feathersmoons:

hannibal-and-dory:

sobforsirius:

the well known Harry Potter cycle

Step 1: thinking Snape is a bad guy

Step 2: thinking Snape is a good guy

Step 3: realising as you mature as a person that Snape was actually a terrible person after all and was an abusive bully who didn’t grown out of this stage even into his late 30s and an obsessive person who thought he was entitled to Lily just because she showed him friendship and no matter how many bias memories of his you are shown you will never see him in any different way 

unfortunately some people are still stuck in stage 2

feathersmoons can you describe step 4? 

4. Realizing that Snape came from a neglectful and abusive family and suffered systematic peer-abuse throughout his life, making him an absolutely paradigmatic recruit for extremism that appeals to the one and only part of his life that feels like it gives him any power (magic) and devalues what he experiences as the original source of his misery (his Muggle father); realizing that despite the leaps that many fans made there’s no point in the text where Snape himself indicates any romantic or sexual interest in Lily, but that all his reactions are actually quite on par for someone with massive emotional-developmental issues based on developmental trauma when dealing with the idea of losing their one significant emotional relationship whether that relationship is sexual or not; that he was basically massively developmentally-emotionally traumatized repeatedly and the wizarding world clearly has shit for mental health care.

Realizing that while this explains his absolutely shit behaviour and his inability to move past an adolescent grudge (a trait which he shares with Sirius, who’s just as bad as he is) and sense of injury, it sure as hell doesn’t EXCUSE it. Realizing that despite that he risked torture and death and did massively painful things in his attempt to make it up to the dead friend who could never hear his apology.

Realizing that humans are complicated and do both shitty things and admirable things, and get warped by other shitty things, and that all of these facets are true. Understanding that pain often warps people into ugly shapes and while that doesn’t mean we forgive them everything or let them keep hurting people, it does mean that learning to see other humans in brilliant colour rather than monochrome extremes helps a better understanding.

Wishing REALLY HARD that you could go back and get bebe Severus a good psychologist and case-worker.

Still wanting to punch him in the fucking face for bullying his students, ffs Severus I can actually forgive you more for being a wizarding-not!Nazi than I can for that GO AND SIT IN THE CORNER, YOU JACKASS.