Always Wondered How Snape Never Clocked That The Diary/ring/Harry Was A Horcrux (other Than The Plot

always wondered how Snape never clocked that the diary/ring/Harry was a horcrux (other than the plot needed him to remain in the dark). Doesn’t add up that teen Regulus knew what it was and the 38 year old Dark Arts expert and professional double agent who has seen Voldy fail to die never worked it out

honestly, anon? same.

although i think we can work our way around this with a bit of canon-wrangling...

we can probably justify snape not clocking that harry's a horcrux during order of the phoenix, on account of the fact that he's presumably the only human horcrux in existence.

dumbledore says in half-blood prince that using animals as horcruxes is unusual because it's inadvisable, because the behaviour of a sentient horcrux can't be predicted or controlled [and it may, i suppose the implication is, therefore destroy itself, thus defeating the purpose of making it] - and snape is certainly taken aback by dumbledore asking him to keep an eye on nagini.

this could, however, be interpreted as snape being surprised that voldemort - who is highly-strung even by the standards of people who might encase their souls in inanimate objects - would have made an animal horcrux, even though he knows voldemort is able to control nagini through virtue of being a parselmouth.

connected to this, snape's understanding of the attack which harry witnesses on arthur weasley is that voldemort was mentally present in nagini when the attack took place:

“You seem to have visited the snake’s mind because that was where the Dark Lord was at that particular moment,” snarled Snape. “He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it too...”

voldemort is canonically known to be able to possess people - ginny weasley chief among them - and also, by his own admission in goblet of fire, to possess snakes. the assumption snape is making is that voldemort's control over nagini is one of the "standard" possessions the dark lord is capable of - and he must also assume, as mad-eye moody does and as the rest of the order accepts moody's account of, that harry's visions are the result of voldemort possessing or attempting to possess him.

indeed, there's an interesting sense in canon that many of the adult characters don't understand that harry's visions don't resemble what possession typically looks like - which is a genre convention which is in keeping with the overall narrative arc of the series as children's literature. the child-heroes need to be able to work everything out and the adults need to be, at best, politely disinterested - and this manifests itself throughout the seven-book canon in the fact that the child characters understand voldemort considerably better than any of the adult ones.

after all, the only person who points out that harry's experience isn't standard possession is also a child:

“Well, that was a bit stupid of you,” said Ginny angrily, “seeing as you don’t know anyone but me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.” Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he turned on the spot to face her. “I forgot,” he said.  “Lucky you,” said Ginny coolly.  “I’m sorry,” Harry said, and he meant it. “So... so do you think I’m being possessed, then?” “Well, can you remember everything you’ve been doing?” Ginny asked. “Are there big blank periods where you don’t know what you’ve been up to?” “No,” he said.  “Then You-Know-Who hasn’t ever possessed you,” said Ginny simply. “When he did it to me, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing for hours at a time. I’d find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.”

from snape's perspective, then, the idea that nagini and harry are simply being possessed by voldemort - rather than that they're sentient horcruxes [and that harry is a unique type of sentient horcrux, and that voldemort could have been stupid enough to intentionally make his child-enemy who hates him into a receptacle for his soul] - is the result of him applying the principle of occam's razor: that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

snape does, however, acknowledge that harry and voldemort's mental connection is unusual:

“The Dark Lord is at a considerable distance and the walls and grounds of Hogwarts are guarded by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the bodily and mental safety of those who dwell within them,” said Snape. “Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency.” “Well then, why do I have to learn Occlumency?” Snape eyed Harry, tracing his mouth with one long, thin finger as he did so. “The usual rules do not seem to apply with you, Potter. The curse that failed to kill you seems to have forged some kind of connection between you and the Dark Lord. The evidence suggests that at times, when your mind is most relaxed and vulnerable - when you are asleep, for instance - you are sharing the Dark Lord’s thoughts and emotions. The headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.”

obviously, we know that the connection forged between harry and voldemort is that harry's a horcrux. but it's also the case that harry doesn't have the ability to see into voldemort's mind before voldemort is corporeal again. if we assume that dumbledore keeps harry's visions from the earlier parts of goblet of fire secret from snape - and there's no reason why this wouldn't be the case - then snape's understanding of the mental connection between harry and voldemort is presumably that it was caused by voldemort using harry's blood to resurrect himself.

after all, snape must know about the blood protection established by lily's death, since not only the full order [moody mentions it in deathly hallows] but the death eaters also know about it. he will also know that voldemort used harry's blood for the ritual because voldemort did this in order to show off - he's proud of the symbolism, and you can tell he was dining out on it right up until it spectacularly backfired...

the question then becomes whether snape truly deeps what dumbledore's saying when he tells him - during the half-blood prince timeline, but not revealed to us until the end of deathly hallows - that:

“On the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort’s mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die.”

snape realises, without dumbledore prompting him further, that this means harry has to die. which means, i think, that we can justifiably suggest that snape has twigged that harry needs to die because - in order for a horcrux to be destroyed - the container needs to be damaged beyond all repair...

and - let's be frank - his little argument with dumbledore after this revelation makes perfect sense if he knows that dumbledore is speaking about harry as a horcrux:

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter - ”

snape's beef is that dumbledore secured his cooperation as a spy on the pretence that he could atone for his role in lily's death by protecting harry from voldemort, while dumbledore knew all along that this was never going to happen [snape does not, of course, know that dumbledore reckons harry will be able to return]. clearly, he would have preferred dumbledore to have just smothered harry as a baby, destroyed the horcrux, and saved them all the agony.

and so i think that it's canonically impossible that snape doesn't understand - eventually - that harry's a horcrux.

and i also think that it's canonically impossible that snape doesn't clock the others well before this.

after all, voldemort states in goblet of fire that the reason he's so pissed off by the death eaters who pretended to have renounced him after 1981 is because they knew he couldn't die:

“I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost... but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know... I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal - to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself... for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand... “I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist... I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited... Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me... one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body... but I waited in vain...”

[he is hamming it up so much here. the man understands camp.]

what he means by this - clearly - is that the fact that he'd made at least one horcrux was common knowledge among his minions, which provides the explanation for why regulus knew what was going on [which i've gone into more detail about here].

which makes sense - voldemort actually tells us in canon that his safeguards aren't that nobody knows he created the horcruxes [and also, if that's what he'd been going for, he'd almost certainly have killed slughorn.]

the section is too long to quote, but if you look at the bit in chapter twenty-seven of deathly hallows when he's panicking that harry and dumbledore have figured out his secrets, the thing he's afraid of isn't that they know he's made horcruxes, but that they've worked out what the objects are and where they might be hidden, something he was certain nobody other than himself would ever be able to discover.

the ring - for example - could only be located by someone who knew voldemort's full birth name, who knew that the name "marvolo" was associated with the gaunts, and who knew where the gaunts had once lived.

the locket - as voldemort understands it, since he assumes kreacher is drowned by the inferi - could only be located by someone who knew that voldemort had, as a child, been taken on an outing to the coast and had lured two children into a cave to torture them.

the diadem could only be located by someone who knew that it wasn't actually lost, knew that helena ravenclaw could be manipulated into revealing where it was, and knew how to open the room of requirement - which voldemort canonically believes is impossible for anyone other than him [even though this makes absolutely no sense to me - there's furniture everywhere, babe?].

the cup could only be located by someone who managed to bypass gringotts' famously tight security, gain access to the lestranges' vault, pick out the cup from among all the other objects stored within [which would also require them to know that a shop-boy called tom riddle stole it from a woman called hepzibah smith] and then not get crushed to death by a rising tide of molten metal.

the diary is much less closely guarded - although voldemort evidently believes that lucius malfoy can be trusted to keep it safe until he tells him otherwise. but this - as dumbledore tells us in half-blood prince - is because voldemort wants it to be used, so that the chamber of secrets can be reopened, and that he's therefore prepared to take the risk of it being destroyed because he believes that his other horcruxes are so secure that the loss of the diary won't matter. this is also, i suspect, his view of nagini - which is why him moving to protect her is taken by both dumbledore and harry as the signal that no other horcruxes remain.

snape must know, then, that voldemort has made horcruxes, because voldemort must, however obliquely, have told him so.

and he must figure out that the diary and the ring are horcruxes specifically. he's clearly the source of dumbledore's information that voldemort's fury when he discovered the diary had been destroyed was "terrible to behold".

and he must be the person who prompts phineas nigellus black to drop the info that dumbledore used the sword of gryffindor to break open the ring. harry and hermione assume this is something black lets slip without knowing its significance, but we know from the prince's tale that he visits them at snape's request in order to find out how the horcrux hunt is going.

[on the sword of gryffindor, snape's statement - "and you won't tell me why it's so important to give potter the sword?" - has to be taken as asking why the sword is so crucial to the destruction of a horcrux that he's being forced to go to great personal risk to give it to harry in order for this overall argument to work... but i think this reading is plausible - not least because voldemort knows that harry was left the sword in dumbledore's will, since wizarding wills are examined by the ministry, and could undoubtedly find out very easily if he wanted to that the sword snape places in the lestranges' vault is a fake.]

the reason that snape doesn't participate in the horcrux hunt in any more specific way relates to the point about genre conventions and child-heroes made above.

the reason that the horcrux hunt takes the form it takes isn't because horcruxes themselves are magic so arcane and unknowable that only the trio, dumbledore, and voldemort are aware they exist. it's because harry - even more than dumbledore - is the only person who knows voldemort well enough to figure out what the horcruxes are made from and where they are.

[this is why i don't vibe with stories which assume the hunt goes quicker if snape - or sirius or anyone - helps the trio. the point is that nobody but harry could figure out that voldemort would be seething about not having a vault at gringotts, or that he would have hidden the diadem the night of his failed job interview.]

snape appears to know the adult voldemort reasonably well, but there's no evidence at all that he knows anything about his life prior to c.1970 - either from dumbledore or from voldemort himself. this means that he would be absolutely no help when it came to guessing what the horcruxes were - the diary, ring, cup, diadem, and locket all presuppose the knowledge that voldemort was once called tom riddle, after all.

which makes him useless to harry when it comes to hunting them down. by the time dumbledore dies, harry knows with near-absolute certainty what five of the horcruxes are: the diary, ring, cup, locket, and snake. he knows for a fact that two of these have been destroyed, he and dumbledore believe they've just got their hands on a third, and he knows where a fourth is [nagini, next to voldemort]. the location of the cup - and the form and location of the sixth horcrux, the diadem - is something only harry has the ability to work out. the seventh - harry himself - is information dumbledore has ordered snape to keep hidden until the appointed time.

meaning that snape clearly does know what a horcrux is - both in theory and when four [diary, ring, nagini, harry] of voldemort's own are put in front of him - but that this knowledge is sufficiently incomplete as to be irrelevant to the quest harry's engaged in which takes up the narrative's time.

Why do you think severus lives in his old childhood home still?

I think it was an intentional move by JKR to show that he never moved on from the past. Severus was a man who was incapable of moving on, incapable of letting go of his trauma and anger. The fact that he lives in his childhood home, the place where he met Lily and the place where he endured his father’s abuse, symbolises how he was unable to move on from his childhood. But if you’re looking for a more “realistic” answer, then I suspect he never cared enough to put in the effort of moving out since he stayed at Hogwarts for most of the year, and he might have also had debts to pay off from when his parents were alive.

Bonus: I also remember someone saying he might’ve stayed in Spinner’s End because it was where he met Lily and where all of his happiest memories with her were. And during the 2nd chapter of Half-Blood Prince (Spinner’s End), we can see that he was in a better mood than he usually was. He likes Narcissa and would of course be happy to see her, but his pleasantness might also be because of that reason. And I’m sure he didn’t like living in his childhood house, but I think he liked the neighbourhood and the areas where he and Lily would also hang out. Though I think that’s only part of the reason as to why he stayed there.

If Snape was a better person...

…he would have called out and reminded Lupin of the wolfsbane potion when he saw Lupin rush out out of Hogwarts. Even at the Shrieking Shack, he should have thrust the potion at Lupin out of sheer self preservation, because he couldn’t have been sure he (and the three students and the outlaw) could have made it back to Hogwarts before a transformed Lupin caught up to them.

so many harry potter fans completely erase snape's past and write it over to make him a snobby rich kid who speaks like he's 40 year old count and i think it is so interesting.

because it proves to me that the reality of snape being a kid living in a poverty stricken and abusive household on spinner's end makes you all uncomfortable.

i sure know it made me uncomfortable to re-read the books for the first time and see all the comments about his greasy hair and sallow skin with the new knowledge that these were markers of his poor upbringing. we've heard the saying how being poor never really goes away. snape keeping these two markers as an adult is the author's way of doing it. he's an adult with a better income now but he never quite shakes off spinner's end.

he also stays there as an adult as a way to punish himself, if the front room described as a 'padded cell" is any indicator. he can't move on and he won't allow himself to, and dumbledore won't allow it either. it is he who twists the knife with harry's eyes and tells him this is the only thing he can do to prove he truly loved lily. despite you know, dumbledore apparently not believing this dhe to his shock at snape's patronus 17 years later.

both times in snape's past when he butts heads with petunia is because she insults his background, something he cannot control. she calls him the 'snape boy' from spinner's end, a clearly 'turn up my nose' moment. harry goes through most books referring to snape as 'snape' because snape is a bully and therefore does not have harry's respect. many times adults correct him to say professor. and his first name isn't said often. so this puts a distance to him, almost others him to this 2D character. but 'snape' is an actual person, with feelings and a past, present and future. so severus snape doesn't take kindly to people insulting his family which is why he claps back at petunia.

we also know snape is a muggle name, his muggle father tobias' name. we only find out in book 6 that snape is a half blood. because what wizarding family do you know with the name 'snape'. and prince isn't part of the sacred 28 either. when harry breaks into snape's memories accidentally in occlumency, seeing those three quick snapshots of his life, it's the first time snape starts to become a real person to harry.

moreover, 8 year old snape is described as dirty, unwashed, wearing clothes that are so mismatched it looks deliberate. he hasn't got clothes of his own, wearing an adults jacket and a woman's smock. snape's family either cannot afford to properly clothe or wash their child or they simply don't care too. when petunia insults him again, this time instead of his father she goes for his mother, as she points out snape wearing his mother's blouse, we get another example of underage magic as he causes a tree branch to fall on her.

now despite this, we know it is likely snape really did want to cause her harm due to her insult. snape already is shown to have poor social skills and snaps rather quickly at any point of animosity, but he was also raised in an abusive household. his father whipped him, and shouted at his mother and god knows what else. makes sense that an 8 year old responds to tension with either insults or violence, mirroring his home. snape is also very reluctant to talk about his homelife at all, ending the conversation very pointedly with "he doesn't like anything much." so it's not surprising that a child raised in this kind of environment would respond violently. even worse, he does it without really realising what he has done considering he looked confused when petunia and lily ran away.

on platform 9 and 3/4, snape is eager to get out of his muggle clothes and when put next to james potter, the stark difference between someone who has been loved and adored and someone who hasn't is explicitly put in the books. and lastly when snape calls lily a mudblood after being yanked upside down exposing dirty underwear, lily points that out. her way of saying 'don't you dare say you are better than me - im filthy? how about you wash your clothes.'

all in all, i think the fans write over this backstory because people do not want to give snape any sympathy. he's not the right kind of sympathetic character. he's an unpleasant adult who made terrible decisions. therefore his tragedy doesn't count. it's much easier to hate him when in your head, snape is a rich, snobby supremacist, rather than a penniless, neglected and woefully misguided teenager.

odd that peope can understand the impact of certain characters childhoods like sirius, regulus, draco or harry and how it affected their actions as teens and later adults...

but not snape.

in fact, snape is probably the poorest character in the entire series apart from maybe voldemort, although the orphanage didn't seem underfunded or anything. fans characterise lupin as poor but there is little evidence for him being poor as a child, more as an adult. i've seen people say this was because of the fact that his father worked at the ministry and arthur weasley worked there and he is not rich but the weasley's are poor because there are 7 of them living on one income. and we can assume lupin's muggle mother worked. if anything, lupin's childhood was comfortable but became unstable due to them constantly moving after he was bitten.

abd that's pretty much it, we don't know too much about anyone else. the dursleys are middle class as are hemrione's dentist parents and while the weasley's are poor, they are not poverty stricken - ron never goes hungry. snape also never really adresses his muggle past either. he doesnt bring it up ever. for all his 'life is unfair', he never speaks about that part of his life, choosing to solely reference the marauders. and the two main bullies, james and sirius both being rich kids bullying the poor boy is not lost on me. especially when they constantly reference his greasy hair all the time.

poverty greatly affects a person well into adulthood and we see with snape; it never really goes away. sure he's well spoken now, and doesn't wear mismatched muggle clothing but the remnants are still there. in fact, one of the reasons he hates harry intially is because he thinks the boy has been pampered. quite unlike his upbringing. so i think it's telling how many people refuse to acknowledge its very existence or the how it shaped snape as a person.

becuase i think it all makes you feel really uncomfortable. why else would you ignore or completely erase it?

People will hate on Snape for being mean and sarcastic with children but he was mean and sarcastic with everyone. He was just treating his students with the same respect he gave everyone else, if you think about it.

to add on lily’s flaws she also believes james and the marauders rather than severus (which is just bad writing imo) and she tells him to be grateful james saved his life, she also who quickly bites back once you annoy her, she also gave cheeky answers to slughorn when he suggested she could’ve been in slytherin, (i personally hate her sm for her trying to tell severus he should be grateful to james would like to hear your opinions) but yes even her, a briefly mentioned character, is very flawed!

tbh my feeling is more that she just believed a rumour that was going around the school rather than having heard it directly from james. idk obviously we dont know. but teenage girls (and boys) often believe rumours. not that weird. I actually think she wouldn't have believed it coming directly from James given how she acts towards him in SWM, but if the school generally seems to agree that it happened then it's more believable.

re: her telling Sev he should be grateful, I've talked about this before (I think in that very post about lily's flaws) but I don't read it as "you should forgive james for everything he's done" but just this kind of desperate, naive "can't we all just get along and stop fighting" sentiment. it's still not a great thing to say, absolutely it's insensitive and tactless.

however it's always interesting to me how Snape people despise Lily for that singular comment (like that's the worst thing anyone could do lol) when Sev is pretty atrocious to her in that conversation too. He completely dismisses her feelings-- like how is Lily saying he should be grateful any worse than him writing off what Mulciber did to Mary as 'just a laugh'? Sev literally ignores her because he's too focused on his hatred towards the Marauders to hear his muggleborn friend's very valid concerns about the death eater wannabes he's hanging out with.

I don't think it's fair to hold Lily to a different standard than Sev, that's my opinion. If she's insensitive towards her best friend then god is he ever. and idk teen friendships are often like that- immature. they have yet to mature

they are so dysfunctional lol. and i love them for it personally!