The Analysis of Severus Snape

We all have to agree that Severus Snape is one of the most controversial characters we have ever met in the series; a potions master, Death Eater, but most of all, a brokenhearted and misunderstood lover.

We first met Snape in Harry's first year, as the Potions Master and the head of the Slytherin house. He was a crude and biased teacher, only caring for students in his own house. Harry found out firsthand how much of a nuisance Professor Snape was in his first class with him. Snape proceeded to ask the muggle-raised first year questions about potions:

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

" I don't know, sir," said Harry. Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut - fame clearly isn't everything."

After his first encounter with Professor Snape, the torment only got worse. As you know, he didn't just torment Mr.Potter, but one of his other, larger targets was Neville Longbottom. Neville was not particularly a popular student ( but talk about character development!), which made him a target for bullying, anyway.

By the information we get in the books, we see Neville was verbally abused frequently. As he was not a very good potions student, it caused Snape to use him as a laughing stock for the other students. In one class, Neville's potion did not work as it was supposed to. Snape then said to leave it be and, at the end of the period, he would feed the potion to Trevor—Neville's pet toad—but to his luck, Hermione helped him restore the potion, at the cost of Gryffindor house points.

In Neville's third year, Professor Lupin introduced them to a boggart. Neville's boggart (if you don't know, or remember, Boggarts are things that take form of your biggest fear) was none other that Professor Snape, himself. On that note, that makes Snape more terrorizing than Neville's verbally abusive grandmother, his peers, or even the woman who put his parents into St. Mungo's hospital for Magical Maladies and injuries, driven mad, not remembering whom their son was—Bellatrix Lestrange.

Inevitably, Snape was cruel to many of his students (whom aren't Slytherins, of course), but now, is the time the tables turn and you see the other side of Severus. We learn in the last book, after Harry collected the memory from the dying Snape, that Severus knew Harry's parents.

Snape first met Lily before they began attending Hogwarts. While befriending the strange boy whom watched her and her sister play in the park, Lily felt accepted. After they began attending Hogwarts, being sorted into rival houses, they remained friends.

Snape loved Lily Evans more than anything, with a burning passion he never felt, but Snape was not alone in having an eye out for Ms.Evans. So did none other than James Potter. James and his friends (Padfoot, Wormtail, and Moony), were a very knowledgeable group of students, but in their case, didn't show it much. We witnessed James using the spell "Leviocorpus" on Severus. When Lily came to his aid, he proclaimed, with anger, that he didn't need her assistance, and called her a "mud-blood" (what pure-bloods, or snarky half-bloods call muggle born wizards/witches). After this, they had a lengthy conversation, his pleas of forgiveness were rejected, him losing Lily as his only friend.

Years later, James and Lily Potter, living in Godric's Hollow, with a young boy on a dark Halloween night, get killed. Moments after, Severus arrives at the Potter residence. As he walks through the quiet house, James Potter laying dead in the hallway, he rushes towards the sound of a crying child to see his love, Lily, dead. He sits by her lifeless body and mourns her death, disregarding the crying child in the crib.

I believe that Snape truly loved Lily throughout the years he knew her, and was devastated when he told Lord Voldemort about a half-heard prophesy. He had no more clue than Dumbledore, nor even Trelawney did, about whom it was about. But even worse, Voldemort was under the impression it was the Potters, and went out to find the family. Severus went to Albus, only to be to late, and Lily's death being the result of his cowardice.

In explanation for his crude behavior towards Mr.Potter, many have many other views; this one, in specific, is that he loved to look in the eyes of the child, seeing they eyes he fell in love with, but on the face of the man who tormented him for many years of his like. He was full of pure rage because he lost the woman of his dreams, and decided to treat Harry like a weak James; a weak person to torment. He chose to lash out his anger on the child of his enemy, not his love.

In the end, Severus Snape was obviously not the best character in the series, but he was simply a misunderstood man who lost someone who was very dear to his heart.