A Deeply Horrible Person - Thoughts on Severus Snape

Finished the Snape essay today.
Just to avoid misunderstandings: although usually of monumental laziness, I would of course have made an effort and put the page numbers into the text. But forked is working on this brilliant compilation of Snape quotes, so I really didn't see the necessity of doing the same work all over again.
sibylle should be gratified--I've tried to peel the real Snape out of the many layers of Harry's biased perception. Hopefully with success.

So, read, enjoy, criticize, comment, suggest... I'm lookign forward to seeing your thoughts.

A DEEPLY HORRIBLE PERSON

Thoughts on Severus Snape


A TRITE BUT NECESSARY PREAMBLE

Whoever tries to analyse one of the characters peopling the Harry Potter universe is facing one big problem—it has been repeated countless times, so often that people are thoroughly tired of hearing or reading it, but it is an important premise all the same and thus shall be repeated for the umpteenth time:

Whatever we see is filtered by the eyes, ears and mind of one Harry Potter, now aged 15 ¾. That’s a given. Whoever raises their hand to claim that Rowling might have slipped from time to time, i.e. that some passages sound like the words and thoughts of an adult rather than a teenager, is of course right. Only we don't know where exactly Rowling has stepped into Harry’s persona, and therefore it is much safer to assume that the point of view is Harry’s. At least, the two seem to coincide where Snape is concerned. JKR stated in an interview that Snape is a “deeply horrible person”, and that’s definitely also Harry’s opinion of the Potions master.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HARRY

Children (and when Harry starts school at Hogwarts, he’s definitely still a child) tend to judge people by first impressions or, more exactly, in a purely gut-level-based way. Moreover, many children are afraid of/disgusted by ugliness (ugliness can mean anything from x-large ears to an amputated leg). Children don't know anything about political correctness; for them, ‘ugly’ equals ‘upsettingly different’ equals ‘bad’. In Harry's case, we also have to consider that his life with the Dursleys has probably done a lot to enhance that attitude: neither Vernon nor Petunia are especially handsome people, and Dudley certainly isn’t a beauty. (On a side note: much might be said about JKR’s way of describing stupid, more or less evil people—the male Dursleys, Umbridge, Fudge, Crabbe, Goyle etc.—in a very unflattering way. But that’s for another essay) From what we know about Harry’s personal history previous to Hogwarts, he doesn’t meet many people except for the other children at his school (no friends, though). It would even be legitimate to state that he’s retarded in terms of socialization—spending eleven years of your life locked up in a cupboard will do that to the best among us. In any case, his way of perceiving his fellow human beings is still very much that of a child younger than his age.

1) HARRY’S PERCEPTION OF SNAPE

The first impression is a visual one. He’s “a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin.” (And JKR doesn’t miss a single opportunity of hammering these details into the readers’ brains—the description, almost identically worded, keeps returning with annoying regularity. I’m mentioning this because she doesn’t do it with other characters, or at least never to that extent)

The second impression is physical (and, I think, mostly overlooked). “The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrel’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes—and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.” An unfavourable first impression is deepened by physical pain. That’s almost like conditioning an animal—ugly guy + pain = evil guy.

This combination of stimuli results in a “feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.”

Further confirmation arrives immediately afterwards, and it’s rational confirmation, given by Percy Weasley. “Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape.”

[The senses of taste and smell don’t come into play—not overly surprising in case of the former, but quite astonishing in case of the latter. Children are quick (and merciless) at picking up unfavourable personal scents/smells on people they dislike. “You stink!” is a terrible insult among children, and not one Ron or Harry would easily forego in their diatribes against Snape. But body odour isn’t on the list of disgusting features, which at least implies that the greasy hair might not be due to lack of hygiene.]

Back to Percy’s comment on Snape the Dark Arts specialist: the introduction of this ‘Dark Arts’ red herring has been well prepared: Hagrid told Harry about Voldemort and explained that the scar on his forehead was left by a Dark curse; thus, ‘Dark’ is immediately established as the epitome of everything bad, hurtful and evil. Quirrell, the real baddie, on the other hand, is characterized as a harmless, nervous and slightly crazy person. Since Harry enters the magical world without any previous knowledge or information, except for the conviction that Dark equals evil, he and the readers who cross the threshold together with him are perfectly ready to accept Snape as the Bad Guy who wants to steal the Philosopher’s Stone.

Follows the first Potions class, which puts a finishing touch to the portrait of ‘evil Snape’: Not only are his eyes ‘cold’ (as opposed to Hagrid’s, which Harry mentally compares them to), he also humiliates Harry in front of the whole class by pointing out that being a celebrity is not all; it might also be a good idea to study as hard as the less famous students.

2) LOOKING BEYOND HARRY’S PERCEPTION OF SNAPE

Harry’s (understandable) feelings aside, what does Snape’s conduct throughout this first lesson tell us about him? He is authoritarian, and his teaching methods are sometimes questionable. Not because he’s strict, and neither because he doesn’t tolerate students who jeopardize his judgment/authority, but because he is biased and makes no effort to hide it. His different treatment of Draco and Harry illustrates this perfectly, and Harry, who has his own reasons to dislike Draco, of course resents it.

If we try to look at it from Snape’s point of view, his behaviour is still far from justified but at least understandable. Both boys are the spitting image of their fathers (the resemblance between Draco and Lucius is something the reader isn’t yet aware of; it’s mentioned later, in CoS, GoF and OotP) In OotP, Sirius calls Snape ‘Malfoy’s lapdog’; Lucius is five years Snape’s senior, therefore it is reasonable to assume that, at least for some time, Lucius was something like Snape’s friend and mentor. James Potter, on the other hand, was Snape’s nemesis and archenemy. The canon evidence is implicit, but it seems logical that Snape’s feelings for the fathers were very strong, if of a different nature. The great resemblance between fathers and sons makes it easy for him to see the sons as younger version of their fathers and hence treat them accordingly. To Harry, who at that time is completely ignorant of the past, this is the ultimate confirmation that Snape hates him.

Now that this conviction has taken root in Harry and the readers’ minds, everything Snape does or says can automatically be interpreted as a personal insult to Harry and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Ron. (Hermione seems to fall into an altogether different category: Snape constantly berates her for showing off, being a know-it-all and helping Neville. But he never picks on her for being Harry’s sidekick) Not that Snape isn’t biased against Harry, for the aforementioned reasons, but not everything he does or says is an expression of boundless malice and sadism.

The list of examples is long, so I’ll cite just a few of them.
--In PS/SS, the trio is standing outside in the courtyard; Harry is reading the copy of “Quidditch through the Ages” he has borrowed from the library. Snape approaches them and demands that Harry give him the volume, because library books aren’t allowed outside the castle. Ron’s comment: “I bet he made that one up.” Probably he didn’t. Probably the rule exists, and enforcing it provides a handy opportunity to show Potter that being famous doesn’t mean he can do what he wants.
--The Quidditch match Snape referees in PS/SS: in the process of diving after the Snitch, Harry almost knocks Snape off his broom. Afterwards, he sees ‘Snape landing nearby, white-faced and tight-lipped’ and immediately assumes that Snape is angry because Gryffindor won. Maybe he’s right. But maybe Snape is simply in shock, as being thrown off your broomstick by Harry ‘Cannon Ball’ Potter isn’t something you do for fun. Or maybe James did something similar?
--The Potions class in CoS, which is later disturbed by Harry, so Hermione can steal the ingredients: ‘Snape paused to sneer at Harry’s watery potion.’ Bad Snape. Of course the sneering is superfluous (but maybe it was merely a smirk). Remains the irrefutable fact that Harry’s potion is watery. As almost every student on this planet, Harry is of course furious because the teacher dared point out that his work is faulty.
--When Harry drinks tea with Lupin in PoA, while the others are at Hogmeade, Snape brings Lupin his Wolfsbane potion. His eyes are ‘wandering between Harry and Lupin,’ and when he leaves the room he looks ‘unsmiling and watchful’.
--At the end of PoA, when Black has already escaped and exams are over, ‘a muscle twisted unpleasantly at the corner of Snape’s thin mouth every time he looked at Harry, and he was constantly flexing his fingers, as though itching to place them around Harry’s throat.’ Harry, so anxious for his throat, seems to have forgotten that Snape has suffered a nervous breakdown. Not to mention that Snape is still convinced that Black is the traitor and a faithful servant of Voldemort. Three guesses why he suddenly escaped from Azkaban. Maybe because his Master called him? Hmm… And now he’s escaped once again and can tell the Master that Snape saved Harry? That might just account for a bit of nervousness.
--The Potions class in GoF, where the students have to brew an antidote: ‘Snape’s eyes met Harry’s and Harry knew what was coming. Snape was going to poison him. Harry imagined picking up his cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Snape’s greasy head…’
--During the Yule Ball, again in GoF, Harry and Ron come across Snape, who is having a conversation with Karkaroff. Snape is ‘blasting rose bushes apart, his expression most ill-natured’. Bad Snape! Trying to distract people’s attention from a hysterical ex-Death Eater blabbing about his Dark Mark. Now really…

In most cases, Harry can’t be blamed, simply because he knows too little. How should he be supposed to know that, when Snape sees him and Lupin drinking tea together, there are probably red lights and sirens going off in Snape’s head—as paranoid as Harry, and maybe more so, Snape is bound to assume that Lupin is telling Harry about his schooldays, the Marauders and… Snape.
Then again, Harry might know better than to think Snape is going to poison him in front of the whole class.
But of course that must never happen. Snape is an important figure of contrast in the first four books, if in different functions. In PS/SS, he provides a very handy Red Herring. In CoS, he is the ideal black counterpart to Silly Golden Boy Lockhart (although Lockhart is too much of a caricature to give weight to Snape’s darkness. What makes Snape shady in CoS is his much more obvious connection to the evil Malfoys) In PoA, he functions as foil to set off Lupin and, later on, James and Sirius. In GoF, JKR recurs to the old trick: Snape might very well be the one who put Harry’s name into the Goblet, especially once his Death Eater past becomes known.

In hindsight, the reader always goes “Ah! So he isn’t one of the evil guys after all!” but, as initiators of media campaigns know only too well, even though most of the dirt falls off, a little bit always sticks.

3) THE MEANING OF ‘DEEPLY HORRIBLE’

On top of this solid foundation, JKR builds, brick by brick, the façade of ‘deeply horrible’ Snape.

Considering that JKR is a writer and probably chooses her words quite consciously, the choice of ‘horrible’ instead of ‘evil’, ‘sadistic’, ‘cruel’ et al. is significant. A horrible person is not necessarily an evil person. On the other hand, ‘horrible’ is a sadly superficial description. What exactly does ‘horrible person’ mean? Somebody you’d rather steer clear of. Somebody whose way of communicating with their fellow human beings is palatable only after six months on a desolate island, out of mere desperation. Somebody who doesn't care about the reactions his behaviour evokes in said fellow human beings. It's the opposite of ‘nice’ person.

True, Snape is not a nice person. Flitwick qualifies as nice, and so does Hagrid. Snape does not fall into that category. Does that make him horrible?

4) I SEE NO DIFFERENCE—COMPARING SNAPE AND MCGONAGALL

In order to answer this question, why don’t we try a comparison between the two heads of houses, Snape and McGonagall?

Is Snape so very different from McGonagall? Harry doesn't feel she’s horrible, but I think we can chalk that up to the fact that she’s his head of house and obviously likes him. Her appearance is prim and stern but not ugly (if Snape is ugly, and that’s certainly debatable). Her teaching methods are not too different from Snape’s, and just like Snape, she calls her students names when they truly exasperate her. Case in point: during the first Potions lesson, Neville melts a cauldron and gets hurt. Snape calls him ‘idiot boy’. After the troll episode, McGonagall calls Hermione ‘foolish girl’.

Snape humiliates students in front of their fellow students. His favourite target being Neville Longbottom. But is McGonagall not humiliating Neville when she demands that he try not to let the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang see his inability to perform a simple switching spell?

McGonagall favours her house just as Snape does with his Slytherins—Harry thinks he’s being unjust, but that’s what Harry sees. Awarding or deducting house points is one of the most obvious methods of showing favour. Both teachers recur to that method outside the classroom rather often, and upon closer examination, Snape doesn’t come across as the only one who openly prefers his students. Again, the troll incident provides a good example: McGonagall takes five points from Hermione but awards ten to Harry and Ron, although their behaviour was reckless. This is only one example of McGonagall being very lenient on her own students (giving Ron and Harry a single detention after their stunt with the Ford Anglia would be another). If the whole story was told from Draco’s point of view, there’s little doubt that McGonagall would be the ‘horrible person’.

Another interesting detail, still from Book 1: on their way to the Astronomy Tower, carrying Norbert and covered by the Invisibility cloak, Harry and Hermione encounter McGonagall, who has just caught Draco roaming the corridors after curfew. And, oh wonder, McGonagall has “Malfoy by the ear.” Appalling as Snape’s verbal bullying might be, he never touches a student, not even when he’s beside himself with rage. Even in the Shrieking Shack, where he’s under considerable stress, Snape doesn’t physically attack the Trio, and when Harry blocks the exit he merely shouts at the boy to step aside, threatening that he will make him if he doesn’t obey immediately. Only in OotP does Snape become physically aggressive towards Harry, after catching him with his head in the Pensieve. There’s no possible justification for this behaviour, merely an explanation, to follow later on.

Snape never makes disparaging remarks to students about his fellow teachers, with one notable exception: PoA. When Lupin transforms, Snape takes over his DADA classes and complains about ‘incorrect information’, ‘lack of organization’ and too lenient grading (this, however, happens after the transformation of Neville’s Boggart). All students, including Harry, deem this to be outrageous behaviour. When McGonagall makes a very scathing remark about Divination in general and Sybil Trelawney in particular, nobody comments on it (Lavender is still worried, but about Harry’s safety, not because of Trelawney).

To quote Snape, “I see no difference.”
Or rather, there is a difference. Not to Harry, though, and not of behaviour but of motivation, but we’ll come to that a little later.

5) SNAPE AND THE FACULTY

Unfortunately, we very seldom see Snape interact with the other faculty members. The few times Harry sees him talk to other professors, Snape’s gestures, facial expression and—if Harry hears them—words are immediately relegated to the ‘bastard’ category:

--At the end of PS/SS, when the House Cup is awarded to Gryffindor, he shakes McGonagall’s hand with a “horrible forced smile”. Considering the fashion in which Dumbledore has whisked the cup from the Slytherins’ hands and handed it to the Gryffindors, this is not overly surprising.
--When, in CoS, the ‘Writing on the Wall’ appears for the first time, Snape immediately recognizes that, although the trio aren’t the culprits, they are certainly not telling the truth about their motives for being in that corridor. Hence, he proposes to deprive Harry of Quidditch until he chooses to tell the truth. McGonagall immediately bristles and protests (and her argument that Mrs. Norris wasn’t whacked over the head with a broomstick is scarcely worth more than a laugh) and Dumbledore sides with her. Snape is ‘furious’. What Harry fails to notice is that Snape doesn’t insist any further.
--During the first Hogsmeade weekend in PoA, Harry has to remain in the castle and ends up having tea with Lupin in his office. Snape brings the Wolfsbane Potion and exchanges a few words with Lupin; both are being perfectly polite. Deliberately ignoring that fact, Harry merely sees Snape’s “black eyes narrowing”, the “look in his eyes Harry didn’t like” and that he’s “unsmiling and watchful”. From this demeanour, Harry further jumps to the conclusion that the goblet Snape brought has to contain a poison.
--The few times Snape isn’t sneering, snarling or glaring, he’s at least a coward: (GoF) ‘…Snape seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever Harry saw the two of them together […] he had the distinct impression that Snape was avoiding Moody’s eye, whether magical or normal.’

There are a few passages showing Snape engaged in conversation with Dumbledore, with Harry present at or at least overhearing the scene. I’d also add Dumbledore’s talk with Harry at the end of PS/SS to this category, although Snape is absent, as it reflects a certain levity (not to say nonchalance) in the Headmaster’s handling of Snape. As a matter of fact, every single of those passages suggests that Dumbledore either takes whatever Snape has to say very lightly, laughing/joking it away, or is quite annoyed and consequently cuts him off. Unfortunately, he does so in the presence of students, too.
--He cuts off Snape’s protests (after the boys arrive at Hogwarts in the Ford Anglia, and Snape demands that they be expelled or at least disciplined) by mentioning that he has to return to the Great Hall, especially because of the custard tart awaiting him there.
--Still in CoS, when Snape suggests that Harry’s memory might return if the boy was to be deprived of Quidditch, Dumbledore reminds him that the trio is ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ although Snape never implied that they’re guilty. (Besides, the remark ‘innocent until proven guilty’ might ring some very unpleasant bells for Snape, but this is mere conjecture)
--In PoA, after Black’s spectacular destruction of the portrait of the Fat Lady, Snape insists that somebody must have let him into the castle (meaning Lupin), and Dumbledore firmly sustains that there can be no accomplice within the castle, in a tone that “made it so clear that the subject was closed that Snape didn’t reply”. Snape does, indeed, never reply when Dumbledore shuts him up. Not even during the scene with Fudge at the end of PoA. Only earlier, in the Hospital Wing, he asks, ‘does my evidence count for nothing?’ and points out that Black has, after all, proved that he’s capable of murder, when he played that prank on him. To the question whether he has forgotten that occurrence, Dumbledore replies that his ‘memory is as good as ever.’ Again, it seems that (just as with ‘innocent until proven guilty’) the Headmaster is alluding to quite different things, as if reminding Snape of errors past—very useful for shutting him up in the present.
--When Harry’s name has come out of the GoF, and everybody is in the small room adjacent to the Great Hall, tempers run high. Karkaroff accuses Dumbledore of having somehow botched the age line, but Snape jumps to his defence, blaming Harry instead (in an admittedly nasty way): his ‘black eyes alight with malice,’ he says to Karkaroff, “…He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here,” and is cut off by Dumbledore: “Thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore firmly, and Snape went quiet, though his eyes still glinted malevolently through his curtain of greasy hair.


CONCLUSIONS TO BE DRAWN FROM 1) to 6)

The point of all these arguments and examples being that, if fan fiction authors have been trying to paint a Snape different from the one-dimensional character represented by canon, they have a very good reason. They attempt to decipher the subtext under the obvious and refuse to take a child’s perceptions at face value. Above all, they ask the very important question “Why?” Why does Snape act that way? Why does he bully Neville? Why does he hate Harry? Etc. etc. Impossible to answer those questions in a satisfactory fashion without trying to shed some light on Snape’s character.
Maybe a real-life example might illustrate my meaning: Your child, 10 or 11 years old, starts school. There’s a teacher s/he doesn’t like. You ask, “Why don’t you like him?” Answer: “He’s got greasy hair, and a big nose just like Mr. XY—” (your child has had numerous run-ins with Mr. XY for taunting his dog/stealing his apples/whatever) “—and he just looks so creepy!” Would you, being the responsible parent you are, encourage your child in his/her dislike? Would you say, “Oh, I see, he has to be a horrible man. Be careful, and if he says so much as one wrong word, tell me immediately, and I’m going to have his balls for insulting you.” I honestly don’t think you would. Of course you’d take your child seriously, but you’d try to convince her/him that one mustn’t judge people by the state of their hair and size of their nose, that the teacher might not be the most loveable person on earth, but that the child should at least make an effort, blahblahblah.

That’s more or less what adult readers do concerning Snape. They try to look beyond Harry’s emotional horizon. They want to know more. Sometimes, they romanticize him, daemonize him, and do lots of other things to him, all ending with –ize. Because they need reasons. Only canon doesn’t offer any, or rather, it didn’t, not until Book 5. Not that OotP is a cornucopia of information, but it provides some very useful details, because we get glimpses of Snape’s past.


SNAPE’S PAST

The first hint at Snape’s past is dropped in PS/SS. After the showdown with Quirrell/Voldemort, Dumbledore visits Harry in the Hospital Wing and, among other things, enlightens the boy about Snape’s hate of James. Funny enough, he doesn’t tell the whole story, maybe because he feels that it’s not his place to do so. But he does not do the correct thing, which would be to encourage Harry to set aside his dislike of the Potions master, go to him and ask him. The only explanation he offers is that “then, your father did something Snape could never forgive. […] He saved his life. […] Funny, the way people’s minds work, isn’t it?” A paradox, in one word, which doesn’t help matters much.

The past again becomes important in PoA. Harry learns the ‘truth’ about Sirius Black and lots of details about his father when he first uses the Marauders’ Map and the Invisibility Cloak for sneaking into Hogsmeade. Later on, after the run-in with Draco on Harry’s second clandestine outing together with Ron, Snape tells him more about the ‘prank’ James and his friends played on him, still without mentioning any details but making it clear that they might have caused his death. Moreover, he denies that there was any heroism involved on James’s part, who merely saved Snape’s life because he feared the punishment that would have awaited them in case Snape had died. The full story emerges in the Shrieking Shack, told by Sirius and Remus.

In GoF, Dumbledore reveals to Harry that Snape used to spy on Voldemort at ‘great personal risk’ and, finally, Snape shows his Dark Mark to Fudge, so we know he was a Death Eater.

Still in GoF, Sirius tells the Trio that ‘ever since I found out that Snape was teaching here, I’ve wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape’s always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired git he was… Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters. […] But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater—not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape’s certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble.’

The first time we receive first-hand information, via the Pensieve and Harry’s direct access to Snape’s mind, is in OotP. More exactly, we get three short glimpses (the small boy crying while a man shouts at a cowering woman, the boy who tries to mount a broomstick and is being laughed at by a girl, and the lonely teenager in his bedroom, bored and zapping flies off the ceiling) and one long episode (the O.W.L.s and the following taunting of Snape). We cannot be 100% sure that the contents of a Pensieve are fake-proof, but on the other hand there is no evidence confirming that they can be edited. So let us assume that a Pensieve stands for a maximum of truth and objectivity.

The bits and pieces provided by Books 1 – 5 are few and far between. They do not result in a complete picture, and if we attempt something like a sketch of the life of Severus Snape, we still have to glue them together by conjectures.

His early childhood is completely in the dark, except for the brief glimpse into Snape’s mind. (If the small boy really is Snape, that is. We cannot exclude the possibility that the man shouting at the woman is Snape, the woman his wife, and the small boy their son.) But let us assume things are as they seem. Extrapolating from the short scene, we might conclude that Snape’s father was a tyrant and his mother too weak to defend herself. Maybe Snape was an only child.

It’s difficult to determine to which period of Snape’s life the scene with the broomstick and the girl belongs. Still more difficult to guess whether the girl’s laughter is good-natured (i.e. this might even be a not-so-bad memory) or not. From what Harry sees of Snape in the Pensieve, namely the gawky, spidery gait, drooping shoulders etc., it seems that he was physically clumsy, though. So maybe the girl laughs at his clumsiness. Maybe this episode takes place during the first flying lesson at Hogwarts, maybe at home. It would be interesting to know that, because it would help us judge Snape’s social life: did he have friends or didn’t he?

The lonely teenager in his bedroom rather implies that he didn’t. On the other hand, Sirius calls him ‘Malfoy’s lapdog’. The unflattering terminology aside, this hints at a close relationship. At the time of OotP, Lucius is 41. Snape, according to JKR, is 36/37. That amounts to an age difference of four or five years—Lucius therefore was in his fifth or sixth year when Snape was a first-year. From Sirius’s explanations about pureblood families, we further know that almost all pureblood wizards are somehow related.

With these tidbits in mind, let’s try to sketch the picture of Snape’s childhood and youth.

SNAPE’S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH—A PURELY CONJECTURE-BASED ATTEMPT

Severus Snape is the only child of a couple of pureblood wizards. For some reason (economical? political?) the Snape family is not on top of the social hierarchy and rather isolated. The Snapes aren’t exactly a happy couple. Severus grows up without friends. Somehow (parents? reading?) he acquires a sound knowledge of the Dark Arts. When he starts school at Hogwarts, Lucius Malfoy, scion of one of the most powerful pureblood families and in his fifth/sixth year, takes him under his wing. (They’re related/Lucius immediately recognizes that, in return for his protection he’ll have a faithful little servant/Lucius takes a liking to him because he’s intelligent and precocious/other) In terms of socialization, Severus is definitely behind his peers, and thus doesn’t have many friends. But for as long as Lucius is there, he feels strong. (Maybe, he also wants to impress his protector and therefore plays a few pranks on Potter, Black et al. That, however, would be in contradiction with Lily’s question “What has he done to you?” and Black’s answer that he hasn’t done anything, but his existence is offence enough) The problems start once Lucius is gone. Now Severus is fair game for everybody (maybe even including his own housemates).
He isn’t very attractive, and he’s clumsy. Either his personal hygiene is very poor (greying underpants) or his family is (greying is also an effect of too much washing). After Lucius’s departure, i.e. at the beginning of his third or fourth year, it’s too late for him to make friends with anybody, as the groups and cliques have already formed. So he remains isolated and concentrates on his studies (his O.W.L. exam seems to point in that direction). The Gryffindor Four nickname him ‘Snivellus’—why isn’t exactly clear—and he becomes their favourite target.
What’s interesting here are the dynamics between Snape and the Marauders. If the assumptions concerning Snape’s father are right, the boy has grown up in destructive surroundings. His father served as a role model for situations where he has the upper hand, his mother for situations where he’s the underdog. Maybe (guessing again) his mother had her own ways of getting back at her husband, avoiding flat-out confrontation where she could only lose and using more sneaky methods instead. Or, another ‘maybe’, Severus found out through his own experience that the only way of one-upping those stronger than himself was to find out their weak points and target them. His behaviour towards the Marauders seems to confirm that: they are four against one, so he has no chance of winning. He fires one curse (and not a harmless one) back at James, and when that doesn’t work, he gives up. But he finds out their weak spot, which is Lupin. Whatever his plans concerning the werewolf, they fail, and he has to accept yet another humiliation: James saves his life, and Dumbledore forbids him to mention to anybody that Lupin is a werewolf.

Maybe already in his childhood, but certainly during his Hogwarts years, Snape has developed his ‘emotional software’ for dealing with certain situations involving power balance and inferiority/superiority (I think that Snape generally sees human relations as power games):
1)If stronger, strike as hard as possible.
2)If weaker, try a strategic retreat, possibly without losing face and without letting the others see your hurt and humiliation. The others may have the upper hand, but they have no idea what you could do to them. Despise them.
3)If the power balance is undetermined, by all means assert your own superiority before they can even begin to doubt it.
4)You’re ugly, and you can’t change that.
5)You’re clumsy, so try to get rid of that.
6)You’re intelligent, and that’s your true capital. Use it.
7)Control is the keyword to everything. Control yourself, control the others. Never let the mask slip.
From these rules results a certain behaviour. Superficially, it often resembles McGonagall’s but, as mentioned above, the motivation is probably different.

HOW THE PAST AFFECTS THE PRESENT—SNAPE, THE BETA DOG

Until Book 4, we never see Snape in another position than that of a teacher. His behaviour in the classroom makes it very clear that he considers himself the undisputed Master and his students his inferiors. Which means that he automatically recurs to rules #1 and #3: his speech at the beginning of the first Potions class leaves no doubts as to who is holding the reins (rule #3). His teaching methods must not be questioned, and if somebody dares question them, they pay the price. The currency being house points and public humiliation. Once his superiority is sufficiently established, the students are weaker and thus subjected to rule #1. The weaker the person, the harder the blow; case in point: Neville Longbottom.

With his colleagues, he has to be a little more subtle, because they are—at least in theory—equals. Take Lockhart, for example. We may safely assume that Snape despises him. But for as long as he isn’t sure of his fellow teacher’s attitude towards the new colleague, he doesn’t do anything. Of course, Lockhart’s remark about ‘being able to whip up a Mandrake restorative draught in his sleep’ causes him to bare his fangs and remind the git who is the Potions master. Only when it has been sufficiently established that the DADA teacher is a charlatan does he strike: public humiliation at the Duelling Club. And when the basilisk has taken Ginny Weasley into the Chamber, Snape moves in for the kill: “Just the man,” he said, “the very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last.”

McGonagall, on the other hand, is both his superior and his equal. Both are Heads of House, but she’s the Deputy Headmistress. Besides, she seems to have been his teacher while he was still at school—difficult to completely overcome that. Hence his rather careful reactions. They clash quite often, usually once in every book, and always over Harry. The pattern, too, is always the same. Snape demands more severe punishment, McGonagall rises to her students’ defence like a lioness for her cubs’, and Snape desists. Maybe he merely enjoys taunting her. Maybe he keeps up the game, waiting for the one precious occasion when the lioness is tired, so he can strike. Maybe he knows that she’s going to win anyway, being backed up by Dumbledore, and merely bares his teeth, so as to remind her that he, too, has got teeth.

His behaviour towards Moody has already been mentioned in a different context. There is, however, also the scene in the middle of the night, when Harry gets stuck in the staircase and drops the golden egg. Snape shows up, because he has heard the noise and, more importantly, because somebody just broke into his office. And then comes Moody. Moody who knows about his Death Eater past. Moody who has searched his office. Moody who makes barely veiled allusions to said past (‘spots that never come off’). Moody who simply walks all over him, threatening that he’ll have a word with Dumbledore because Snape ‘has it in for Harry’. For once, Snape has definitely found his master. He backs down immediately, as he has nothing he might oppose to Moody’s overwhelming presence, except for a petty ‘I have as much right to prowl this school after dark as you do.’

And finally, Dumbledore. Whatever the reason, Snape never argues with him. He tries to assert his own opinion, is regularly gagged (either in a humorous fashion or, more often, by a sharp reprimand) and goes quiet. Dumbledore is definitely the alpha wizard, to such an extent that it even seems doubtful whether Snape would ever dare apply rule #2.

In OotP, we get a first glimpse at how ridiculously easy it is to destroy Snape’s carefully constructed spiel. One hint at the past, and the façade crumbles. Everything comes back in a rush—all the never-properly-dealt-with emotions surface, triggered by some rather minor event or remark. The fight between Black and Snape at Grimmauld place is the best example: first, they bicker—power balance still even. Then the insults become a little more serious—time to show the other who’s the alpha male. It’s significant that, while Snape forges his insults from the present, Black uses the past. Each of them knows exactly what hurts the other one most. Snape's dignity is forgotten, he doesn't even care that Harry is present. All he sees is his fury, and the man who has humiliated him countless times, and who’s calling him Snivellus. It would be interesting to imagine how the scene might have continued, had not the Weasleys interrupted the fight. Maybe Harry would have lost his godfather a little earlier.

But not only Black, even Harry has the power to make Snape’s façade crumble in an instant. By having witnessed the episode of extreme humiliation in the Pensieve, the fifteen-year-old boy becomes the alpha male, and all Snape can do is protect his last shreds of dignity and throw him bodily out of his office. Physical violence as the last resort.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR FANON!SNAPE?

It means that, despite the information the five books contain, there is more than one possibility of depicting a credible, true-to-canon Snape, if the author bears in mind that

--His ways of dealing with past traumata are infantile, immature and practically non-existent. Snape will always try to reduce any relationship to a power game, make sure of his position and act accordingly. Hence, whether he is paired with a younger or older woman makes little difference. Any woman able to make him understand that a relationship isn’t about inferiority/superiority has a chance, at least theoretically. If she has enough patience.

--Given his way of handling said relationships, there’s little chance of him being a sex god, merely because he has trouble relaxing and trusting a partner. He might be good material for training, though. Again, patience is required.

--He probably isn’t what we’d call good-looking. And it’s not too likely that he’s using some glamour to make himself ugly. No, the woman who falls in love with him has to have strange tastes indeed. But we may safely assume that his hygiene isn’t that bad.

--Considering the few things we know about his character, Snape having joined Voldemort out of idealism seems to be a rather weak theory. The motive that dominates everything is fear. Psychoanalysis teaches us that great wishes create great fears and vice versa. Therefore, Snape’s fear of humiliation and weakness was probably counterbalanced by the desire to be strong and dominant. Was there any better method to achieve this goal than joining the biggest of all bullies?

--Whatever his reasons for leaving Voldemort, his past still holds blackmail potential. A hypothesis that might come quite close to the truth is that, during his Death Eater years, Snape probably experienced humiliation of some kind. There’s a gazillion of possible scenarios: Voldemort might have humiliated him in front of the other Death Eaters, he might have had a chance meeting with Black or Potter and unable to counter a snide remark with a Killing Curse… If he’s truly ashamed of what he’s done, in all likelihood he won’t talk about it—revealing weakness is a tactical error, remember? But we may safely assume that he’s neither a saint in disguise nor devil incarnate. Less flamboyant but more credible.

If seen in this light, the scene in the Pensieve might really be Snape’s worst memory. The ultimate humiliation that, for him, sums up all the previous ones and those which came after it. If his greatest fear is to be weak, murder and violence would have been means of alleviating that fear, not traumatic memories.

All things considered, Snape is terribly… average. No romantic hero, no gothic hero, no uber-mastermind, no… Well, he’s hardly more interesting than the guy next door who’s just polishing his car.

Damn!

We’d have accepted evil, we’d have accepted a martyr. Bloody hell, we’d even have accepted a deeply horrible person. But an average guy with an inferiority complex?

This does not bode well for fan fiction…