Severus Snape

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Harry Potter character
Image:Severus snape.jpg
Alan Rickman as Snape in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Severus Snape
Gender Male
Hair colour Black
Eye colour Black
House Slytherin
Blood Purity Half-Blood
Loyalty Unknown (double agent: Death Eaters / Order of the Phoenix)
Film portrayer Alan Rickman
First appearance Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Severus Snape (born January 9, 1959) is a fictional character in the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling. He was appointed Potions teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry shortly after completing his education at the school, and became Head of Slytherin house.

Snape's physical appearance is that of the classic villain: tall, thin, "hook-nosed" and "greasy," and clad in forbidding black robes "like an overgrown bat" [HP1]. Harry Potter intensely dislikes and distrusts Snape on account of his chequered past and his apparent animosity towards Harry.

In the Harry Potter films, the character is played by actor Alan Rickman.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

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Background

Severus Snape was born to Tobias Snape, a Muggle, and Eileen Prince, a witch. Details of his early life are incomplete, but Harry comes to suspect that Snape suffered neglect by his parents and may have been abused by his father. He comes to these conclusions through his botched lessons in Occlumency. He learns that Snape was extremely unpopular and lonely in his teens, resulting from, or perhaps fuelling, his interest in the Dark Arts. [HP5] The youthful Snape was described as having a 'stringy, pallid look', being 'round-shouldered yet angular', and having a 'twitchy' walk 'like a spider' and 'long oily hair that jumped about his face'.

It was said that, as a first-year student at Hogwarts, Snape knew more hexes and curses than most seventh-years. Additionally, his bookish demeanour and unattractive appearance made him an outsider and an object of scorn. Much of Snape's disdain for Harry seems to stem from the rivalry between Snape and Harry's father James Potter when they were students together at Hogwarts. Snape's classmates also included Harry's mother Lily Evans, Harry's godfather Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. He also invented a number of spells, one of which James Potter used to turn him upside-down.

It is revealed in the fourth book that Snape was in fact a Death Eater, and that at some point he became a double agent for Dumbledore. His motivation both for joining Voldemort and for turning on him are unknown, and it is questionable whose side he was really on during the conflict.

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Role in the stories

There is a mutual feeling of enmity between Snape and Harry from the moment that they first set eyes on each other. During his first year at Hogwarts Harry mistakenly suspects Snape of trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone; even after it emerges that Professor Quirrell is the real culprit, Harry retains lingering suspicions of Snape and their relationship is fraught at best.

Image:Severus-Snape-fighting.png

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry learns that, while they were still students at Hogwarts, Sirius Black - one of James Potter's best friends and later Harry's godfather - lured Severus to the Shrieking Shack where he could have been killed or seriously injured by Remus Lupin in his werewolf form. James acted to save Severus's life, but Severus has believed ever since that James was involved in the plot and only intervened out of fear of expulsion from Hogwarts. Later, it emerges that Snape suffered teasing and bullying at the hands of James and Sirius during their time at the school.

Snape repeatedly antagonizes Harry, labelling him "a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him" [HP4]. He taunts Harry during lessons, ridiculing his work and giving him frequent, often unjustified, detentions and other penalties. On several occasions Snape tries to have Harry, and sometimes his best friend Ron, expelled from the school. Nevertheless, in spite of these attempts to sabotage Harry's school career, Snape also saves Harry's life on more than one occasion.

During the Quidditch game of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Snape appears to be muttering a curse to harm Harry, as the boy is shaken wildly about on his broom several stories above the ground. It is revealed later by the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell, who was actually in league with Lord Voldemort, that he was the one muttering the curse, and that Snape was really protecting Harry by muttering a counter-curse to Quirrell's spell.

At the end of the fourth book, Snape, in addition to Dumbledore's attempts, tries to convince the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, that Voldemort has returned, by showing him the Dark Mark on his arm, still very clearly visible from when it burnt black at the Dark Lord's revival an hour earlier. Dumbledore subsequently sends Snape on a secretive mission, which is later revealed to have been as an envoy to Voldemort.

For a time during the course of the fifth book, Dumbledore assigns Snape the task of giving Harry lessons in Occlumency, the protection of one's mind from outside intrusion or influence. Snape is chosen because he is extremely skilled in both Occlumency and its companion art of Legilimency, the discerning of thoughts and feelings from another's mind, both proficiencies undoubtedly useful in his undercover work among the Death Eaters. The classes, however, are made uncomfortable for Harry because of the mutual hostility between them. The instruction is cut short after Harry observes Snape's worst memory in Dumbledore's Pensieve, which Snape had borrowed in order to sequester private memories during the lessons. Viewing this proves to be an unpleasant shock for Harry, who discovers that his father and Sirius had been arrogant bullies who persecuted Severus much as Dudley Dursley and Draco Malfoy persecute Harry. Harry also sees his mother Lily, who shares Severus's poor opinion of James, defending Snape against his two tormentors.

In the sixth book, while at his home at Spinner's End, Snape swears an Unbreakable Vow to Draco Malfoy's mother Narcissa that he will protect Draco and help him complete whatever task Voldemort has required of him. He is at long last appointed to his coveted post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He is seen by Hagrid arguing about an important task assigned to him by Dumbledore, saying that Dumbledore took 'too much for granted', and suggesting that there was something that he was no longer willing to do as planned. At the end of the book, during the skirmish between Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix on the battlements of Hogwarts, Dumbledore asks Harry to seek Snape's aid - but when Snape arrives, he instead kills Dumbledore using Avada Kedavra, the 'killing curse'. Snape flees the school followed by the surviving Death Eaters, taunting (or warning) Harry about his lack of proficiency in magical combat before Disapparating.

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The Half-Blood Prince

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In a major plot arc in the sixth book in the series, Snape is unexpectedly given the Defence against the Dark Arts job, and is replaced as Potions master by Horace Slughorn, who returns from retirement having taught the subject for many years before Snape. Harry is lent an old Potions textbook from the Potions storeroom which turns out to be filled with the jottings of a highly talented former student. The additional notes include a variety of hexes and jinxes seemingly invented by the student, as well as substantial improvements to the book's potion-making instructions, and is signed 'Property of the Half-Blood Prince'. Harry uses the notes in the book to bolster his performance in the subject during the year. His newfound abilities greatly impress Slughorn, who compliments him and declares that he must have inherited his mother Lily's outstanding ability at potions. Harry decides that, whoever the prince might be, he is a better teacher than either Snape or Slughorn.

Hermione, in part outraged by Harry's easy success in the subject, investigates the possible identity of the Half-Blood Prince and suspects a former Hogwarts student, Eileen Prince. Harry remains ambivalent about the importance of discovering who the Prince really was, although he is convinced that the student in question was male. He tries out one of the Prince's handwritten spells, 'sectumsempra' (from Latin, literally, "to cut forever") - marked 'For Enemies' - on his rival Draco Malfoy, and discovers to his horror that it causes vicious slashing wounds to the victim. Harry is already aware that at least two of the spells were used by Snape and his father James Potter during their 5th year, and this is confirmed by Remus Lupin. The way the spells are written into the book, with many corrections, also convinces him that the writer had invented the spells himself. Eventually, when Harry confronts Snape during the latter's flight from Hogwarts after the death of Dumbledore, Snape confirms to Harry that he himself is the originator of the spells, and that he is the "Half-Blood Prince" .

Eileen Prince, the student suspected by Hermione, was in fact Snape's mother. The nickname was derived from her maiden name of "Prince" and from Severus's father having been a Muggle, making Severus himself a "half-blood". This term is considered an insult by some in the wizarding world, especially among Voldemort's followers and in Snape's own Slytherin House. It is not clear how he came to receive the name, or whether it was in common usage during his studies. Remus Lupin, when questioned by Harry, knew nothing of the name despite also being a classmate.

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Loyalty

The question of Snape's ultimate loyalty is one of the most significant unresolved issues in the Harry Potter series. Apparently, both the followers and opponents of Voldemort think Snape is working as a double agent against the other, and it is unclear where his loyalties actually lie.

According to his Hogwarts colleague Sybill Trelawney, Snape was the eavesdropper during her interview with Dumbledore in the Hog's Head for a teaching job at Hogwarts. During the interview she fell into a trance and delivered a key prophecy regarding Voldemort and a foe who had the power to vanquish him. Dumbledore had revealed to Harry that there was an eavesdropper, but said that he only heard the first part of the prophecy[HP5].

Snape was a respected member of the Order of the Phoenix, but he kills Dumbledore using Avada Kedavra, an Unforgivable Curse, when Hogwarts is invaded by Death Eaters at the end of Half-Blood Prince.

The reflexive distrust of Snape exhibited by Harry is in stark contrast to the views of Dumbledore, who repeatedly makes clear that Snape has his full confidence. At Igor Karkaroff's trial, seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve, Dumbledore testified that Snape joined the good side before Voldemort's fall, "at great personal risk"[HP4]. Throughout the series, Snape's sinister personality and antagonism towards Harry have been juxtaposed with his occasionally heroic actions in Harry's defence. His history of divided loyalty to both the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix, and his actions in apparent support of both sides, make him one of the most morally complex characters in the series.

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Character origins and possible influences

Rowling says that she borrowed his surname from the village of Snape in the English county of Suffolk. Severus is Latin for "strict", "harsh", or "severe", and may have been inspired by the Imperial Roman Severan Dynasty, noted for their dictatorial ways and despised by the rest of the Roman elite as outsiders of Phoenician descent. Also, the name Snape clearly sounds like "snare", or "snake": given that snakes are symbols of dark forces and arts, even the surname suggest the unclear morale of the character. He also bears a passing resemblance to King Richard III of England, who has an unfairly earned reputation of cruelty and despotism.

Unusually among the cast of the film adaptations, Alan Rickman, who plays Snape, is one of a few people to whom JK Rowling is said to have spoken about the future direction of his character, perhaps reflecting the importance of Snape's ultimate role in the series[1].

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External links


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J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Philosopher's Stone
(Sorcerer's Stone in USA) 		book film game
Chamber of Secrets book film game
Prisoner of Azkaban book film game
Goblet of Fire book film game
Order of the Phoenix book (film)  
Half-Blood Prince book (film)  
Unnamed Seventh Book (book)    
Other books Other games
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
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de:Figuren der Harry-Potter-Romane#Severus Snape

es:Severus Snape fa:سوروس اسنیپ fr:Severus Rogue it:Severus Piton he:סוורוס סנייפ ms:Severus Snape nl:Severus Sneep no:Severus Slur ja:セブルス・スネイプ pl:Severus Snape pt:Severo Snape fi:Severus Kalkaros sv:Severus Snape zh:赛佛勒斯·石内卜

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