In our language we don’t say “Always”, we say “Lily, take Harry and go!” which translates into “I will die for you without allowing my disrespectful obsession to destroy your family and hate on your abused child” and I think that is beautiful.
dumbledore: snape you bully students, show blatant favouritism, ignore non-slytherin students who are being bullied, abuse the house points system, are super creepy and also once you threatened to drug a kids juice with truth potion which has got to be super illegal yo
snape: yeeeeah
dumbledore: buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut youre like the only person i have constantly in my pocket so i guess ill keep letting you interact with vulnerable children
snape: sweet
But the difference is that Snape bullied children in his adulthood – he may have changed his allegiance but not his opinions or disgusting behavior. For Regulus – he was still a kid when he died, and we’ll never know what he was like exactly nor what he would have been like as an adult.
“But Regulus didn’t do anything to actually help win the war.” Maybe not, but it is his intention that matters here. How was he to know that the locket would remain intact for decades after his death? How was he to know that Dumbledore and Harry would come looking for the locket? He couldn’t know any of that! All he knew was that Voldemort had made a Horcrux, and that it needed to be destroyed. He knew someone needed to step up and take action and that is what he did. I don’t think we should disregard his sacrifice simply because it didn’t help in the long run.
“And he joined the Death Eaters too, and looking at his family, he probably threw the Mudblood slur around all the time.” Yes, but he changed his mind. Why does everyone always seem to ignore that fact? People changed! People grow! I don’t think we should hold Regulus’ past against him when in the end he did the most heroic thing possible. And he was only able to do it because he had been a Death Eater. (He would never have even found out about the locket if he hadn’t been close to Voldemort)
“Severus, while remaining a complete asshole, turned his life around and gave his life to fight Voldemort in possibly the most dangerous position as spy.” While I don’t disagree with any of this, I have to point out that the only reason Snape “turned his life around and gave his life to fight Voldemort” was because Voldemort killed Lily and not because he realized, like Regulus did, that Voldemort was going too far and needed to be stopped. Do you think he would have changed sides if Voldemort had thought that Neville was the one the prophecy spoke about? Would he have cared so much if Alice Longbottom had died instead of Lily Potter? Nope. He only changed sides because the woman he loved was targeted and not because it was the right thing to do. In fact, it was quite clear that he still loved the Dark Arts. IMO his whole view point about blood superiority doesn’t seem to have changed at all. He wasn’t fighting Voldemort to stop him. He was fighting Voldemort to avenge Lily’s death.
Severus Snape: *calls the girl he loves ‘Mudblood’*
Severus Snape: *takes delight in the Dark Arts*
Severus Snape: *joins the Death Eaters*
Severus Snape: *realizes the woman he loves is being targeted by Voldemort and begs Dumbledore to save her, but is willing to let her husband and infant son die*
Severus Snape: *is such a cruel teacher that he is literally Neville’s worst fear*
Severus Snape: *purposefully outs Lupin as a werewolf*
Severus Snape: *plays favorites and ignores everything the Slytherins do while unfairly punishing the Gryffindors for every little thing*
Severus Snape: *baits Sirius which ultimately leads to Sirius getting killed*
Someone: Snape is the hero of Slytherin!
Regulus Black: *realizes Voldemort is going too far and has a change of heart*
Regulus Black: *finds out Voldemort made a Horcrux and decides to do something about it*
Regulus Black: *purposefully drinks a torture potion so that Kreacher won’t have to*
Regulus Black: *willing sacrifices himself to a painful death to bring down Voldemort*
Regulus Black: *orders Kreacher not to tell anyone what he’s done in order to protect his family even though it means no one knows about his sacrifice*
Someone: Regulus was racist!
draco malfoy and the rest of sytherin house is allowed to run rampant hardly checked when they hurl slurs at other students – hogwarts is not a safe school and dumbledore does not make it safe ever
yeah like
don’t let your teachers be biased and abusive
teach some tolerance
do something
don’t abandon children just cos they were born into this kind of beliefs
don’t wait for them to be “chosen” to kill you
i mean okay he didn’t know about DE teachers he kept hiring but he should’ve paid attention to Snape’s classes at least
like it was what he was supposed to do, as a Headmaster. That was his job.
Philosopher’s Stone: Snape is a dick.
Chamber of Secrets: Snape is a dick.
Prisoner of Azkaban: Snape is a dick who bullied Neville to the point of being his worst fear and outed my favourite teacher as a werewolf.
Goblet of Fire: Snape is a dick who made fun of my best friend’s insecurities.
Order of the Phoenix: Snape is a dick who gave up teaching me Occlumency because my dad was an asshole to him at 16 and so my mind got invaded by Voldemort and my godfather died.
Half-Blood Prince: Snape is a dick who killed Dumbledore.
Most of Deathly Hallows: Snape is a dick who cut off my friend’s ear and let my friends and other students be tortured.
Nineteen Years Later: Bravest man I ever knew.
& no one will look directly at him.
even though he is in the front row.
even though he’s the biggest thing
in the room.
the whole world
pulls a handkerchief from her pocket
and whispers the word redemption.
and the boggart stares into the casket,
wonders about the moment
they washed
a dead man’s hands clean,
and of course it is a tragedy–
that you would name your abuse,
(finally)
in a room full of people,
and they would shrug,
tell you of a girl he loved once,
lecture you about forgiveness,
about changing spots
on the leopards that are still hunting you,
that your trauma
would wrap itself
in your grandmother’s clothes
and dare you
to survive it loudly.
remember, this is a story
about a boy who lives.
about power
that does not come easy,
the magic of packed earth
and the things that dare
to come out of it.
oh, how your courage
makes a mess of their story.
how it climbs into his coffin
ugly
and loud
and unburied.
Cheloneuniverse 