Professor
Severus Snape is
Hogwarts'
Potions
teacher and the head of the
Slytherin house. Snape has a habit of favouring
Slytherin students over students from other houses, making the lives of
Gryffindor students a living hell. But he also has a habit of making
Harry Potter's life
miserable whenever he can. He does not achieve it often, but he sure tries.
Snape's favourite student is
Draco Malfoy, son of
evil Death Eater Lucius Malfoy. He helps the boy in everyway he can if the prize is humiliating Harry and his friends (and also getting some more points for Slytherin, on account of the Cup of Houses).
ATTENTION: MAJOR SPOILERS from Books of the Harry Potter series
Even though Snape's got the perfect look and attitude to fit the
big bad villain's part, he actually saves Harry's life on the
first book. He gives Harry and his friends
Hermione,
Ron and
Neville a hard time though. They
hate him and are usually suspicious of him, even after the life-saving episode. The children are, of course, quite right to be suspicious.
On the
fourth book, we find out he was one of the
Death Eaters, the followers of
Lord Voldemort, but only for a short time. He came back to the "good side" before Voldemort's fall and was a spy for the
Ministry of Magic in the meantime. Voldemort's feelings towards Snape are not clear though, as the Hogwarts Professor becomes a spy for Dumbledore once more when the
Order of the Phoenix returns in book 5. The author does not make it clear what kind of spy work Snape does nor if he even actually pretends to rejoin Voldemort. But Dumbledore keeps on trusting him and, in the end of Book 5, Snape actually tries to help Harry and Sirius before the whole
Ministry of Magic tragic episode. Snape also becomes Harry's
Occlumency teacher.
That's how we get a glimpse of Snape's years as a
student at Hogwarts. He was the
enemy of
Sirius Black (Harry's
godfather and
best friend of
James Potter, Harry's
father),
Remus Lupin,
Peter Petigrew and
James Potter himself. Sirius, who was one of the few to know that Lupin was a
werewolf, tried to
trick Snape into "bumping into" Lupin on a
full moon. Obviously, after being
saved by James Potter, Snape wasn't too
happy about Sirius' clear
attempt of murder. During one of the Occlumency's classes, Harry manages to see one of Snape's memories.
J.K. Rowling also takes us thru an episode when Sirius and James
taunt Snape for the (apparently) simple fact that he exists.
Lily, future wife of James and Harry's mother, is seen to defend Snape and show deep anger towards James. However, Snape calls her
mudblood and she becomes angry at all of them.
Snape was played on the Harry Potter
movie series by brilliant english actor
Alan Rickman. Rickman managed to *become* Snape so perfectly that it's hard to read the books and not visualize Rickman's face and style.
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