, or infecting other people. Lupin knows this. He’s known it for over 20 years,

As of 1993, there was this great new discovery: the Wolfsbane Potion, which helps to curb the effects of lycanthropy, right? It’s super expensive and super hard to make, but it’s an effective way to mitigate the more vicious effects of a transformation– it turns the drinker into a harmless wolf, rather than a werewolf, at the time of the full moon. A wolf, who is easier to control or subdue if one is confronted with it, and who seems to retain some semblence of control during the transformation (Lupin having described himself as curling up in his office during his transformations).

You may be thinking that wolfsbane potion is the closest thing to a preventative  that the Wizarding World has circa 1993, and you’d be right. It’s not a cure, and people who drink it can still infect others, but damn, it makes it way more manageable.

We know that Severus, on more than one occasion, goes out of his way to give Lupin his potion (whether Lupin continually forgets to take it, or purposefully “forgets” to take it as a small power play/intimidation game against Snape is up for interpretation). Either way, we know that Lupin regularly forgets to take the life-changing potion unless prompted, which kind of makes him out as reckless. A timebomb. 

Severus, who is not only a virtuoso on the Dark Arts and all that it entails (and thus, academically, very informed on the dangers that (non-medicated) Werewolves pose), is also intimately and personally aware of the threat Lupin poses to a school full of children as well as the staff, because of his experience in the 70s. Snape brings all of this up to Dumbledore… 

…who repeatedly dismisses his well-founded and logical fears. 

Snape is still beholden to Dumbledore’s insistance that he keep his mouth shut. Which he does for most of the year. The very explicit parameters of the system are: do not tell anyone that Lupin is a werewolf. 

So, being the logical thinker that Snape is, he looks for (and finds) a way to achieve his desired outcome (informing people that Lupin is a werewolf) in a way that does work within those parameters. He can’t tell anyone outright that Lupin is a werewolf, but like… what if someone figured it out on their own?

Then we have Snape in the Shrieking Shack with the kids, Sirius, and Lupin. 

Harry, in the moment after Black disarmed them all, straight-up wanted to kill Sirius. He gets his wand back, and he is about to fucking murder this guy, until crookshanks sits over his heart.

Snape comes up the stairs to the 2nd floor of the shack, right? He’s wearing the Invisibility cloak. No one knows he’s there or hears him coming. He could have killed Sirius in an instant, without anyone knowing. He could kill Sirius AND Lupin if he wanted to, and dump the corpses on the ministry steps, and convince the minister that he had deduced that they were working together months ago. 

He could easily explain to the minister that he knew they were childhood friends, that Lupin started working at Hogwarts at the exact same time Black “wanted to infiltrate” Hogwarts, and that his speculations were dismissed. He could say all of this with the kids and Dumbledore to corroborate his story (since he arrives at the Shrieking Shack BEFORE the kids get the low-down on Pettigrew) and he would STILL get his order of Merlin (maybe 2?) But instead of killing them… 

…he disarms and restrains them. 

He’s like “Yeah, I’m handing you off to the Dementors, dickhead” but it’s important to remember… he disarms them, restrains them, and is willing to turn them over to the “authorities.” Even though, at this point, he whole-heartedly believes that 1. Black is a murderer, who killed like 23 people, and who broke out of wizard prison and 2. Lupin, a werewolf who has consistently not taken his potion and whom Snape believes has conspired to kill him in the past, is aiding and abetting said murderer… Severus Snape does not take the law into his own hands. He’s not about Vigilante Justice.

And… he gets disarmed, thrown against a wall, and almost ends up attacked by a werewolf for it later. heh

This is just up to the first 3 books, because i just finished re-reading them, but i’m certain there are more examples of these types of exchange in subsequent books. In any case, I love how the books have this consistent theme of “Harry distrusts authority, disrespects it, and challenges the system,” that’s all very good. 

But i also love that Severus Snape, the dude that everyone argues is super unfair, petty, spiteful, etc… attempts to use strategic thinking to operate within the paramaters of these systems, and tries to maintain respect for these systems, and consistently gets his ass handed to him for it. I love you, you lawful-neutral dumbass. 

Snape isn’t responsible for Lupin losing his job

Let’s look at the timeline:

The Shrieking Shack drama.

Lupin turns into the werewolf.

Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the Hospital Wing.

Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

Snape has a meltdown in front of Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore.

In the morning Snape tells Slytherins that Lupin is a werewolf.

Harry talks to Lupin who’s been fired.

A lot of people think that Lupin was fired because Snape told his secret. But Lupin was actually fired because he betrayed Dumbledore’s trust—multiple times, as a student and as a teacher.

Lupin knows it himself:

«

“I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s trust, of course ... he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others’ safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month’s adventure. And I haven’t changed ...”

»

Lupin betrayed Dumbledore’s trust as a student when he was roaming around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as a werewolf.

«

“That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you’d given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?”

“A thought that still haunts me,” said Lupin heavily. “And there were near misses, many of them.

»

Lupin himself admits that there were many near misses. He’s extremely lucky that he didn’t infect or kill anybody. If he had, if others had found out about him, Dumbledore would have been finished as a headmaster.

«

Lupin’s face had hardened, and there was self-disgust in his voice. “All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I’d betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I’d led others along with me ... and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it . . . so, in a way, Snape’s been right about me all along.

»

Lupin knew Sirius was an Animagus. It was crucial information. Everyone—including Dumbledore, Snape and Lupin himself—believed it was Sirius who had betrayed the Potters. Lupin was (again) extremely lucky that it turned out it was in fact Pettigrew.

The Ministry and Dumbledore did their best to protect Harry, but the whole army of Dementors was helpless against Animagus Sirius. Lupin himself is disgusted with what he did.

That betrayal is even worse, because Lupin being a teacher in the same year Sirius is on the loose is probably not a coincidence. Dumbledore must have asked the person he trusted and who knew Sirius very well. Dumbledore hoped that Lupin would have some information about Sirius and help protect Harry; being a good DADA teacher was a pleasant bonus. But Lupin failed to do the very job he was hired for.

Lupin managed to deceive Dumbledore and Snape who were both skilled in Legillimency. What’s more, during the first war Lupin probably was trying to convince other werewolves / spying for Dumbledore just like during the second war, so probably he knew at least a little Occlumency. The thing is, Lupin was hiding something the whole year (that he knew Sirius was an Animagus) and Snape saw some clues that Lupin wasn’t entirely honest. Lupin admits it too.

So let’s get back to the timeline:

Dumbledore wants to know what happened in the Shrieking Shack. He’s heard the children’s account, but he must want to hear the story of the three adults involved in the incident: Snape, Lupin and Sirius. Lupin is obviously unavailable.

We know he talks to Sirius:

«

“Last night Sirius told me all about how they became Animagi,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “An extraordinary achievement — not least, keeping it quiet from me.

»

He tells Harry this in the morning, after Lupin has left. The conversation probably took place when Sirius was arrested, after the Shrieking Shack incident but before the rescue. Lupin was in his werewolf form at that time, somewhere around Hogwarts.

The most disapointing thing for Dumbledore must be the fact that it is Sirius, not Lupin, who tells him all about Lupin’s first betrayal as a student. That also reveals Lupin’s second betrayal—that he didn’t tell Dumbledore about Sirius’ ability, even though he believed him to be the traitor.

Dumbledore must be determined to hear Lupin’s account. So as soon as the night ends and Lupin turns back into his human form, Dumbledore has a conversation with him. We know it happened because when Harry talks to Lupin, Remus has already been fired. The only way it could happen is that the Headmaster fired him personally.

Of course Snape couldn’t fire Lupin personally, he was just a teacher, he had no power to do so. The only way Snape could have had Lupin fired was to tell the Slytherins about Lupin (which he did), inform the school governors himself or have the students (like Draco Malfoy whose father was a governor) inform their parents and then wait for the governors to force the Headmaster to fire Lupin. However, there was too little time for that. Alternatively, he could have just told the Slytherins about Lupin, thus manipulating Dumbledore and forcing him to fire Lupin. BUT (1) Snape is very loyal to Dumbledore and it would be surprising if he went behind his back and endangered his position as the Headmaster; (2) there’s no indication that Dumbledore is mad at Snape. He certainly would be if Snape forced him to do something he didn’t want to do.

But Dumbledore is mad at someone else.

«

“Well — good-bye, Harry,” he [Lupin] said, smiling. “It has been a real pleasure teaching you. I feel sure we’ll meet again sometime. Headmaster, there is no need to see me to the gates, I can manage...”

Harry had the impression that Lupin wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

“Good-bye, then, Remus,” said Dumbledore soberly. Lupin shifted the grindylow tank slightly so that he and Dumbledore could shake hands. Then, with a final nod to Harry and a swift smile, Lupin left the office.

»

"Mad" is perhaps too strong, Dumbledore is rarely outraged. He’s disappointed. He isn’t emotional (neither "Oh, that horrible Snape, what did he do to my precious Lupin?" nor "Oh, you horrible Lupin, you’ve almost eaten my precious Harry Potter!"), he assesses the situation rationally. He’s rather cold. Whatever he’s said to Lupin earlier has made Remus embarrased. Lupin wants to leave as quickly as possible when Dumbledore has come to avoid further embarrasment. He knows he screwed up and he knows that Dumbledore knows it too.

We know about two conversations. But there was another adult involved in the Shrieking Shack incident, someone who Dumbledore trusts more than Sirius (whom up until that night he believed to be a traitor and a murderer) and Lupin (who let him down at least once by forgetting to drink his potion and by not staying behind in the Shrieking Shack, thus almost killing a few people, including Harry Potter—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). Snape. However, although it’s logical for that conversation to take place, we don’t know when it could happen. After the Shrieking Shack incident Dumbledore talks to Sirius, so he couldn’t talk to Snape then. Then he suggests the children use the Time Turner. Then Snape has a meltdown and is probably too unstable to hold a rational conversation. Then finding Lupin could be a higher priority than talking to Snape since Dumbledore already knows most of what happened, Snape is biased and wasn’t present or was unconscious for the most part and Lupin right now is a danger to students and Hogsmeade villagers (including Dumbledore’s own brother).

Another thing that is worth mentioning is that Snape kept Lupin’s secret for over 18 years, including two years when he was a faithful Death Eater and Lupin was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape is also deeply loyal to Dumbledore. It would be illogical for him to betray Dumbledore like that and to face no consequences for that. So, logically, Dumbledore must have given him some sort of green light, even if it was just a mild sugestion that it was up to him now.

To sum up, the adjusted timeline looks like this:

The Shrieking Shack drama.

Lupin turns into the werewolf.

Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the Hospital Wing.

Dumbledore talks to Sirius and finds out about Lupin’s first and second betrayal.

Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

Snape has a meltdown in front of Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore.

At dawn Dumbledore finds Lupin and talks to him. Lupin quits / is fired.

Dumbledore talks to Snape, probably implying that he isn’t bound to keep Lupin’s secret anymore.

In the morning Snape tells Slytherins that Lupin is a werewolf.

Harry talks to Lupin who’s been fired.

Lupin got himself fired all by himself by keeping crucial information from Dumbledore and endangering students, including Harry Potter.

Snape is responsible for ruining Lupin’s reputation but not for Remus losing his job.

Snape isn’t responsible for Lupin being unable to have a job afterwards, because Remus has already had this problem.

«

He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am.

»

Somehow his empleyers knew about his condition or quickly figured it out. If Lupin had been discriminated all his adult life, it wasn’t because of Snape.

He worsens Lupin’s situation, but it’s been already bad. His situation, his prospects don’t really change after that. They were bad, now they’re slightly worse.

There's something very moving about Snape making Harry watch his most vulnerable moments. His most shameful and painful memories. Including his Worst one. That's the same man who went hysterical when Harry invaded his privacy in OotP... and at the end of DH, either those memories slip by mistake, or he trusts Harry, or he really wants to confide to him about what happened, or he decides that's the price to pay for his absolution and/or his final mission. Regardless, here you have the man who holds so dear to his privacy -- a spy -- and he is giving his dearest secrets to the boy he hated yet had to protect. So, was it an accident? Was it an utilitarian strategy born at the last moment? Or did something change in Snape in his last year, when Harry was away?

Headcanon that Lily used to steal the clothes her dad wasn’t wearing anymore and her parents never understood why until they saw Severus come over wearing one of the shirts. From that point onward they never questioned Lily’s habit of stealing, because the stolen clothes seemed to be the only clothes Severus had.

Okay hear me out on this one, after episode 3 I’ve had a lot of theories about the cast (mainly Kinger) but one that I’ve seen no one really talk about is this.

I think if Kinger were to abstract it will indirectly cause the groups downfall. In an actual game of chess, if you lose the king you lose the game. I think I’d be cool if this is applied in a more literal sense in the circus - they lose the king they slowly start to crumble.

Perhaps there’s more tension in the group after it, maybe say Jax makes a jokey comment about how he knew I’d happen and that annoys Pomni cause she grew to really like Kinger, maybe someone else abstracts as a result of Kinger’s loss. Idk haven’t really thought further ahead, there’s honestly many ways to go about this.

THIS THIS THIS! I think the doe as a patronus fits Snape so well and Lily is only part of the reason that is, he fits the traits pretty well and is definitely a lot more feminine than masculine making a female animal work for his natural patronus. There’s no proof that his patronus changed or even that his love for Lily is romantic. I think the idea that the doe is his natural is more likely than it having been changed especially by the fact that he insults Tonks’s patronus for taking the form of Remus’s (would be a bit hypocritical if his had changed too)

going insane and i need to infodump about severus snape’s patronus being a doe for a second. i personally don’t think it changed, or lily necessarily influenced it- i think it’s always been a doe, casting the charm in dumbledore’s office was meant to show that he and lily were supposed to be viscerally aligned with each other and he knows he fucked it up and that’s why he’s spent almost two decades trying to atone for what he did. on a representative level, the doe symbolizes peace, protection, and innocence, and no three words could possibly represent severus snape more.

all he wants is peace: a peaceful life for himself, a peaceful world, a peaceful school. everything he’s ever done has been to create as much peace as possible. some of it can be considered misguided from a black and white moral standpoint, but it’s what created peace for himself. for example, aligning himself with the purist views of his housemates made him less of a target for bullying- he’s not a pure blood, and they’d know, and having powerful ambitious students on your side instead of alienating yourself from everyone means you have at least a semblance of protection from harm some of the time. he becomes a double agent for dumbledore to help bring about peace from voldemort’s reign. it might not have been peaceful for him per se, but it was still with the intention of peace in some form. he tries to give other people peace- he takes a vow with narcissa to protect her son because she’s crying and scared for him, and it gives her peace. he doesn’t throw draco under the bus to save his skin when voldemort accuses him of being the elder wands owner, giving draco and narcissa peace even if they weren’t aware. it’s either for himself, or for others.

he’s the most protective teacher at the school- would mcgonagall have thrown herself in front of three kids facing a wolfsbane-less werewolf? would flitwick take the burden of an unbreakable vow to protect draco malfoy from voldemort? would any of the DADA teachers have run towards the sound of a screaming woman? he consistently vows to protect everyone and everything he can. and, leading into his innocence, when he realizes he’s only been protecting harry for him to die, it breaks him.

he’s not necessarily innocent in that his hands are clean and he’s never done anything wrong in his life, but he’s innocent in that he’s naive. he trusted voldemort enough to be drawn into the death eaters, he trusted dumbledore enough to be manipulated into his bidding. it feels like he forgets that dumbledore screws him over constantly, dangles things in front of him and takes them away, makes crude assumptions, and has left him to fend for himself essentially their entire relationship. the times that dumbledore abandons him- physically, mentally, metaphorically- he gets very upset. like it’s new information to him that dumbledore treats him like shit. from an abuse perspective, he probably had to spend his childhood mentally erasing what his parents and home were like so he could feel safe and normal, so the constant ebb and flow/back and forth of his and dumbledore’s relationship is familiar to him. when dumbledore draws him back in with whatever method, he’s right back to behaving as dumbledore wants, doing what dumbledore wants, and believing what dumbledore believes. the times that he remembers that dumbledore doesn’t care that he let the guy who’s tried to kill him or assault go, or that dumbledore thinks he wants only lily saved because he desires her romantically or sexually, or that dumbledore has only been using harry and, by extension, him (as he’s been the one protecting harry) to play the long game of destroying voldemort are the times that he’s emotional in the books. he cries, he’s vulnerable, he raises his voice, he begs and he pleads and he defers. he doesn’t do that any other time, other than when he found harry watching his memories. he trusts and he forgives (or he forgets, or he feels safer pretending he doesn’t care what’s been done to him/how he’s been treated.) a doe is perfect for him. reducing it to something like tonk’s patronus being changed as soon as she’s in a relationship with lupin or that it’s only a doe because of lily evans completely erases his entire way of thinking and behaving and being.

also, in a self indulgent addendum, it’s a very feminine animal, and severus is consistently aligned with femininity. hermione calls the half-blood prince’s writing feminine. he wears his mother’s clothes as a child, and lupin encourages neville to dress his boggart as his grandmother. he’s quiet and docile and tries to be non-violent unless he’s pushed to his breaking point, and even then it’s screaming or crying or getting animated. he’s emotional and frequently painted as hysterical. he gets the “woman character treatment”: to the average viewer who doesn’t think about him long enough to understand otherwise, he only desires lily. the consensus is that he chases her, he only thinks about her in the context of attraction. the line about looking at her greedily is constantly understood to be lust, and not a desire for love or a desire for a peaceful relationship for once in his life (and a relationship that only ever seems to be platonic at that). he even backs off and all but disappears from her life when he’s asked to, while james (the one with the stag patronus, the classic triumphant male character) harasses her and pursues her and behaves in a way that makes his son decades later wonder if he forced lily into a relationship. he’s behaviorally aligned with what femininity in the eyes of misogyny is supposed to be. he keeps to himself, he’s quiet, he sacrifices every bit of himself for students and coworkers and superiors and expects nothing in return, he pushes his students to be the best they can. (i’d say nurtures with my whole chest, but as the narrative comes from harry, we can’t really be sure. in my view, his house won the house cup for several years in a row which was only interrupted by dumbledore awarding a fuck ton of points to his gryffindor prize pony, his classes are seen as high performing and advanced by even dolores umbridge of all people, he only tries to punish students albeit a bit violently after several attempts of getting them to understand why what they did was wrong, which seems to be pretty nurturing in comparison to what other teachers allow and do). whether he’s trans, or had been influenced more by eileen, or he was intended to be deeply complex and contradictory and that meant that he had to have these traits, or any other of the multitude of reasons for snape being an inherently feminine character, it’s there. his patronus wouldn’t be a stag, he wouldn’t be anything overbearing and he wouldn’t be anything aggressive. it doesn’t make sense with his soul and his personality and his life. the peaceful protective innocent/naive doe, however, does.