fortheloveofsnorkacks

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

"Red hair and a hand-me-down robe. You must be a Weasley."

Ginny and Ron borrow clothes “handed down” from older siblings

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

"You are on probation!" shrieked Professor Umbridge, and Snape looked back at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. "You are being deliberately unhelpful! I expected better, Lucius Malfoy always speaks most highly of you! Now get out if my office!"

Snape gave her an ironic bow and turned to leave.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

"You are on probation!" shrieked Professor Umbridge, and Snape looked back at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. "You are being deliberately unhelpful! I expected better, Lucius Malfoy always speaks most highly of you! Now get out if my office!"

Snape gave her an ironic bow and turned to leave.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

The immense darkness in Harry in the DoM battle and how he uses what he's perceived about Voldemort's dynamic with his followers is fascinating:

“You need more persuasion?” she said [...] “Very well — take the smallest one,” she ordered [...] “Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I’ll do it.” Harry felt the others close in around Ginny. He stepped sideways so that he was right in front of her, the prophecy held up to his chest. “You’ll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us,” he told Bellatrix. “I don’t think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?” [...] “Yeah,” said Harry [...] “Yeah, I’ve got no problem saying Vol —” “Shut your mouth!” Bellatrix shrieked. “You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare —” “Did you know he’s a half-blood too?” said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. “Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle — or has he been telling you lot he’s pureblood?” (Beyond the Veil, OOTP)

His scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected with his own rage. “And he knows!” said Harry with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He’s not going to be happy with you, is he?” “What? What do you mean?” she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice. “The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think Voldemort’ll say about that, then?” [...] “LIAR!” she shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now. “YOU’VE GOT IT, POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME — Accio Prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY!” Harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her [...] He waved his empty hand from behind the one-eared goblin and withdrew it quickly as she sent another jet of green light flying at him. “Nothing there!” he shouted. “Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that —” “No!” she screamed. “It isn’t true, you’re lying — MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED — DO NOT PUNISH ME —” “Don’t waste your breath!” yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever. “He can’t hear you from here!” “Can’t I, Potter?” said a high, cold voice. (The Only One He Ever Feared, OOTP)

Goading Bellatrix with what Voldemort confided in Harry about his background and his performance to his pureblood followers, and taunting her with Voldemort's violence, especially after Sirius's death.

Harry's seen Voldemort using Crucio on his Death Eaters in GoF (Wormtail, Avery in the graveyard) and in OOTP gauges it from flashes of him with Rookwood, etc. ("His scar began to burn; he bit hard on his pillow to stop himself making a noise. Somewhere, he knew, Avery was being punished"). And obviously Harry was tortured by him too in GoF ("He’s got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain," said Harry. "He doesn’t need anything more efficient than that.") and was lured to the DoM by a vision of LV Crucio-ing Sirius.

Harry initially attempts to use the Cruciatus on Bellatrix himself of course, in revenge for Sirius, and fails - and then plays on her fear of Voldemort and what he's witnessed of Voldemort's punishments and torture of his followers to antagonize her, laughs at her terror, and taunts her further when she starts pleading with Voldemort not to punish her.

Bellatrix refers to Sirius twice as "my dear cousin" in the DoM sequence, and then Harry refers to Voldemort as "your dear old mate" (knowing Voldemort replicates familial connection with his followers and witnessed him calling them his "true family" and "my intimate friends"/"my friends") and also "your boss". (Sirius also refers to Walburga as "my dear old mum" in this same book).

#huh. semi unrelated but #never really thought about Harry through the lens of chronic pain until i read the way he acted here #the don't waste your breath bit #like huh. yeah. sucks. but what else is new? + there is a certain sort of recklessness around pain #where you're in pain enough and everything is glazed over and so what does it matter #and you're more honest because you lost the filter a few degrees of pain ago #and new or acute pain doesn't really break through much and so you're sort of just shoving yourself through #might as well go shove yourself to the grocery store #or write that thing because who cares if it's any good you don't you don't care about anything and why the heck not #cut something up. break something. who cares #obviously with harry there's a whole lot more going on here #and emotional dimensions that are more complex #but weirdly enough i recognize the feeling here of recklessly pushing through pain #knowing that it's going to fall back on you but you're past caring #and all there is is this moment

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

so what I'm hearing here is that they're like the unhappy version of the Addams family

i'm thinking about how the characterisation of the black family tends to be really difficult to get right and one of the reasons that i can think of is that we don't know enough of wizarding culture, so we try to convey the atmosphere and the dynamics through codes that are familiar to us

that's why they are so victorian in so many fics. they act and speak like they're inside a victorian novel, they only ever wear black and dark green, the high society/pure blood circle is also composed by meeting for tea, and having balls, and discussing politics, and arranged marriages

and that's not bad!!! i read and love some fics like that, but i think this is an aesthetic that completely ignores some of the things we know about wizards and about the blacks

first of all, the clothes. wizards wear robes. not late 19th century clothes, robes. and they're most often dramatic and colorful. this is something easily observed in the very first chapter of PS. so i think the blacks should wear deep purple and emerald green and silver and burgundy and turquoise, make outfits fun!!!

second, grimmauld place tells us some things about its inhabitants. the fact that it's a muggle house in a muggle neighborhood shows that they must have some level of cognitive dissonance in terms of what elements of muggle culture and lifestyle they hold (but i don't think that applies to holding the same patterns of views and behaviors of high society, again, it's about how the writers tries to convey "rich and uptight" with codes that are familiar to them). the decoration choices for the house are also very telling, family heirlooms, big clocks, tapestry... troll leg and house elf heads??? that's morbid. that's camp.

and my point is, black family characterisation lacks on campiness. wizards are inherently weird. anything in which they're overly polite and too aristocratic is inaccurate. they are bigots and lobbyists and one of them was literally headmaster of hogwarts. they are into the dark arts but they don't torture their children. make them funnier and messier and weirder and more like real people instead of a bunch of lines from downton abbey glued together

#plus classism and prejudice of course

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

I scribbled myself a note to write a post about this, and that last anti post reminded me, but I wanted to make it a standalone post

Keep in mind that Order of the Phoenix is characterised by the repeated theme of Harry having his ideas of good and evil somewhat upended and muddied. It is an important turning point in his maturity. He comes to see Sirius, Lupin, and James' failings, just as he comes to be able to empathise at least briefly with Snape. He questions whether Hagrid is wise to bring back Grawp, his feelings turn very sour towards Dumbledore, the Ministry of Magic becomes an enemy, Percy becomes estranged, and he questions his own morality and culpability as Voldemort uses the link between them. This is important context.

Umbridge is a bad teacher; no one doubts this. She is probably more hated as a character than even Voldemort. And yet she is not "evil" in the sense of being possessed by Voldemort, and as Sirius says, in what is probably the best summation of the theme of this book, "the world is not only made up of good people and Death Eaters." Umbridge is not evil because she uses dark magic, which she does not usually do. In fact, she doesn't use magic very much at all. Her kind of evil is mundane and bureaucratic. Everything is, to her, a matter of law: something is either lawful or it's not. The spirit of the law does not matter; she is perfectly willing to change laws or introduce new ones to effect her goals, but she always does it this way. Morality is determined by what is written down, not the other way around.

But she is not just a bad teacher because she is controlling and sadistic. She is also bad at teaching. In fact, she never teaches them anything. She tells them to read the book in silence, does not answer questions or allow discussion, and does not allow practical demonstrations. The focus here is usually on the last point, since it's what leads to the plot-critical formation of Dumbledore's Army. But there is something quite interesting about the book itself.

Everhard, by Hermione's own description, "doesn't like jinxes very much." The book opens with a chapter on "nonoffensive" responses to attack, which is actually not a bad thing. De-escalation (knowing when it is appropriate as well as knowing how to do it) is not only a valid response in many cases, it is the one that is least likely to end up with you getting into serious harm. Obviously, this will not apply to the real threat that faces them, but that does not mean that it is not an important principle in general. It should be the first thing they learn about defence. Any self-defence class or book will say the same thing. The best way to not lose a fight is to not get into one in the first place, which includes knowing when it's not wise to escalate a situation. But Hermione's comment is in reference to a section in which Everhard says "counterjinx is simply the name people give to their jinxes to make them sound more acceptable." Hermione disagrees with this on the grounds that counterjinxes can be useful. Only...that isn't really what that quote is saying, is it? It isn't saying they aren't useful. It's saying that the distinction between jinx and counterjinx is meaningless semantics made up by people who know that changing words around can make the same actions seem good or bad. If you shoot someone who is trying to shoot you, that doesn't make your gun a "countergun" or your bullet a "counterbullet."

This is in direct opposition to the way Umbridge operates, which is interesting; they only seem to dislike the book because she's the one who set it and her own class policies, not because the book is itself wrong -- this, too, is a matter of judging based on perspective rather than objective content. And we notably see this again in OotP: in Snape's Worst Memory. I could argue that the entirety of SWM is an example of this, since Harry makes assumptions about why this was such a bad memory for Snape that we don't really have corrected until DH, but that's its own essay. More directly relevant is what kind of magic is being used. We are introduced to the spell scourgify at the beginning of the book, by Tonks, who uses it as a benign cleaning spell. We see scourgify again when James uses it against Snape, only this time it isn't so benign. He's basically drowning Snape with it. This is, presumably, not dark magic. When Harry confronts Sirius about it, he evaded responsibility or explanation by saying that James hated dark magic and Snape was up to his nose in it. And yet James is the one we see magically attacking someone first. Snape's magic occurs after he's already been attacked, which he tries to avoid in the first place (perhaps he's read Everhard's book...or perhaps he's just not an idiot), and we don't know what spell he uses at this point, because it's nonverbal and we haven't been introduced to sectumsempra yet, let alone whether it's "dark" magic. We don't consider reducto or relashio to be dark magic. In fact, we have nothing to go on about Snape's involvement in dark magic at this point except Sirius' claim, which is obviously biased so as to make excuses for himself and his friends. We know that Snape is good at defence, from his OWL, but then again...so is Harry. Sirius and Lupin downplay what James did on the grounds that it wasn't dark magic, but, well, that's semantics again, isn't it? Scourgify has completely harmless, good, mundane uses, but does that mean it's fine to use to choke a fellow student just because you don't like him? Is that "light" magic? Is that good? Just like jinx/counterjinx, like Umbridge's authority, like the lies about Harry in the Daily Prophet, words are just words, and can be manipulated. What you call something ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with it and why. That is the theme OotP is trying to hammer in over and over. And if you're still out here arguing that Snape deserved what he got because he was allegedly interested in dark magic and James allegedly hated dark magic, you've missed something huge in terms of both the story and some basic moral reasoning.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

Been a while since I've posted here, but you know what? It's fascinating to think about the contrast between Snape's generally visible display of emotions (at least at Hogwarts) and his skill and success as a spy, especially under a legilimens like Voldemort.

If I were to characterize Snape's behavior at Hogwarts, it seems like he's got almost no emotional control, or at least like his emotions are constantly on his skin. Maybe Harry just has a knack for bringing out that side of him, but he rarely seems to see the need to hide what he feels. (This is unfortunately the main thing lost by Alan Rickman's cooler performance of him)

Yet he lectures Harry on his inability to control emotions during occlumency lessons and he's able to successfully control his own reactions and play up people's biases enough to survive being an active double agent for around 7 years and a passive double agent for an additional decade.

#snape

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

I've recently enjoyed re-reading all of your metas... they're all incredible! I was wondering which one has been your favorite to write, which one has been the most challenging to write, and which one you're most proud of!

Omg thank you so much! It means a lot from you - I really enjoy all your insights as well.

My favourite meta to write - all Remus metas! I think it's mostly me structuring the conversation I have with @thecat-isblogging-blog into a coherent meta format - so the raw material is always pretty solid (and quite funny because Cat makes the whole character discussion funny). Sample us joking about Remus' real feelings about Snape:

I think the most solid collaboration from the two of us has been - Gentleman Monster: How Remus' Marginalisation and Comparitive Privilege Made Him Who He is

My most challenging to write - my most challenging to write is easily the series of metas I did on Christian allegory in series - The Lightning Struck Tower, and it's continuation: Cold Blooded Walk to Destruction: Harry and Dumbledore, Snape

I had to consult a lot of people and read up for this series of metas because Christianity is a minority religion where I am from, so all I know are the larger outlines you get from osmosis. Although I am very glad I did it because knowing this helps understand the imagery and lot of symbolism that was intended in the books and helps me understand it at a deeper level.

The most proud of - The Abandoned Boy and Problematic Fathers: Snape with Voldemort and Dumbledore

I think this was the first meta I was really, really proud of and while I think I had more insightful things to say with regards to world building metas like the importance of Soul (written with @artemisia-black ) + house elf plotline - this meta breaks down Snape's radicalisation and why he is particularly vulnerable to it. It's not a new discussion in the Snape side of fandom (I think there is another meta someone else made on it) but it is new for the wider fandom. I wrote it fresh on the heels of working with vulnerable men myself (I used to work as a therapeutic movement facilitator) and there are insights I had from there that I brought here. It is foundational to how I characterise Snape.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

Anyone ever pissed at Snape because he literally had the students buy shitty potions textbooks?

Like literally the same book he used when he was at hogwarts

The same book he spent time correcting so that it actually worked

That’s the book he had his students buy, and then he didn’t give them the corrections.

That alone makes him an unforgivable character because he liked to watch children fail.

#this #and to sharpen the point more: as others have pointed out the wizarding world's classism results in a patronage system #wherein the only way to advance if you are not born with native wealth and prestige #is to have a prestigious patron who is supportive #and we may be able to theoretically talk about snape and the malfoys but i don't know if they'd go for a public show of support #for anyone else the problem of snape's history of poverty and class remains #not to mention his personality #he's not good at endearing himself to people. if slughorn (a key patron) didn't pick him up #it's hard to imagine another sponsor doing the same #so publishing has a pretty major hurdle #with regards to creativity there's also the example of fred and george who are explicitly innovating #both in the realm of wandwork and of applied material magics (e.g. potions herbology magizoology) #no one is ragging on them for proprietary magics or saying they should become teachers (a calling for which they #like snape. are patently unsuited for) (and by that i mean that snape is really not suited in nature for teaching and frankly hates it #though he is clearly capable of imparting knowledge

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

Severus Snape!🦇💕

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

I'm past the point of "he wouldn't fucking say that" and onto "he wouldn't fucking say that like that"

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

they is not knowing that we is knowing how to take the lives we is wanting from them. and that is why they is not thinking about how many weapons they is putting in kitchens.

tom riddle had nothing to do with the death of hepzibah smith. hokey had just had enough of being a slave.

sparkling cyanide hokey & hepzibah smith general | 1.4k words

this piece was written for week fourteen of @ladiesofhpfest, which focuses on the non-human ladies of the harry potter series (you can find the masterlist of the week’s fics here), which, here, means hokey, the house elf enslaved by hepzibah smith. or, as we shall call her from hereon out, eokhí, which is how her name is accurately transcribed from the elvish language (more on which below).

for a story which only has 1,400 words, there is a lot to say about this one. some author’s notes under the cut:

the title is the same as that of agatha christie’s 1945 novel sparkling cyanide - published in the united states as remembered death - for which there are some spoilers immediately to follow. it is not, let me be frank, agatha’s best (not least because it’s a rewrite of a poirot short story, ‘the yellow iris’) but there are several things about it which appealed to me when i was writing this: that it deals with a death initially presumed not to be murder; that it has multiple suspects, including a young man who appears to desire wealth; and that the murder weapon is a poisoned drink.

the poison - in christie’s case and in mine - is potassium cyanide. this is obviously a deviation from what we are told in half-blood prince - in which dumbledore describes the poison used to kill hepzibah as ‘rare’ - since cyanide is probably one of the better known methods of doing away with troublesome old ladies, but it has been my headcanon for quite a while: cyanide looks very similar to sugar; it's highly soluble; its bitter taste requires something sweet (like cocoa) to mask it; it kills its victim extremely quickly; and it wouldn’t be completely bizarre for it to be found in a wizarding house. cyanide was a standard component of silver polish until surprisingly recently, and i am choosing to believe that this is the same in the wizarding world. in her interview with the aurors, eokhí just happens to mention that hepzibah wanted a pair of silver candlesticks polished the day she died, and everyone considers the matter settled.

i’ve always been fascinated by the murder of hepzibah smith, not least because - as it’s described in canon - it’s a massive deviation from voldemort’s usual modus operandi. hepzibah is the only person we know to have been poisoned by him, and the only person we know to have been killed using - essentially - a muggle method (even if the poison in jkr’s head is magical, stirring it into a cup of cocoa isn’t). above all, i am obsessed about what it says about voldemort that the hyper-feminine (even if the text treats her attempts at femininity as ridiculous - something which eokhí agrees with) hepzibah is killed in such a feminine-coded way: poison is known in pop-culture as a ‘woman’s weapon’ - even if statistical evidence doesn’t confirm this - and a domestic one; and the image of hepzibah dying in her own home, over a cosy cup of cocoa, as punishment for insulting voldemort’s mother (whose death kept him from that experience) is really striking.

a part of the murder which is more usual for voldemort is that he frames someone else. however, unlike with his framing of morfin gaunt for the murder of the three riddles, which is made to look deliberate, he makes eokhí’s involvement in hepzibah’s death look accidental, and eokhí appears to receive no punishment from the ministry of magic. this undoubtedly has nothing to do with any compassion for her on voldemort’s part; he chooses it because it’s the most plausible cover he can give himself, and this must be because wizards know that elves cannot deliberately harm their masters.

or, at least, think they know that.

poison’s association with women and the domestic sphere obviously means it has a reputation for being the means by which servants bump off their masters - and, specifically, how female servants bump off their mistresses. i very much like the idea of witches laughing in a self-satisfied way, thinking that they never have to worry - like silly old muggles - about being done away with by their cooks, while the loophole which elves have noticed and have been exploiting for centuries stares them right in the face. because we see in canon that elves are perfectly capable of indirectly harming their masters - dobby spends the entirety of chamber of secrets doing it - and so, when eokhí decides she has had enough of her mistreatment at hepzibah’s hands, all she has to do is get the poison out of the cupboard, put it in a dish, and let hepzibah choke on her own arrogance.

eokhí is a type of elf we only see glimpses of in canon - one who does not want to be a slave. the house-elf plotline is the weakest in the series for many reasons, but one i always find particularly galling is that dobby’s revolutionary zeal in chamber of secrets, in which he talks of whisper networks of elves decrying their ill-treatment at the hands of wizards and celebrating voldemort’s death, vanishes in goblet of fire, when the standard elvish position seems to correspond with the wizarding one: that being a slave is great and wanting freedom is bizarre.

eokhí said fuck that. this story is one of disrespect and rage and revenge, and of the triumphant pleasure of reclaiming the space which was once used to oppress you, as eokhí goes from waking up in a nest of blankets on the kitchen floor - because she’s not allowed a real bed, unlike hepzibah - to eating the cakes she has always been denied while hepzibah lies dead in the parlour.

it is also a story of language.

we hear several elves speak in canon, although only three in any great detail: dobby, winky, and kreacher. there are differences across their speech - dobby and kreacher tend to speak in the third-person, winky tends to speak in the first-person; kreacher uses the present continuous the least, winky uses it the most - but none speak in standard british (or american) english, and there are similarities - such as tendency to use non-standard conjugations of verbs (‘i is not sure you did dobby a favour, sir’) - among all three.

in harry potter, characters who speak in non-standard english are generally coded in one of three ways: foreign (fleur, krum); simple-minded (hagrid); or shifty (mundungus fletcher, amycus carrow). which - if any - of these readings is intended for elves is up for debate, although my own view is that elves’ language is intended to make the reader agree with the standard wizarding opinion that they are less sophisticated or rational than humans and that their subordinate position in wizarding society is natural and justifiable. this is, obviously, something the text partially pulls the rug from under - the underestimation of both dobby and kreacher’s powers and agency is a significant contributor to harry’s victory - but it always feels, given the series’ failure to fully stick the landing on whether it thinks slavery is a bad thing, not as pointed or ironic as it may have been intended to be.

i prefer to think of elves as having their own language, used among themselves, to which wizards have no access. but i also think that it does them a disservice to think of the language they use to interact with wizards as simply non-standard - or, more dismissively, ‘broken’ - english. i think we should imagine that all adult elves are fluent speakers of two languages: the elvish language; and what we might call elvish creole, which - like all creole languages - is not a dialect, but a full language in its own right.

eokhí’s story is written in this language. some of its linguistic features are:

phonetics: in goblet of fire, dobby is shown to think that ron’s surname is pronounced ‘wheezy’. he thinks this because the elvish language of course has its own phonetics, which particularly affect the transcription of proper nouns which are not habitually used in elvish or elvish creole. two examples are important to this story: the elvish language doesn’t have an aspirated h- (as in, how a speaker of standard british english would pronounce ‘hokey’) and it doesn’t have a plosive p- (as in, how a speaker of standard english would pronounce ‘hepzibah’). that hepzibah expects eokhí to pronounce her name properly and yet doesn’t extend this basic courtesy to her should not surprise us.

names: three elves we meet in canon - dobby, winky, and hokey - have names which end in a ‘ee’ sound. as eokhí explains, this is because elves are usually named after nouns, and the nominative singular of nouns in the elvish language end in -í. plural nouns end in -é. [kreacher’s name appears to be an adaptation of the word ‘creature’, which suggests that he was dehumanised to such an extent that his masters wouldn’t even make an attempt to pronounce his real name.]

elves do not speak the names of their dead. eokhí refers only to eokhí’s mother, rather than using the name she had when she was living. wizards do not realise they are being disrespected when elves use their names after they are gone.

pronouns: the elves we see in canon tend to use illeism. that is, they refer to themselves in the third-person singular - he, she - most of the time. although winky uses the first-person singular - i - regularly, dobby only uses it occasionally, and kreacher never does. they also tend to use their own names as pronouns - ‘kreacher is cleaning’ - particularly when needing to add emphasis or clarity to sentences. eokhí never uses the first-person singular, for reasons connected to elves’ traditions about the self. she would explain to us that when elves refer to themselves as ‘i’, they are choosing to speak standard english for the benefit of their wizarding audience, and she doesn’t feel hepzibah deserves that effort.

verbs: the elves we see in canon generally only use the third-person singular of verbs - 'i says' - regardless of pronoun choice. eokhí does the same, since both elvish and elvish creole have no plural verb forms and only one grammatical person, once again connected to elves’ traditions about the self.

the elves we meet in canon also tend to use the present continuous - ‘my master is telling winky some things’ - frequently, often in a context which would not feel intuitive for speakers of standard english. in eokhí’s speech, the present continuous is used to show actions which are repeated or habitual - ‘eokhí is waking up one morning in her nest on the kitchen floor’ - while the simple present refers both to general statements of fact - ‘eokhí is a slave’ - or to one-off actions ‘eokhí decides that is it’. in the past tense, similar principles apply: eokhí uses the past continuous - the smith family ‘was wanting to be looked after’ by eokhí’s mother to describe repeated or habitual actions - and the simple past for general or singular events. the future continuous is used both for actions which will be repeated or habitual and for actions which will take a indeterminate time to conclude - ‘eokhí is going to be fighting back’, her battle is not just done with hepzibah dead - rather than simple actions with a defined end-point - ‘she will eat’.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

What’s something about Ron Weasley as a character that you think is underrated?

That Ron is really, really funny, and and that his sense of humour isn't a sign of immaturity or gratuitous comic relief for the reader's sake, but an absolutely essential part of what both Harry and Hermione value in Ron as a character as an antidote to their own tendencies (moodiness and seriousness/anxiousness, respectively). Ron makes bad days bearable to get through for the people around him. I think people mistake Ron making jokes for a lack of emotional awareness, but I actually think it’s the opposite. By the series end Ron is literally the most emotionally well-adjusted of the central canon characters. That line about Peeves’ poem right at the end of DH when the war is won (“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?”) is a) brilliant and b) such a great manifesto for how Ron’s outlook on the world — not humour as emotional avoidance, but humour that sits within all the grief and pain and suffering, and makes it that bit more bearable. So yeah Ron Weasley’s love for chuckles is Important and Overlooked and I will keep saying it til I am blue in the face

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

"Look, Severus! She's so beautiful!"

"Put it down, Lily."

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

Snape is an extremely dynamic character, in that he’s a very different person depending on what point in time you analyze him.

The contrast between Snape as young man and Snape as an adult in term of selfishness is astounding. Young Snape only really cared about himself and Lily, and the rest of the world could go to hell. He doesn’t care about Mary McDonald, he doesn’t care about all the people that would suffer should Voldemort win, he doesn’t care about condemning an innocent to death by reporting a prophecy, he doesn’t care about Harry (I know that he couldn’t have begged for his life, I still highly doubt he cared either way). He’s an extremely selfish individual.

 Adult Snape is willing to sacrifice anything and everything in order to save lives, to do the right thing. Snape sacrifices his life, kills the only man who really knew him, torpedo’s his reputation and all of his relationships in the Order of the Phoenix, and even puts his very soul at risk, all to save lives and do the right thing. As far as he knows, he will be remembered as a monster, since the only person he tells the truth is Harry, who as far as he knows has to die. He’s the most selfless man in the entire series, rivaled only by Harry Potter himself. I adore his character arc, it’s astounding.

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

⭐️Young Trio!⭐️

[fortheloveofsnorkacks]

If Harry had told Ron and Hermione about Snape's Worst Memory, what would their reaction have been?

Sorry for the delay anon! Here are my thoughts!

RON:

I think he will come swinging in defense of James and his friends - but especially James. Not only does he heavily dislike Snape in general, Ron also responds most keenly to Harry's emotional state. He will sense almost immediately just how bothered Harry is by seeing his father act in such a manner, and he will move to comfort him by arguing for why James did what he did and how Snape may have deserved it anyway.

Ron's sense of justice is also very relationship-driven and immediate. Minus the obviously immoral things, he has to see and know the person themself and their plight before it moves him, especially if he starts from a position of dislike. The fact that he doesn't see the memory at all is important then. It means that that bullied Snape is not actually a reality for him, only a hypothetical. All the misery he has had to endure because of him would color his judgment, and he would give that (along with Harry's distress over his father) more weight than a far-off story.

You add the fact that Snape called Lily "mudblood" even after her attempts to help him and it would mean he would come swinging in favor of James.

HERMIONE:

Hermione is a bit more complicated. Her first concern would be (like in canon) that Harry no longer has occlumency lessons. She is a pragmatist and is a problem-solver before she is a caretaker. Not having any more occlumency lessons would be what would strike her as the bigger priority because this leaves Harry vulnerable, and she understood far earlier than he did how dangerous those visions are.

On the memory itself, James's actions would horrify her. Her sense of justice is such that the sheer violence of the attack and Snape's helplessness would make an impression on her. Her sense for power imbalances is strong, and she never fails to advocate for the weaker party when called to question. In this case, her personal feelings for Snape (which are complicated in their own right with or without this memory) are immaterial in her judgment. He is very obviously the victim in this scenario, and she would feel for him.

I do think though that she would sense Harry's discomfort, and she would try to comfort him. But Hermione is a bad liar and cannot hide her feelings well. Her silences would be loud, and Harry would, nonetheless, interpret them correctly as her judgment over his father.

On the use of mudblood, I don't think she would be all that surprised tbh. She already knows that he was a Death Eater, so his bigotry wouldn't be all that shocking to her I don't think. It would certainly not be enough to overcome the fact that he is currently fighting against Voldemort on their side and that Dumbledore trusts him wholeheartedly. She would honor this change, and she wouldn't hesitate to remind Harry and Ron of this should it come to that.

(Tangentially, OotP is crucially the year she spends advocating for Kreacher, even as he called her a mudblood as much as he could. For as much as this is a slur against her, she does not react very strongly to it (Harry and Ron often has more violent reactions to this word being used against her). She is not yet at a point where "mudblood" feels quite so personal or frightening. The oppression she experiences is not quite integrated to her psyche. I don't think this changes much - I doubt her reaction to Snape would change all that much even if she did take it more personally - but it is worth noting where her feelings on "mudblood" are at this point in time.)

CONCLUSION:

Basically, Ron's approach to justice is very relational and emotional while Hermione's is much more cerebral and big-picture. Ron's feelings about Snape and his desire to comfort Harry would lead him while Hermione would set her (and Harry's) feelings aside to look at the situation more objectively.

Hope this answers your question anon!