A Post Regarding Snape
I’ve reached a halfway decision about Severus Snape, I think. I don’t want him to be happy. I read a thousand alternates to the stories in which he’s married, or committed, or fucking, and it doesn’t sit properly with me. He is primarly a figure of tragedy; Byronic minus the elements that make Byron attractive. He broods for a reason — his happiness is past, and his purpose is grim and set.
Severus Snape is not supposed to make sophisticated teas or have his feet licked. He’s supposed to get the hell on with it, for as long as he can, until his skill (not luck, he has none) falls short of the task and he fails for the last time. As keenly as I feel his grief, he is the sort of man to accept the nature of his role and make the best of what is a fundamentally wretched world — not so much out of a natural sense of charity, but out of guilt, and a sense of duty.
He is still a Slytherin, if no more a Death Eater. I do not believe happiness suits Snape. I hope in death he does not find something uncharacteristic, such as domestic comfort; I hope merely that he feels his task is complete.
