I Just Realized Why Snape Was So Crazy In The Shrieking Shack, Third Book

I just realized why Snape was so crazy in the Shrieking Shack, third book

He thought Sirius was the reason Lily died.

Snape has always appeared collected that far in the series and it always struck me as odd that he has such a huge and bloodthirsty reaction and then calmed down towards Sirius in OOTP.

Has everyone already known this?

This part of Snape's memories that he gives to Harry has been talked to death, but please indulge me while I dig it back up because meta rests for no man. Emphases in the below excerpt are mine:

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colours until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone … his fear infected Harry, too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for - Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air: Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand. ‘Don’t kill me!’ ‘That was not my intention.’ Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand. ‘Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?' 'No - no message - I’m here on my own account!’ Snape was wringing his hands: he looked a little mad, with his straggling, black hair flying around him. ‘I - I come with a warning - no, a request - please -‘ Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other. ‘What request could a Death Eater make of me?’ ‘The - the prophecy … the prediction … Trelawney …’ ‘Ah, yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?’ ‘Everything - everything I heard!’ said Snape. ‘That is why - it is for that reason - he thinks it means Lily Evans!’ ‘The prophecy did not refer to a woman,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It spoke of a boy born at the end of July -‘ ‘You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down - kill them all -‘ ‘If she means so much to you,’ said Dumbledore, ‘surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?' 'I have - I have asked him -‘ ‘You disgust me,’ said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. ‘You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?’ Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. ‘Hide them all, then,’ he croaked. ‘Keep her - them - safe. Please.’ ‘And what will you give me in return, Severus?’ ‘In - in return?’ Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, ‘Anything.'

Firstly what stands out here is that that Snape is the first one to refer to Harry and James and not just Lily, not Dumbledore. Snape says, "he is going to hunt her down - kill them all" showing that from the outset he was aware of not just Lily's fate, but her husband's and son's as well. His warning to Dumbledore takes them into consideration too, so from the outset we see that Dumbledore's assumptions are likely biased.

It's Dumbledore who assumes Snape is only thinking about Lily and doesn't care about her family. Although Snape is clearly more invested in Lily, focusing on her as Voldemort's target when he first speaks, he doesn't exhibit the selfish tunnel vision Dumbledore accuses him of. In fact, immediately after Snape says "them all" it's Dumbledore who changes the conversation to be specifically about Lily again. It's understandable that Snape is more concerned about Lily - she's the one he grew up with and was friends with, although it's likely Dumbledore doesn't know this, and may never learn the full extent of Snape's relationship to her, not even to the extent that he shares with Harry in his final memories. Snape refers to her as Lily Evans, not Potter, likely because he's so used to Evans being her name, having spent his whole childhood knowing her by it. His relationship with James was one of victim to abuser, so it's understandable that in this moment of panic and anxiety, James Potter isn't the most important thing in Snape's mind.

It's important to how the dynamics between Snape and Dumbledore play out in this scene that Snape is terrified. He's described as "panting, turning on the spot" and his fear is so palpable that even Harry feels it, though he knows he's safe and in a memory where he can't be harmed. Snape is coming into this conversation out of desperation, and trusting a man who didn't seem to care much when Snape's life was threatened by a fellow student in his fifth year at Hogwarts. To Snape, Dumbledore is the man who let Sirius' prank slide even though it could have killed him. Years after this scene on the hilltop, when Sirius escapes from Azkaban, he still asserts with viciousness that Snape deserved to die just for being too nosy about him and his friends. So to Snape, Dumbledore is the man who let that attempt on his life slide, and who invited Sirius and James - both his attackers, as far as he's concerned - to join the original Order of the Phoenix.

To Snape, Dumbledore is someone who doesn't care if he lives or dies, and who trusts and respects people who, as far as Snape is concerned, are violent and ruthless. This is compounded by the time he's spent in Voldemort's ranks, where's he's seen firsthand what people like that - violent and ruthless - are capable of. He likely sees Dumbledore as a leader who is just as volatile as Voldemort. Since we know that Voldemort doesn't believe in light and dark, good or bad, only in power and weakness, we can assume that Snape has taken on some of these ideas. His perspective may also be informed by his experiences with the bullying of the Marauders, who claimed to hate his proclivity for "dark" magic while perverting innocent spells like scourgify to enact violence (if you've ever tried to eat soap as a kid, you can imagine how vile that might be, let alone if it's blocking the airflow in your trachea). So in Snape's eyes, Dumbledore is probably not the light to Voldemort's dark, but a rival wizard fighting for power, and therefore someone he likely assumes will resort to similar brutality.

As far as Snape is concerned, Dumbledore could strike him dead just for being there. And yet he walks into this meeting, the arrangement of which is already a mortal risk, knowing he might not leave it alive. His first words to the man are, "Don't kill me." Even if he were there just to plead for Lily's life and not care about her family, his willingness to sacrifice himself to save her is already an act of bravery and frankly, I think it's a much more complicated moral dilemma whether one can choose who to give their own life for than Dumbledore's harsh condemnation makes it seem. Can we expect a man to risk his life for a friend? That's a question with a complex and multi-faceted variety of answers. Can we expect him to risk his life for an enemy, or an abuser? That's a long and complex answer with even fewer clear conclusions.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, sees himself in Snape. We see through the HP series, especially in this reveal at the end, how intertwined his relationship with Snape became. We learn that Dumbledore spends his life carrying the guilt and pain of his sister's death and his direct or indirect role in it. It's a pretty common reading of his and Snape's relationship that Dumbledore understood the depth and irrevocability of Snape's regret and guilt firsthand. Knowing all this, it's hard to read Dumbledore's judgment of Snape on the hilltop, and his immediately conclusion that Snape is only interested in protecting Lily - despite warning that Voldemort intends to "kill them all" - as being objective. I read it as Dumbledore projecting his own guilt and anxiety onto Snape in that moment. In addition, as @said-snape-softly pointed out to me very aptly, the prophecy was overheard in the Hog's Head, which is run by Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, adding onto Dumbledore's personal baggage coming out in this moment. Dumbledore's own feelings are loaded and he makes assumptions about Snape's goals and motivations out of his own anxieties about himself.

And Snape lets him. He's been under Voldemort's thumb, a murderous sociopath who throws unforgivable curses around like most people sneeze. He's desperate and terrified and isn't going to argue with Dumbledore. Dumbledore says, "Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?" and Snape replies that he has. But as we've seen already, Snape has included Harry and James and Dumbledore - as the person with all the power and leverage in this conversation - has changed the subject to focus on Lily. Snape is in no position to argue about semantics in this moment. The same way he brought up Harry and James to Dumbledore only for them to be ignored by him, he may have brought them up to Voldemort only for him to react similarly.

Given what we know about Voldemort as a character, once he has decided to go after Harry and not Neville, there's no changing his mind. Any effort made to sway him would fail and only add the asker to the pile of bodies Voldemort leaves in his wake. James and Lily are both targets, because canonically they have defied Voldemort three times and are members of the Order fighting against his cause. Snape may be able to beg for Lily's life - and we see that Voldemort assumed it was because he "desired her" - but James' is almost impossible to argue on behalf of, even if he wanted to. Snape can't claim any intimate connection even if it's a lie, because James is in the Order and enough of an enemy to Voldemort that he was targeted on the basis of Trelawney's prophecy. The fact that Snape went to Dumbledore means that he is asking for Lily's whole family to be protected, not just her. It's not just extra insurance in case Voldemort decides to kill everyone in his path to Harry, it's an effort to save Lily and the people who matter to her as well. Snape knows that Dumbledore will give them a fighting chance where Voldemort won't.

When Dumbledore accuses Snape of not caring if they live or die, Snape says nothing. He doesn't confirm or deny this accusation, and as we've seen, he's terrified and Dumbledore has already twisted his words and judged him, so it's reasonable to assume Snape is worried that if he says the wrong thing, all will be lost. Dumbledore could have just accepted Snape's warning and told him to leave. He could have accepted the warning and asked why Snape gave it. Instead, he jumped to conclusions and threw them in Snape's face, a frightened man risking his life who learned quickly in this conversation that Dumbledore hates him and is judging him, and who learned while still at school that Dumbledore doesn't value his perspective or even his very life.

And then Dumbledore asks him, "what will you give me in return?" Snape is caught off guard, because as far as he knew, he was already doing Dumbledore a favor. He's offering him free information that will enable him to protect two of his Order members when the Death Eaters already outnumber them twenty to one, as Lupin said in OOtP. Again, Snape is risking his life - if Voldemort finds out he had this conversation with Dumbledore, he's definitely dead. As far as he knows, Dumbledore could kill him, as his opening sentence in this scene shows. And yet, Dumbledore turns this around - like the tactical, manipulative military leader he is - and posits the situation as being one in which he's doing Snape a favor by heeding his warning. As if he were choosing to protect Lily and her family for Snape's sake, not his own, and not theirs. Many years later, Dumbledore will ask Snape how many people he's watched die, and Snape answers, "lately only those I could not save." But in this moment on the hilltop, that's already what Snape is doing.

Couldn't Snape be ambidextrous?

That’s very possible! Maybe ambidextrous with a preference for his right hand? Because seeing him use his right hand twice in situations where he needs fine motor skills (and I think especially in crisis mode when he is healing Dumbledore) to me indicates at least a slight preference for his right.

I just realized why Snape was so crazy in the Shrieking Shack, third book

He thought Sirius was the reason Lily died.

Snape has always appeared collected that far in the series and it always struck me as odd that he has such a huge and bloodthirsty reaction and then calmed down towards Sirius in OOTP.

Has everyone already known this?

Heyo, I'm a snape supporter but I think I missed part of the book? I saw some quotes from anti-Snapers talking about the time he intercepted mail from Lily to Black, took the letter, ripped the photo of Lily and her family and only kept the part of Lily in it. Thoughts on the context and thoughts in general?

Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33: The Prince’s Tale

“And next, Snape was kneeling in Sirius’ old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily. The second page carried only a few words: ”…could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind’s going, personally! Lots of love, Lily.“ Snape took the page bearing Lily’s signature, and her love, and tucked it inside his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor, under the chest of drawers….”

——Whilst I do remember the scene happening, I don’t remember reading that Severus was crying during it.At the end of the day, it’s one of those scenes that people will take depending on their original opinion of Snape.

Anti’s will always only see Severus being creepy, being entitled to a woman who was married to his enemy, stealing something that didn’t belong to him (as the letter was to Sirius), and above all, leaving behind the portion of James and Harry on the floor as some sort of metaphor to his animosity towards the two.

But I don’t care about the anti’s. I’ve zeroed in on two things:

1. He’s crying.Severus Snape, a man who was best known for how stoic and angry he could be, has let his guard down. It’s a moment of intense vulnerability for him - imagine what would happen if someone walked in on him. I never saw it as creepy or entitled. His best friend is dead and this is the closest he has to seeing her handwriting, her affection, her laughter again and it doesn’t belong to him, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t fucking care because it hurts so much and he’s clearly still grieving that he cannot stop the tears from forming. 

And not a single tear, but “dripping off his nose” is literally a step away from full on sobbing as he sees the face of the only person he really cared about/cared about him. It’s emotional, it’s vulnerable, it’s heartbreaking. It’s probably the last photo of Lily ever taken, the oldest she ever got to to be.

2. “Sirius’ room.”This is something I definitely didn’t notice the first time I read the passage. I had assumed Severus had taken these items shortly after Lily’s death when he was still immediately grieving. But Sirius’ room was in Grimmauld Place, a safehouse no one had access to until after Black escaped Azkaban - and there’s absolutely no way for Snape to have access to the place (let alone Sirius’ room) until after the events of OOTP.

The man never stopped grieving.Or more accurately, never learned how to grieve.

It’s obvious Severus never got over Lily’s death (as that’s his entire plight in the series), but this scene especially, makes me realize that he never knew how to deal with it. The wounds never stopped hurting not because he was obsessed, but they never stopped hurting because no one ever taught him how to take care of himself, how to accept it, how to make peace and move forward instead of just living out of spite.

It’s sad.

He’s sad.

He’s desperate for anything to make him feel remotely like Lily made him feel - my guess, is alive - that he’s willing to search Sirius’ room for it. If someone else had just taken a chance on him - really taken a chance on him (side note, this is why I really love Mentor!Snape/Severitus’ because Harry is such a kind-hearted soul who loves wholly and forgives fully, and Snape is already dedicated to keeping Harry safe, that I truly believe Harry would be such a good person for Severus to have in his life) he could have built up a life with reasons, people, things to live for, and not just a mission that kept him a step away from suicide on his worst days and numb on his best days.

That scene is Severus at his most raw, emotional, and vulnerable. It’s a scene/a side of Severus we’re not supposed to see. And it’s such a human moment, that I don’t understand how someone can read this scene and think, “What a fucking obsessive creep.” But like, some people just lack sympathy and human understanding, so whatever.

On another note, while this would have had to happened after the Order of the Phoenix was started again, it would have to be before Deathly Hallows since Moody warded the house against Snape after Dumbledore’s death. My best guess is after Sirius died (there’s no way he would let Severus wander alone) and probably after the designated place was changed to the Weasley’s, but imagine if he had just snuck away upstairs while everyone was having dinner and Molly went upstairs to round up her kids and stumbled across this.

Imagine Molly Weasley, who can’t help but fuss over everyone who clearly needs a mom, walking into Severus curled up on the floor, sobbing over a photograph.

I just realized why Snape was so crazy in the Shrieking Shack, third book

He thought Sirius was the reason Lily died.

Snape has always appeared collected that far in the series and it always struck me as odd that he has such a huge and bloodthirsty reaction and then calmed down towards Sirius in OOTP.

Has everyone already known this?