Severus Snape | CNC
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Murder
AGE: OLD :|
JOURNAL: amurderofcrows
IM: AlmostAMurder @ AIM
E-MAIL: storytelling.crow@gmail.com
RETURNING: 1, Raphael
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Severus Snape
FANDOM: Harry Potter
CHRONOLOGY: End of DH
CLASS: Hero (reluctantly)
SUPERHERO NAME: The Potion Master
ALTER EGO: Hateful Alchemist
BACKGROUND:
Severus Snape is a horrible person.
However, like most horrible people, he had a hand in getting from 'innocent child' into 'not quite a complete monster'. We'll start at the root of the problem: an abusive household.
Tobias Snape was a man who beat his wife and child, locked his child in the basement as punishment, told him he was a freak like his freak wife, and did things like drank heavily, had a hard time holding a job, and resented that his wife had magical power but couldn't make all their troubles go away, and resented that his son was just like her in that respect, a freakish wizard that couldn't just whip up a pile of gold or otherwise make them live like kings. They were very poor, shared a home with other migrant factory workers, and shared a communal bath, leading a skittish and fearful boy to have a problem with hygiene as he grew older.
Spinner's End was in the Manchester miller's district; the very epitome of the 'wrong side of the tracks'. Rife with crime and poverty, where migrant workers from all over the poor of Europe came to earn a relatively honest dollar. Tobias Snape had trouble staying in work, but the dole was too much for his pride, and so he would get work, eventually screw it up with his bad temper and be demoted and fired, spend some time on welfare, and rinse and repeat this cycle year after year.
Severus lived in this unstable home his entire life. For the first seven years he had no friends - children may have come and went with other migrant families, but nobody lasted or stayed. His only constant was that his father was a tyrant and his mother was a coward. His father despised him and his mother loved him as much as she could when she wasn't crying in a corner.
What his mother did do was prepare him for life the best way she could. She knew the violence in his home and the violence of the street would eventually reach him, and so she taught him every mean trick she knew in the wizarding book. She taught him no one was going to look after him BUT him, and this became a truism for Snape's life. Nobody was going to save him. Nobody was going to love him but his mother, and she wouldn't even do that very well. She wouldn't leave Tobias, because she was afraid of the shame of being a witch with a half-blood child on the run from a Muggle husband, and she was afraid she had no place to go. The Princes weren't a well placed Pureblood family, but even they had pride and the Snapes were cut off from the family due to tensions centered around Tobias.
Then he met Lily Evans. He wanted what she had. He wanted her wonder and her joy and her family. He wanted her love, in it's way, but mostly he wanted what she represented: something better then what he had. Something better then Spinner's End. A place where families fought, but loved each other at the end of the day and resolved their problems without anybody screaming or being hit. A place where dinner wasn't cold beans out of a can. A place where people could laugh and smile without it being edged with bitterness and fear. She was as much a symbol of everything he could have, but didn't, as she was a person.
However, the cycle continued with Snape. He was already set in it - his father was an abuser, and he too wanted to take power and status like his father did, not understanding that it was that greed that was the root of their problems, not the rage and frustration that came from lack of fruition of Tobias' grand plans. He learned other lessons from his father at home as well. As he grew up he was prone to 'accidental' magical lash outs - at Petunia, at animals that bothered him, and so forth. Had his story gone one way instead of the other, Snape could have truly been a sociopath in the making.
But he wasn't. He still felt guilt. He still managed love, if a very greedy, unhappy one. He still wanted things to be right and good, and he knew that there could be better things than Tobias Snape and his angry little home in Spinner's End. What he didn't know what how to step outside that cycle and attain it.
There might have been opportunity during his schooling; however, there were opposite forces at work. Snape could have been prevented by a caring school master, perhaps, from becoming another one of Voldemort's supporters, but - hey, who cares about those Slytherin kids? There was also the trouble of double standards. There was Snape and the Slytherin children, always in trouble, and then there were the Gryffindor boys that sorted the same year he did: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The first two were bullies in the first right-- but also handsome, good at sports, and had everything handed to them on a platter, where Snape got nothing but disdain, even from some of the members of his own house. The latter two were their hanger-on pals, carried by the popularity of James and Sirius, who were flagrant in abusing it -- and abusing Snape. It also didn't help that James wanted what Snape wanted: Lily Evans. That only fueled the hate between them and kept it as a bubbling froth.
The hatred was destined; as they tormented him, he tormented them - but it was regularly four against one, and Snape often came out on the losing end, until he started running with a pack of his own Housemates... and that started causing problems with Lily, who was starting to notice that Snape's 'friends' within his House were much like James' - just as mean. Sometimes, worse. She wasn't sure she could know him anymore, as they got older and he became less comfortable with her family and she became less comfortable with who else he was seeing over the summer - holidays with the Malfoys? Who'd've thought...
It would be a lie to say he was okay with that. He wasn't. He wanted that proverbial cake and to eat it too. But she made the choice for him when he let that dirty 'Mudblood' word drop, that blood insult, racist and terrible - and that was that. They were done. Severus Snape created his own damnation with one bloody slip of the tongue and he would rue the day forever, to the point that he would someday hide that terrible memory from all who might reach it.
To complicate matters, the last year at school, Snape would be tricked by Sirius Black -- who would have, without guilt, let Snape go to 'find' Remus Lupin in his werewolf state in the full moon, to be killed at best, or worse, mangled and infected with lycanthropy -- and had his life saved by James Potter. He would never believe it was for any other reason than to protect his friends, not his life -he could never credit James with much forethought and he couldn't understand any level of basic compassion directed at him.
After that, there was nothing to stop him from sinking into the quagmire of the Death Eaters after graduation, because he had no one else. No teacher that cared. No friends would try to save him. They were all marching straight to hell with him. He remained fast friends with the Malfoy's who tolerated his low blood status due to Snape's power and standing with the Dark Lord; he and Lucius were 'friendly' rivals for Voldemort's attention and it galled Lucius to no end that a half-blood attained a higher standing then his pureblooded Malfoy self. They managed a strange relationship, and eventually, a mutual respect.
Worse yet, he was talented, powerful and full of hate that could be aimed like a heat seeking missile. Voldemort used him well as a torturer and interrogator and spy. It was the last thing that would get him into trouble. HE heard the the true prophecy. He reported it to Voldemort. He signed, by his own clumsy hand, the death warrant for the Potters and consigned Neville Longbottom to misery through the madness of his parents. He destroyed everything he ever loved with his grasp at power. Just like his father; he ruined everything he could have been by grasping at a dream to large, a want too big to accommodate. Like father, like son.
He betrayed it all in an instant for love of Lily Evans. First, he begged Voldemort for her life. Then, he contacted Dumbledore and prostrated himself before him, begging him to save them. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Everything he stood to gain with the Death Eaters mattered nothing before the thought of the loss of Lily Evan's light in this world. Nothing would ever be right again if he could not save her, even if she never loved him, even if she stayed with James and had a thousand Potter children. He didn't care. He wanted her to live and be happy. He gave up every secret he know, hoping each one would be the coin that bought Lily Evans life and happiness.
It was all a waste, though. When the Potter's home lit up with the backlash of the Death Curse rebounded from Harry Potter back to Voldemort, Snape was nearly lost to madness. He had betrayed the Death Eaters a thousand times over before they reached that point, desperate to save Lily Evans life. But to no avail. Voldemort did give her the option that he promised he would: if she would just step aside, she wouldn't have to die. He offered her one shot at mercy, at the price of the life of her son. Of course she refused it. Snape wouldn't have loved her, if she hadn't been Gryffindor brave, just like he was not.
The next ten years were trials and lies. Dumbledore covered for him. Snape was a spy. He gained a teaching position he hated over children he didn't' understand and often despised, but he had made Dumbledore a promise - since he could not save Lily, by Merlin, he would make sure her son lived.
So he did. When Harry Potter came to the school he was the picture of his father; thick glasses and tousled black hair and - Lily Evans's wide, green eyes. He hated the boy with the passion only the cuckolded could manage. But he kept his promise: the life debt passed from father to son, but the love for Lily that still burned in Snape's breast - never, ever was passed to her son. Dumbledore fretted but nothing could soften Snape's heart. Over the years, he had turned to stone -- the person who could move him to be better, to be kinder, to be a good person -- to even want to try in the face of failure -- was no longer with them.
That didn't mean he didn't bend over backward to keep the damn, suicidally cocky boy ALIVE. He faced turncoats, spies, other Death Eaters, werewolves, more death eaters, his own friends on occasional, an angry tree. There were many adventures, lots of detention and a lot of free floating hate that was mostly reciprocated by the boy. He spied, he lied, he put his life on the line. Counter curses got him set on fire. He got tangled with the return of Sirius Black and it only got worse from there - they were never friends, and never would be. He managed to get Remus Lupin sacked in petty revenge, and quite possibly baited Sirius Black into rushing off to his doom.
Most importantly, he managed to get Harry Potter to thoroughly loathe him. The boy hated him and he cultivated that hatred. It was all he knew how to do; he had no idea how to get love or keep love, and so he did what he knew: he made the boy hate him. He made classes miserable. He insulted him and his father. He favored his own house and due to his relationship with the Malfoy family, acted openly as mentor and guardian to Draco and disdained Harry. He taught him hard lessons with no compassion behind them. He accused the boy of everything he could possibly imagine, mostly because he believed the boy to be the image of his father, and remembered every broken rule, every ignored regulation, every torment... and ascribed them all to Harry. Sometimes, he was right. Sometimes he wasn't.
When things began to get worse, they spent more time making each other miserable. He made occulumency their own special hell, till Harry turned the tables with his invasion of privacy. That truly scared him -- that the boy would find out his weakness, and worse, pity him. That would destroy his work! That would make him vulnerable. Worse, the boy may not hate him as much as he needed to maintain his cover and his work. Besides, the boy had plenty of loving uncles in his misfit family, and Snape had no desire to be among their number. Snape would be the one who would teach him the hardest lessons, and some of the most important that would keep Harry Potter alive... but Snape didn't want gratitude. He just wanted to keep his promise.
And it cost him. It cost him most of his life: he lived like a monk, dedicated to his work for nearly twenty years. He did not love or marry, know the touch of a woman or anything close to peace in the past two decades. He had only one friend, who manipulated him flagrantly -- even to the point where he asked for a merciful death, knowing that Snape would be the only one who could deliver it; Albus had doomed himself in the pursuit of Voldemort's defeat, but he knew Snape would never allow him to fall to the tender mercies of the Death Eaters. He would kill his only friend with his own hands to preserve his cover and give Albus a swift, kind death. It enabled him to keep his ruse even more complete, when Narcissa Malfoy asked Snape to complete her son's mission: Kill Albus Dumbledore, or die trying.
All of these things wrought terrible cost on Snape's spirit and mind, warping him in ways that would break a lesser man During the last seven years of Harry Potter's life in Hogwarts, where he had grown from boy to man, Snape remained a constant, a man with a duty, a rock before the ocean. But all rocks erode, and Snape found himself unable to trick or doublespeak through a thought of Voldemort's -- his Dark Lord turned on him, and murdered him with Nagini's deadly bite, all to claim a wand that Snape did not control and had never 'won'. He was murdered out of his Dark Lord's frustration - Voldemort expressed a vague sense of regret; that Snape had been good and true and loyal - showing how little Voldemort knew - and one of his best servants... but for Voldemort to have the wand, he would have killed his own mother.
At the end, something broke inside. He was not a monster; he was a deeply flawed man. He knew that about himself, and embraced it. Made it his strength. Fed on his own hatred to sustain himself over the years Harry was in school. He had one last chance, when the boy looked down at him as he bled and the poison worked in his body.
He didn't need to give him so much, to ensure Voldemort's death and Harry's survival. There was no reason to give him snippets of his childhood, especially the memories he had once guarded from Harry. He didn't need to know the truth behind everything -- he could have died with the boy hating him. But he didn't want to, Perhaps Snape had seen, from his distant watch over Harry and his friends, that there was Lily in the boy, and that part of him deserved an explanation. Maybe Snape simply wanted one person to know the truth. There was only one place to do it - laying there, bleeding, as Nagini's poison was shutting down his nervous system. There was no other time to give himself wholly to the boy and let him see it all in his shame and foolishness. His last act fed his need for absolution from the only person who could give it, the only other person who had suffered so the loss of Lily Evans in a way Snape could understand...
Her son.
Damn his eyes: the last thing he sees before the City saves his life.
PERSONALITY:
Severus Snape is a horrible, maladjusted misanthrope who was created by a cycle of abuse, exploited by a terrorist organization, then exploited again by a counter terrorist organization who has never, in his entire life, had anybody really and truly love him. Worst thing is, at the end of the life, he knows this - there is no other reason that he would make a last ditch attempt to be understood by a boy he knew would understand, partially, where he came from, and partially, where he had gone wrong.
To start, we cover the basics: Snape came from a home that was riddled with abuse that mirrored Harry Potter's misery, and in turn, also mirrors Voldemort. They are a succession of characters that go from “saved from the cycle” (Harry), to “not enough action was taken to prevent cycle from continuing” (Snape) and, “Completely lost in the cycle, perpetrator of terrible abuses, exploiter and tyrant” (Voldemort).
Snape's family was poor. Typical of mill families at the time, they shared housing with migrant workers, and there was no privacy, and certainly, no compassion or community. Snape was well aware that his father's rage was known to the people around him, and they did nothing. This taught him to rely only on himself. Couple this with his mother's enabling of his darker urges and refusal to act to protect herself or her son out of fear of being alone, or being shamed returning to the wizarding community a divorcee with a half-blood child, and we have some issues just waiting to spring forth. With small infractions being punished with great rage, we have a foundation for Snape's mad temper and love of doling out punishment with detentions and cruelty or simple pettiness (10 points from Gryffindor for being a know-it-all) but the illusion of his self control - he is a physically restrained man, but only just.
Potion Making is an extension of both his need for control and his need for restraint - also, creation of something of worth that is tangible. Teaching would never fulfill him because he could never control his students enough. Oh, he had his favorites and he showered his House with favor, but it was never going to be enough for him. Potion Making fulfills that urge to create, control, and dispense -- it's precise. It's scientific. But it's making something of worth, giving the creator worth in the mean time. This is one of the few things that makes Severus Snape feel genuinely good about himself. In his lab, he is still controlling and domineering, but he's much calmer and peaceful, focused and contained. It allows him something very important: total control over something, and something useful coming out of that control.
Snape enjoys being in control and he loves power for it's own sake. He was never empowered as a child or youth, and he was constantly frustrated that his origins, bloodline, house and such seemed to limit him or define what he could be, instead of his own work or will. Slytherin's defining trait is ambition, but yet, Snape saw laurels passed to the Gryffindor boys because of luck of family, birth, good looks and other circumstances, not the work they put in, while Snape was busy trying to succeed despite his low birth, lack of money, and other disadvantages. This inequality drove him to distraction and so his campaign of revenge while they bullied those different from themselves (not just Snape, but he made himself such an attractive target...) and continued Snape's pattern of powerlessness and kept him trapped in a cycle he did not know how to free himself from.
This need for empowerment made him the perfect recruit for a terrorist organization, and that's precisely what the Death Eaters were. They preyed on his need for a group to belong to, but also a group he could rise over and lead through his own 'merit' and 'skill'. He did differentiate himself from the Crabbe and Goyle level thugs of the group, and quickly rose through the ranks. Like most mid-to-high level terrorists, however, Snape didn't care about it's ideology. He didn't care about blood purity because his was as muddy as the next half-blood. It was never about race or wizard lines for Severus. It was about what the Death Eaters could promise him: standing in the new wizard order, respect, and everything that was due his efforts and work. Of course he bent over backwards for them and towed the party line. It validated his hate of his father, and made him despise his weak mother, and he swallowed their hook and they had him. In retrospect he knows himself to be a fool for believing any of it.
One should note that his rising star among the Death Eaters meant that Snape didn't really have to get his hands dirty with wet work. Oh, he tormented a muggle here or there, and he most certainly killed his father himself (but who can really blame him there?) as an initiation to the group, but other then that, Snape worked mostly in an organizational capacity; magical research, spying on people, and the like. The murder and the thuggery was left to lower-level troops and 'true fanatics' that couldn't be trusted with more delicate operations. This doesn't mean Snape's hands are clean, it simply means that he didn't spend his Death Eater days hip-deep in exploded Muggle remains anymore then Voldemort did. This would factor in to his desire to do as Lucius and Narcissa asked and protect Draco from the worst realities of the Death Eaters, especially when it came to stay at their home in their later lives.
It was only the dream of a better tomorrow, of being a better man with a real family and the person who represented it all to him, that broke the hold the promises of the Death Eaters had on him. Lily Evans was a childhood dream as much as she was a person for Snape - a witch from a family that loved her despite that they had no magic, and didn't hold her at arms' lengths. She was peripherally aware of what was going on at the Snape household, but she was never, ever taken to Spinner's End, never taken to where Snape was weak, powerless and hated. He went to her home, her family welcomed him, and he loved them with all his heart for it. It was his first taste of things that could be different, that they could be right and good and noble and more importantly, that those weren't just words, they were real.
When the living embodiment of that dream was threatened, Severus turned on a dime; he betrayed everyone and anyone to keep Lily safe. He didn't care who he had to sell out, that dream of another time and place, that promise of a life that could never be his, he couldn't let it die. But he did. Despite his best efforts on all sides of the conflict, Snape couldn't save the woman he loved or the dream she represented. It all went to hell, and he was the architect of his own damnation. Worse, he knew it.
Even worse, Dumbledore knew it and played him like a harp from hell - Snape, broken though he might be by Lily's death, could still be useful. Dumbledore's counter-terrorist organization still used some of the same tactics of the other, and instead of promising power and respect, this time he offered a more tenuous and harder to attain item: Absolution for his sins against Lily Evans through her son, Harry Potter. However, the full transference of love from one to the other couldn't happen. James was to present in the boy. In his attitude, his appearance. Snape always wondered if he could not have protected her better if he were in James' place, even if he knew logically she had never loved him like that and likely, no one ever would. But the result as still the same: he transferred his total loyalty from Voldemort to his new guiding father-figure, Dumbledore.
He couldn't love the boy, but he could keep his promise. This wore on over time, and the work continued and Snape felt the weight of failure on his shoulders. He was burying more then he was saving and expressed his frustration to his only 'friend' and confidant, Dumbledore himself. Much as he went to Voldemort for validation of his hate of his father and to replace him, he turned to Dumbledore for the same reason; a father figure to validate and care for him. It did not stop him from caring for the man as he needed to place some emotional anchors somewhere, as the work was not enough to keep him from going emotionally adrift, but he would always suspect the other's feelings to be false. Snape is not trusting - he is suspicious to a fault, and lives by the 'fool me once, shame on me - but I'll make sure you never, ever try it again' line of thinking. There is no room for 'fool me twice', not ever.
Snape is not without compassion or empathy - you can't be cruel without knowing what it is yourself to be hurt - but it is buried so deep that it may as well be lost. He has been taught that the only people who are going help you is “me, myself, and I” and so he expects others to do the same. Kindness comes at a price for him - nobody will love him for who he is, because he knows that he is a ruin of a man and not worth much. He is capable of love, in a stunted sort of way - he loved Lily, certainly, and one could argue that he loved Draco in a familial sort of way, but Snape's love is a heavy cross to bear. It is a dangerous thing; he can be gentle, loyal and kind to a point, but he takes rebuke seriously and seeks to control those relationships as he does any other, which is why the mentor-student relationship with Draco was 'safe' for him to indulge in. It's not something he can help; manipulation is what he knows - even those who said they cared, like Dumbledore, manipulated Snape, and so he returns the favor. Lily is really the only exception... and well, one sees how THAT turned out.
His self-evaluation is poor; in the years since leaving the Snape household and setting himself up with Hogwarts, he may have abandoned second-hand clothing, but he still lives in a pit of a house, he still doesn't keep very clean, and he cannot erase the marks that poor nutrition and lack of medical and dental care left on him from the years before. He knows that everyone can see that he is the poor boy from Manchester in nicer clothes, and he struggles to relate the reality of his life (some respect, still no love, alone by choice) to the self-image of that weak, miserable person (deserves none of those things, etc). In the past this turned into petty attempts at destroying or hurting anyone who knew him from those days (Remus Lupin) or people he blamed for part of his problems (Sirius Black), but in the end, he knew the truth: he was not a good person, but he wished he could have been, or at least, could have been better.
However, for all that Snape is a control freak who does not understand love or loving others, he does have a few good traits. Once his loyalty is attained, he would walk through hell barefoot for those who had it. He is self-sacrificing when called upon, and he truly does CARE for people in his warped, emotionally stunted way even if he has no real healthy way of showing it. When Order members and their families began to suffer and die, he feels guilt and shame -- wondering what else he could have done, what lie he could have told or what misdirection he could have planted to keep those people alive are. Gone is the man who would have left James Potter die if Lily Evans would live in exchange -- he has grown as a person, like a stunted plant finally allowed a little sunshine -- but it slow and agonizing process. He is a private man, fearful of vulnerability. He allowed himself a tenuous friendship with Albus Dumbledore. Though he was aware that he was being played during the majority of their friendship, he always did as he was asked -- even to the point of killing his only friend, and leaving himself alone with the fullness of Dumbledore's plans, being the only person left to enact them. It is this aloneness that finally broke down some of the walls that lead him to finally allowing himself, before he died, to attempt to absolve himself to Harry Potter; his gift of his memories, far beyond what they would need to complete the mission to destroy Voldemort, was a magical letter of apology: he did not mean to be so broken, but he had a cracked foundation from the beginning, and he only made it worse... and only in his death, can he express how he has worked to make it better.
POWER:
++ MAGIC ++
Severus Snape is a wizard of the Harry Potter variety, and worse, he is a (arguably former) Dark Wizard of some power who was the right hand of Lord Voldemort and knew many of the dark lord's secret magics and blacker rituals.
The generic magic - transfiguration, flying on brooms, and 'vagueness and latin' used to cast spells that move objects, conjure items, transform items from other items and so forth which is well documented in Harry Potter is a catch all for useful spells that handle mundane tasks. There's a spell to clean places, a spell to repair things, a spell for - well, just about everything, quite frankly, in the Harry Potter universe. If there's even a vague analogy to a tool or technology, magic can likely do it. Need to make a phone call? Use flue powder to speak from fire place to fire place with someone else whose 'flue address' you know, and so forth.
Snape is sufficiently advanced in magic that he can use magic without a vocal or somatic (wand) component, but this sort of magic is much more difficult. Wands are very important tools and very few powerful spells (death curse, most dueling spells except for shields, etc) can be used without them. Snape, of course, will have his wand with him at nearly all times.
To elaborate on every possible spell would take forever, and since we have other HP canon in game at this time, we're not going for the purpose of this application. Instead, we're going to focus on what set Snape apart from most wizards. Beyond 'wand waving frippery' which Snape mostly disdains, Snape has five areas of expertise; Potion Mastery, Legilimency and Occlumency, Duelling and Dark Magic.
Potion Mastery covers the fact that there are few better then Severus Snape in the creation of magical draughts, potions, liquors, ointments or other brews. Much like the 'vagueness and Latin' that accompanies the wand-based magic, there is really no limit given to the things that Snape can do, IF he has the proper time, equipment and ingredients requires. He can create potions that heal, harm transform, confuse, kill or create odd or humorous effect. However, each potion must be brewed in a precise manner, from the right cauldron type, size, ingredients, right down to the type of stirrer used. While some of this will be easy to find - most of it won't be. Some potions take months of proper care to brew - one wrong move, one stirring missed, and the potion will be ruined. If Snape cannot maintain that sort of schedule, many of his most advanced brews will never see creation (Luck, Transfiguration, etc). Even veritaserum takes a month to properly create.
Legilimency and Occulumency are twin arts; one penetrates the mind and the other occludes it. Snape is a master of both these magics, and they were invaluable during his time as a spy against the most powerful dark wizards to ever live. It is said that his 'eyes that see right through you', often noted by students that were on the receiving end of his investigative skills were not aware that their minds were being read, but during very deep probes - such as his 'teaching' experiments with Harry during duels - can be felt and experienced by the person probed if he is being 'blunt' about it - it's a violating and unhappy experience for the probed. However, surface thoughts can be lifted with no detection by even skilled telepaths or occulumens.
Occulmency, it's twins, create shields, fogs of misdirection, fake thoughts and feelings; a legilmens can be fed false information, denied important information (It's simply 'not there' or they 'don't know'). Snape is a greater occulumens then he is a legilimens, but that's like saying he can compose slightly better symphonies then he can opera. They have roots in the same art, and only a fellow master would see where his legilimency is not quite as fantastic in scope as his occulumency. (Like the only better legilimens or occulumens then either Voldemort or Snape; Albus Dumbledore.)
Duelling covers a very specific set of wand-based magic; attack and defense. Snape is a master duellist, well known for his combat reflexes, merciless offense and swift defense and. He is a master of single combat, but is no slouch in a wizardly 'fire fight', either. He is able to create shields on the fly, and is well versed in a variety of hexes and curses that go from humiliating to debilitating, from damaging to deadly. He is not and never has been a wizard to be trifled with.
When it comes to Dark Magic, this covers Unforgivable Curses (Mind Control, Agony, and Death, in sum up), rituals that do terrible and unspeakable things (drinking unicorn blood for health, etc) as well as strange magics like flight without a broom. As 'reformed' as Snape is, his expertise here is more 'academic' then practical, as he's not about to cut off anybody's hands to rebuild his body or health. Oh, he'll fly without a broom if he must, but that's one of the more benign magics that Snape learned from Voldemort, and even that's weird for Snape, and that's saying something.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
Listen.
[The voice is silky and sibilant; warm velvet over cold steel. He doesn't do video because Snape has never liked the spotlight like that, revealing his every ugliness, but he commands attention with carefully enunciated words, set in a practiced and poised speech.]
I am not going to tell you dunderheaded ninnies one more time. I shouldn't have to tell you at all, but it seems you're too foolish to grasp the obvious -- maybe by saying it so bluntly that it cannot be possibly misunderstood, even by a knob as thick as Potter, you will understand it in this moment. Regardless of your comprehension, I wash my hands of you after this!
I am not a damned hero. I am not and have never worn the red and gold, and I never, ever wanted to. I lived and nearly died among the mad lions that embraced that sort of stupidity like Christ did the cross and I am not doing this bloody shite anymore. If you are looking for a guardian, spy, traitor, or anything else -- I am no longer your man. I was never your man in the first place, in all likelyhood.
My debts are expunged. Harry lives, and it is because I did exactly what I had to do. No more, no less. I do not profess affection for him, nor any of you lot, either. You are stupid, shortsighted, arrogant, headstrong and dense. The combination of these faults make your existance very nearly a sin against nature, but yet you persist in continuing onward!
No more! None of this madness for Severus Snape! From this moment on, I am my own man and no one else's. If I must make this clear at wandpoint, I will. Do not press this. I am not a man to be trifled with. You will regret it.
Now solve your own damn problems and leave me out of it.
[End transmission.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It was not the dungeon, but it would have to do. It would not have the solace of cold stone safety, nor the secrets he had learned by heart over the last twenty years etched deep as scars and twice as lasting. This place, in all it's mundane glory, would never thrum with a life of it's own, but he couldn't afford a castle. If it hadn't been for various initiatives in the city for imPorts, he wouldn't' have afforded this damn hole in the wall, either. Thank Merlin for small blessings: he had to go through all the bloody motions to get it, and so that made it all the more valuable - a little debt (his debt, his money) and a bit of work, not a little bit of schmoozing, and the right palms greased had made his shop a reality.
His shop. An apothecary. A proper one. He can't say it had been the job of his dreams but frankly, any thing that was his without being given, foisted upon or otherwise debted to anybody beyond a banker was welcome here. Dumbledore hadn't finagled it with his connections. Voldemort hadn't suggested it by candlelight to the right lackey. No; this was Snape's and that was important. He had so few things that were wholly his that the possessiveness he felt immediately for the miserable little building was shocking even to himself.
The apothecary was his. It was a hole in a wall, in a neighborhood that was less then fantastic, He could live with that, because it was his. He could handle himself against any foolishness this city threw at him, he was sure. The fact that he dressed in wool robes in the middle of a sweltering hot New York summer, spoke funny and didn't hide his imPort dog tags kept the baser riffraf from his doorstep. Oh, he'd step over the homeless on his way to work in the morning, but he'd be damned if he cared.
The rest, he'd deal with as it came.
The place would need a scrubbing, stock put to shelves and more made as swiftly as he could manage. Security for his sole, hard won possession would need wards in all the right place; he didn't count then among enemies, but he didn't put it past Sirirus to stir up old grudges out of spite -- after all, he'd do the same to the other man, given a worthy opportunity. The basement would be a laboratory in which to serve his needs and allow himself another place to be that wasn't the bloody MAC surrounded by strangers using bizarre magics willy-nilly. Away from the noise and the bustle.
Away from Lily and James and Harry.
He couldn't find enough space from that happy, reunited family to soothe his hurts, but he would do his best. This place was a second lease on life; he was not in some pauper's grave. It was what he had, and he had to make the best of it. Relocating from the City would be impossible for a time, but that's what the shop was for. A stepping stone -- to perhaps return to England, to otherwise vanish somewhere, once enough money was saved to start somewhere else and create himself completely anew, away from all the lies and doublespeak that the Order had defined him with.
For now, he knew he wouldn't feel alive until he had smooth glass bottles, iron cauldrons, silver stirrers... all of them, under one roof, bent to his will, creating what he demanded.
He shed his heavy cloak and overcoat, rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He hadn't been there fifteen minutes when the door chime from the last owner rang tinnily in his ears -- and he dreaded who it might be; Luna knew of his little project, and the little Ravenclaw could have spilled already, for her own inscrutable reasons. Then, Lily might find out.
He went silent, listening. The chime did not ring again. Whoever they were, they were waiting in the open space of the shop. Waiting for him to come out of the backroom and acknowledge them. Rolling down his sleeves, hiding the Dark Mark that slept faded on his skin, he stepped through the door, hoping it was Potter looking for a richly deserved thrashing, and not his wife.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER: Nope! The HP cast is aware he's being apped and supportive despite his personality and rudeness, so we're all good.
NAME: Murder
AGE: OLD :|
JOURNAL: amurderofcrows
IM: AlmostAMurder @ AIM
E-MAIL: storytelling.crow@gmail.com
RETURNING: 1, Raphael
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Severus Snape
FANDOM: Harry Potter
CHRONOLOGY: End of DH
CLASS: Hero (reluctantly)
SUPERHERO NAME: The Potion Master
ALTER EGO: Hateful Alchemist
BACKGROUND:
Severus Snape is a horrible person.
However, like most horrible people, he had a hand in getting from 'innocent child' into 'not quite a complete monster'. We'll start at the root of the problem: an abusive household.
Tobias Snape was a man who beat his wife and child, locked his child in the basement as punishment, told him he was a freak like his freak wife, and did things like drank heavily, had a hard time holding a job, and resented that his wife had magical power but couldn't make all their troubles go away, and resented that his son was just like her in that respect, a freakish wizard that couldn't just whip up a pile of gold or otherwise make them live like kings. They were very poor, shared a home with other migrant factory workers, and shared a communal bath, leading a skittish and fearful boy to have a problem with hygiene as he grew older.
Spinner's End was in the Manchester miller's district; the very epitome of the 'wrong side of the tracks'. Rife with crime and poverty, where migrant workers from all over the poor of Europe came to earn a relatively honest dollar. Tobias Snape had trouble staying in work, but the dole was too much for his pride, and so he would get work, eventually screw it up with his bad temper and be demoted and fired, spend some time on welfare, and rinse and repeat this cycle year after year.
Severus lived in this unstable home his entire life. For the first seven years he had no friends - children may have come and went with other migrant families, but nobody lasted or stayed. His only constant was that his father was a tyrant and his mother was a coward. His father despised him and his mother loved him as much as she could when she wasn't crying in a corner.
What his mother did do was prepare him for life the best way she could. She knew the violence in his home and the violence of the street would eventually reach him, and so she taught him every mean trick she knew in the wizarding book. She taught him no one was going to look after him BUT him, and this became a truism for Snape's life. Nobody was going to save him. Nobody was going to love him but his mother, and she wouldn't even do that very well. She wouldn't leave Tobias, because she was afraid of the shame of being a witch with a half-blood child on the run from a Muggle husband, and she was afraid she had no place to go. The Princes weren't a well placed Pureblood family, but even they had pride and the Snapes were cut off from the family due to tensions centered around Tobias.
Then he met Lily Evans. He wanted what she had. He wanted her wonder and her joy and her family. He wanted her love, in it's way, but mostly he wanted what she represented: something better then what he had. Something better then Spinner's End. A place where families fought, but loved each other at the end of the day and resolved their problems without anybody screaming or being hit. A place where dinner wasn't cold beans out of a can. A place where people could laugh and smile without it being edged with bitterness and fear. She was as much a symbol of everything he could have, but didn't, as she was a person.
However, the cycle continued with Snape. He was already set in it - his father was an abuser, and he too wanted to take power and status like his father did, not understanding that it was that greed that was the root of their problems, not the rage and frustration that came from lack of fruition of Tobias' grand plans. He learned other lessons from his father at home as well. As he grew up he was prone to 'accidental' magical lash outs - at Petunia, at animals that bothered him, and so forth. Had his story gone one way instead of the other, Snape could have truly been a sociopath in the making.
But he wasn't. He still felt guilt. He still managed love, if a very greedy, unhappy one. He still wanted things to be right and good, and he knew that there could be better things than Tobias Snape and his angry little home in Spinner's End. What he didn't know what how to step outside that cycle and attain it.
There might have been opportunity during his schooling; however, there were opposite forces at work. Snape could have been prevented by a caring school master, perhaps, from becoming another one of Voldemort's supporters, but - hey, who cares about those Slytherin kids? There was also the trouble of double standards. There was Snape and the Slytherin children, always in trouble, and then there were the Gryffindor boys that sorted the same year he did: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The first two were bullies in the first right-- but also handsome, good at sports, and had everything handed to them on a platter, where Snape got nothing but disdain, even from some of the members of his own house. The latter two were their hanger-on pals, carried by the popularity of James and Sirius, who were flagrant in abusing it -- and abusing Snape. It also didn't help that James wanted what Snape wanted: Lily Evans. That only fueled the hate between them and kept it as a bubbling froth.
The hatred was destined; as they tormented him, he tormented them - but it was regularly four against one, and Snape often came out on the losing end, until he started running with a pack of his own Housemates... and that started causing problems with Lily, who was starting to notice that Snape's 'friends' within his House were much like James' - just as mean. Sometimes, worse. She wasn't sure she could know him anymore, as they got older and he became less comfortable with her family and she became less comfortable with who else he was seeing over the summer - holidays with the Malfoys? Who'd've thought...
It would be a lie to say he was okay with that. He wasn't. He wanted that proverbial cake and to eat it too. But she made the choice for him when he let that dirty 'Mudblood' word drop, that blood insult, racist and terrible - and that was that. They were done. Severus Snape created his own damnation with one bloody slip of the tongue and he would rue the day forever, to the point that he would someday hide that terrible memory from all who might reach it.
To complicate matters, the last year at school, Snape would be tricked by Sirius Black -- who would have, without guilt, let Snape go to 'find' Remus Lupin in his werewolf state in the full moon, to be killed at best, or worse, mangled and infected with lycanthropy -- and had his life saved by James Potter. He would never believe it was for any other reason than to protect his friends, not his life -he could never credit James with much forethought and he couldn't understand any level of basic compassion directed at him.
After that, there was nothing to stop him from sinking into the quagmire of the Death Eaters after graduation, because he had no one else. No teacher that cared. No friends would try to save him. They were all marching straight to hell with him. He remained fast friends with the Malfoy's who tolerated his low blood status due to Snape's power and standing with the Dark Lord; he and Lucius were 'friendly' rivals for Voldemort's attention and it galled Lucius to no end that a half-blood attained a higher standing then his pureblooded Malfoy self. They managed a strange relationship, and eventually, a mutual respect.
Worse yet, he was talented, powerful and full of hate that could be aimed like a heat seeking missile. Voldemort used him well as a torturer and interrogator and spy. It was the last thing that would get him into trouble. HE heard the the true prophecy. He reported it to Voldemort. He signed, by his own clumsy hand, the death warrant for the Potters and consigned Neville Longbottom to misery through the madness of his parents. He destroyed everything he ever loved with his grasp at power. Just like his father; he ruined everything he could have been by grasping at a dream to large, a want too big to accommodate. Like father, like son.
He betrayed it all in an instant for love of Lily Evans. First, he begged Voldemort for her life. Then, he contacted Dumbledore and prostrated himself before him, begging him to save them. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Everything he stood to gain with the Death Eaters mattered nothing before the thought of the loss of Lily Evan's light in this world. Nothing would ever be right again if he could not save her, even if she never loved him, even if she stayed with James and had a thousand Potter children. He didn't care. He wanted her to live and be happy. He gave up every secret he know, hoping each one would be the coin that bought Lily Evans life and happiness.
It was all a waste, though. When the Potter's home lit up with the backlash of the Death Curse rebounded from Harry Potter back to Voldemort, Snape was nearly lost to madness. He had betrayed the Death Eaters a thousand times over before they reached that point, desperate to save Lily Evans life. But to no avail. Voldemort did give her the option that he promised he would: if she would just step aside, she wouldn't have to die. He offered her one shot at mercy, at the price of the life of her son. Of course she refused it. Snape wouldn't have loved her, if she hadn't been Gryffindor brave, just like he was not.
The next ten years were trials and lies. Dumbledore covered for him. Snape was a spy. He gained a teaching position he hated over children he didn't' understand and often despised, but he had made Dumbledore a promise - since he could not save Lily, by Merlin, he would make sure her son lived.
So he did. When Harry Potter came to the school he was the picture of his father; thick glasses and tousled black hair and - Lily Evans's wide, green eyes. He hated the boy with the passion only the cuckolded could manage. But he kept his promise: the life debt passed from father to son, but the love for Lily that still burned in Snape's breast - never, ever was passed to her son. Dumbledore fretted but nothing could soften Snape's heart. Over the years, he had turned to stone -- the person who could move him to be better, to be kinder, to be a good person -- to even want to try in the face of failure -- was no longer with them.
That didn't mean he didn't bend over backward to keep the damn, suicidally cocky boy ALIVE. He faced turncoats, spies, other Death Eaters, werewolves, more death eaters, his own friends on occasional, an angry tree. There were many adventures, lots of detention and a lot of free floating hate that was mostly reciprocated by the boy. He spied, he lied, he put his life on the line. Counter curses got him set on fire. He got tangled with the return of Sirius Black and it only got worse from there - they were never friends, and never would be. He managed to get Remus Lupin sacked in petty revenge, and quite possibly baited Sirius Black into rushing off to his doom.
Most importantly, he managed to get Harry Potter to thoroughly loathe him. The boy hated him and he cultivated that hatred. It was all he knew how to do; he had no idea how to get love or keep love, and so he did what he knew: he made the boy hate him. He made classes miserable. He insulted him and his father. He favored his own house and due to his relationship with the Malfoy family, acted openly as mentor and guardian to Draco and disdained Harry. He taught him hard lessons with no compassion behind them. He accused the boy of everything he could possibly imagine, mostly because he believed the boy to be the image of his father, and remembered every broken rule, every ignored regulation, every torment... and ascribed them all to Harry. Sometimes, he was right. Sometimes he wasn't.
When things began to get worse, they spent more time making each other miserable. He made occulumency their own special hell, till Harry turned the tables with his invasion of privacy. That truly scared him -- that the boy would find out his weakness, and worse, pity him. That would destroy his work! That would make him vulnerable. Worse, the boy may not hate him as much as he needed to maintain his cover and his work. Besides, the boy had plenty of loving uncles in his misfit family, and Snape had no desire to be among their number. Snape would be the one who would teach him the hardest lessons, and some of the most important that would keep Harry Potter alive... but Snape didn't want gratitude. He just wanted to keep his promise.
And it cost him. It cost him most of his life: he lived like a monk, dedicated to his work for nearly twenty years. He did not love or marry, know the touch of a woman or anything close to peace in the past two decades. He had only one friend, who manipulated him flagrantly -- even to the point where he asked for a merciful death, knowing that Snape would be the only one who could deliver it; Albus had doomed himself in the pursuit of Voldemort's defeat, but he knew Snape would never allow him to fall to the tender mercies of the Death Eaters. He would kill his only friend with his own hands to preserve his cover and give Albus a swift, kind death. It enabled him to keep his ruse even more complete, when Narcissa Malfoy asked Snape to complete her son's mission: Kill Albus Dumbledore, or die trying.
All of these things wrought terrible cost on Snape's spirit and mind, warping him in ways that would break a lesser man During the last seven years of Harry Potter's life in Hogwarts, where he had grown from boy to man, Snape remained a constant, a man with a duty, a rock before the ocean. But all rocks erode, and Snape found himself unable to trick or doublespeak through a thought of Voldemort's -- his Dark Lord turned on him, and murdered him with Nagini's deadly bite, all to claim a wand that Snape did not control and had never 'won'. He was murdered out of his Dark Lord's frustration - Voldemort expressed a vague sense of regret; that Snape had been good and true and loyal - showing how little Voldemort knew - and one of his best servants... but for Voldemort to have the wand, he would have killed his own mother.
At the end, something broke inside. He was not a monster; he was a deeply flawed man. He knew that about himself, and embraced it. Made it his strength. Fed on his own hatred to sustain himself over the years Harry was in school. He had one last chance, when the boy looked down at him as he bled and the poison worked in his body.
He didn't need to give him so much, to ensure Voldemort's death and Harry's survival. There was no reason to give him snippets of his childhood, especially the memories he had once guarded from Harry. He didn't need to know the truth behind everything -- he could have died with the boy hating him. But he didn't want to, Perhaps Snape had seen, from his distant watch over Harry and his friends, that there was Lily in the boy, and that part of him deserved an explanation. Maybe Snape simply wanted one person to know the truth. There was only one place to do it - laying there, bleeding, as Nagini's poison was shutting down his nervous system. There was no other time to give himself wholly to the boy and let him see it all in his shame and foolishness. His last act fed his need for absolution from the only person who could give it, the only other person who had suffered so the loss of Lily Evans in a way Snape could understand...
Her son.
Damn his eyes: the last thing he sees before the City saves his life.
PERSONALITY:
Severus Snape is a horrible, maladjusted misanthrope who was created by a cycle of abuse, exploited by a terrorist organization, then exploited again by a counter terrorist organization who has never, in his entire life, had anybody really and truly love him. Worst thing is, at the end of the life, he knows this - there is no other reason that he would make a last ditch attempt to be understood by a boy he knew would understand, partially, where he came from, and partially, where he had gone wrong.
To start, we cover the basics: Snape came from a home that was riddled with abuse that mirrored Harry Potter's misery, and in turn, also mirrors Voldemort. They are a succession of characters that go from “saved from the cycle” (Harry), to “not enough action was taken to prevent cycle from continuing” (Snape) and, “Completely lost in the cycle, perpetrator of terrible abuses, exploiter and tyrant” (Voldemort).
Snape's family was poor. Typical of mill families at the time, they shared housing with migrant workers, and there was no privacy, and certainly, no compassion or community. Snape was well aware that his father's rage was known to the people around him, and they did nothing. This taught him to rely only on himself. Couple this with his mother's enabling of his darker urges and refusal to act to protect herself or her son out of fear of being alone, or being shamed returning to the wizarding community a divorcee with a half-blood child, and we have some issues just waiting to spring forth. With small infractions being punished with great rage, we have a foundation for Snape's mad temper and love of doling out punishment with detentions and cruelty or simple pettiness (10 points from Gryffindor for being a know-it-all) but the illusion of his self control - he is a physically restrained man, but only just.
Potion Making is an extension of both his need for control and his need for restraint - also, creation of something of worth that is tangible. Teaching would never fulfill him because he could never control his students enough. Oh, he had his favorites and he showered his House with favor, but it was never going to be enough for him. Potion Making fulfills that urge to create, control, and dispense -- it's precise. It's scientific. But it's making something of worth, giving the creator worth in the mean time. This is one of the few things that makes Severus Snape feel genuinely good about himself. In his lab, he is still controlling and domineering, but he's much calmer and peaceful, focused and contained. It allows him something very important: total control over something, and something useful coming out of that control.
Snape enjoys being in control and he loves power for it's own sake. He was never empowered as a child or youth, and he was constantly frustrated that his origins, bloodline, house and such seemed to limit him or define what he could be, instead of his own work or will. Slytherin's defining trait is ambition, but yet, Snape saw laurels passed to the Gryffindor boys because of luck of family, birth, good looks and other circumstances, not the work they put in, while Snape was busy trying to succeed despite his low birth, lack of money, and other disadvantages. This inequality drove him to distraction and so his campaign of revenge while they bullied those different from themselves (not just Snape, but he made himself such an attractive target...) and continued Snape's pattern of powerlessness and kept him trapped in a cycle he did not know how to free himself from.
This need for empowerment made him the perfect recruit for a terrorist organization, and that's precisely what the Death Eaters were. They preyed on his need for a group to belong to, but also a group he could rise over and lead through his own 'merit' and 'skill'. He did differentiate himself from the Crabbe and Goyle level thugs of the group, and quickly rose through the ranks. Like most mid-to-high level terrorists, however, Snape didn't care about it's ideology. He didn't care about blood purity because his was as muddy as the next half-blood. It was never about race or wizard lines for Severus. It was about what the Death Eaters could promise him: standing in the new wizard order, respect, and everything that was due his efforts and work. Of course he bent over backwards for them and towed the party line. It validated his hate of his father, and made him despise his weak mother, and he swallowed their hook and they had him. In retrospect he knows himself to be a fool for believing any of it.
One should note that his rising star among the Death Eaters meant that Snape didn't really have to get his hands dirty with wet work. Oh, he tormented a muggle here or there, and he most certainly killed his father himself (but who can really blame him there?) as an initiation to the group, but other then that, Snape worked mostly in an organizational capacity; magical research, spying on people, and the like. The murder and the thuggery was left to lower-level troops and 'true fanatics' that couldn't be trusted with more delicate operations. This doesn't mean Snape's hands are clean, it simply means that he didn't spend his Death Eater days hip-deep in exploded Muggle remains anymore then Voldemort did. This would factor in to his desire to do as Lucius and Narcissa asked and protect Draco from the worst realities of the Death Eaters, especially when it came to stay at their home in their later lives.
It was only the dream of a better tomorrow, of being a better man with a real family and the person who represented it all to him, that broke the hold the promises of the Death Eaters had on him. Lily Evans was a childhood dream as much as she was a person for Snape - a witch from a family that loved her despite that they had no magic, and didn't hold her at arms' lengths. She was peripherally aware of what was going on at the Snape household, but she was never, ever taken to Spinner's End, never taken to where Snape was weak, powerless and hated. He went to her home, her family welcomed him, and he loved them with all his heart for it. It was his first taste of things that could be different, that they could be right and good and noble and more importantly, that those weren't just words, they were real.
When the living embodiment of that dream was threatened, Severus turned on a dime; he betrayed everyone and anyone to keep Lily safe. He didn't care who he had to sell out, that dream of another time and place, that promise of a life that could never be his, he couldn't let it die. But he did. Despite his best efforts on all sides of the conflict, Snape couldn't save the woman he loved or the dream she represented. It all went to hell, and he was the architect of his own damnation. Worse, he knew it.
Even worse, Dumbledore knew it and played him like a harp from hell - Snape, broken though he might be by Lily's death, could still be useful. Dumbledore's counter-terrorist organization still used some of the same tactics of the other, and instead of promising power and respect, this time he offered a more tenuous and harder to attain item: Absolution for his sins against Lily Evans through her son, Harry Potter. However, the full transference of love from one to the other couldn't happen. James was to present in the boy. In his attitude, his appearance. Snape always wondered if he could not have protected her better if he were in James' place, even if he knew logically she had never loved him like that and likely, no one ever would. But the result as still the same: he transferred his total loyalty from Voldemort to his new guiding father-figure, Dumbledore.
He couldn't love the boy, but he could keep his promise. This wore on over time, and the work continued and Snape felt the weight of failure on his shoulders. He was burying more then he was saving and expressed his frustration to his only 'friend' and confidant, Dumbledore himself. Much as he went to Voldemort for validation of his hate of his father and to replace him, he turned to Dumbledore for the same reason; a father figure to validate and care for him. It did not stop him from caring for the man as he needed to place some emotional anchors somewhere, as the work was not enough to keep him from going emotionally adrift, but he would always suspect the other's feelings to be false. Snape is not trusting - he is suspicious to a fault, and lives by the 'fool me once, shame on me - but I'll make sure you never, ever try it again' line of thinking. There is no room for 'fool me twice', not ever.
Snape is not without compassion or empathy - you can't be cruel without knowing what it is yourself to be hurt - but it is buried so deep that it may as well be lost. He has been taught that the only people who are going help you is “me, myself, and I” and so he expects others to do the same. Kindness comes at a price for him - nobody will love him for who he is, because he knows that he is a ruin of a man and not worth much. He is capable of love, in a stunted sort of way - he loved Lily, certainly, and one could argue that he loved Draco in a familial sort of way, but Snape's love is a heavy cross to bear. It is a dangerous thing; he can be gentle, loyal and kind to a point, but he takes rebuke seriously and seeks to control those relationships as he does any other, which is why the mentor-student relationship with Draco was 'safe' for him to indulge in. It's not something he can help; manipulation is what he knows - even those who said they cared, like Dumbledore, manipulated Snape, and so he returns the favor. Lily is really the only exception... and well, one sees how THAT turned out.
His self-evaluation is poor; in the years since leaving the Snape household and setting himself up with Hogwarts, he may have abandoned second-hand clothing, but he still lives in a pit of a house, he still doesn't keep very clean, and he cannot erase the marks that poor nutrition and lack of medical and dental care left on him from the years before. He knows that everyone can see that he is the poor boy from Manchester in nicer clothes, and he struggles to relate the reality of his life (some respect, still no love, alone by choice) to the self-image of that weak, miserable person (deserves none of those things, etc). In the past this turned into petty attempts at destroying or hurting anyone who knew him from those days (Remus Lupin) or people he blamed for part of his problems (Sirius Black), but in the end, he knew the truth: he was not a good person, but he wished he could have been, or at least, could have been better.
However, for all that Snape is a control freak who does not understand love or loving others, he does have a few good traits. Once his loyalty is attained, he would walk through hell barefoot for those who had it. He is self-sacrificing when called upon, and he truly does CARE for people in his warped, emotionally stunted way even if he has no real healthy way of showing it. When Order members and their families began to suffer and die, he feels guilt and shame -- wondering what else he could have done, what lie he could have told or what misdirection he could have planted to keep those people alive are. Gone is the man who would have left James Potter die if Lily Evans would live in exchange -- he has grown as a person, like a stunted plant finally allowed a little sunshine -- but it slow and agonizing process. He is a private man, fearful of vulnerability. He allowed himself a tenuous friendship with Albus Dumbledore. Though he was aware that he was being played during the majority of their friendship, he always did as he was asked -- even to the point of killing his only friend, and leaving himself alone with the fullness of Dumbledore's plans, being the only person left to enact them. It is this aloneness that finally broke down some of the walls that lead him to finally allowing himself, before he died, to attempt to absolve himself to Harry Potter; his gift of his memories, far beyond what they would need to complete the mission to destroy Voldemort, was a magical letter of apology: he did not mean to be so broken, but he had a cracked foundation from the beginning, and he only made it worse... and only in his death, can he express how he has worked to make it better.
POWER:
++ MAGIC ++
Severus Snape is a wizard of the Harry Potter variety, and worse, he is a (arguably former) Dark Wizard of some power who was the right hand of Lord Voldemort and knew many of the dark lord's secret magics and blacker rituals.
The generic magic - transfiguration, flying on brooms, and 'vagueness and latin' used to cast spells that move objects, conjure items, transform items from other items and so forth which is well documented in Harry Potter is a catch all for useful spells that handle mundane tasks. There's a spell to clean places, a spell to repair things, a spell for - well, just about everything, quite frankly, in the Harry Potter universe. If there's even a vague analogy to a tool or technology, magic can likely do it. Need to make a phone call? Use flue powder to speak from fire place to fire place with someone else whose 'flue address' you know, and so forth.
Snape is sufficiently advanced in magic that he can use magic without a vocal or somatic (wand) component, but this sort of magic is much more difficult. Wands are very important tools and very few powerful spells (death curse, most dueling spells except for shields, etc) can be used without them. Snape, of course, will have his wand with him at nearly all times.
To elaborate on every possible spell would take forever, and since we have other HP canon in game at this time, we're not going for the purpose of this application. Instead, we're going to focus on what set Snape apart from most wizards. Beyond 'wand waving frippery' which Snape mostly disdains, Snape has five areas of expertise; Potion Mastery, Legilimency and Occlumency, Duelling and Dark Magic.
Potion Mastery covers the fact that there are few better then Severus Snape in the creation of magical draughts, potions, liquors, ointments or other brews. Much like the 'vagueness and Latin' that accompanies the wand-based magic, there is really no limit given to the things that Snape can do, IF he has the proper time, equipment and ingredients requires. He can create potions that heal, harm transform, confuse, kill or create odd or humorous effect. However, each potion must be brewed in a precise manner, from the right cauldron type, size, ingredients, right down to the type of stirrer used. While some of this will be easy to find - most of it won't be. Some potions take months of proper care to brew - one wrong move, one stirring missed, and the potion will be ruined. If Snape cannot maintain that sort of schedule, many of his most advanced brews will never see creation (Luck, Transfiguration, etc). Even veritaserum takes a month to properly create.
Legilimency and Occulumency are twin arts; one penetrates the mind and the other occludes it. Snape is a master of both these magics, and they were invaluable during his time as a spy against the most powerful dark wizards to ever live. It is said that his 'eyes that see right through you', often noted by students that were on the receiving end of his investigative skills were not aware that their minds were being read, but during very deep probes - such as his 'teaching' experiments with Harry during duels - can be felt and experienced by the person probed if he is being 'blunt' about it - it's a violating and unhappy experience for the probed. However, surface thoughts can be lifted with no detection by even skilled telepaths or occulumens.
Occulmency, it's twins, create shields, fogs of misdirection, fake thoughts and feelings; a legilmens can be fed false information, denied important information (It's simply 'not there' or they 'don't know'). Snape is a greater occulumens then he is a legilimens, but that's like saying he can compose slightly better symphonies then he can opera. They have roots in the same art, and only a fellow master would see where his legilimency is not quite as fantastic in scope as his occulumency. (Like the only better legilimens or occulumens then either Voldemort or Snape; Albus Dumbledore.)
Duelling covers a very specific set of wand-based magic; attack and defense. Snape is a master duellist, well known for his combat reflexes, merciless offense and swift defense and. He is a master of single combat, but is no slouch in a wizardly 'fire fight', either. He is able to create shields on the fly, and is well versed in a variety of hexes and curses that go from humiliating to debilitating, from damaging to deadly. He is not and never has been a wizard to be trifled with.
When it comes to Dark Magic, this covers Unforgivable Curses (Mind Control, Agony, and Death, in sum up), rituals that do terrible and unspeakable things (drinking unicorn blood for health, etc) as well as strange magics like flight without a broom. As 'reformed' as Snape is, his expertise here is more 'academic' then practical, as he's not about to cut off anybody's hands to rebuild his body or health. Oh, he'll fly without a broom if he must, but that's one of the more benign magics that Snape learned from Voldemort, and even that's weird for Snape, and that's saying something.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
Listen.
[The voice is silky and sibilant; warm velvet over cold steel. He doesn't do video because Snape has never liked the spotlight like that, revealing his every ugliness, but he commands attention with carefully enunciated words, set in a practiced and poised speech.]
I am not going to tell you dunderheaded ninnies one more time. I shouldn't have to tell you at all, but it seems you're too foolish to grasp the obvious -- maybe by saying it so bluntly that it cannot be possibly misunderstood, even by a knob as thick as Potter, you will understand it in this moment. Regardless of your comprehension, I wash my hands of you after this!
I am not a damned hero. I am not and have never worn the red and gold, and I never, ever wanted to. I lived and nearly died among the mad lions that embraced that sort of stupidity like Christ did the cross and I am not doing this bloody shite anymore. If you are looking for a guardian, spy, traitor, or anything else -- I am no longer your man. I was never your man in the first place, in all likelyhood.
My debts are expunged. Harry lives, and it is because I did exactly what I had to do. No more, no less. I do not profess affection for him, nor any of you lot, either. You are stupid, shortsighted, arrogant, headstrong and dense. The combination of these faults make your existance very nearly a sin against nature, but yet you persist in continuing onward!
No more! None of this madness for Severus Snape! From this moment on, I am my own man and no one else's. If I must make this clear at wandpoint, I will. Do not press this. I am not a man to be trifled with. You will regret it.
Now solve your own damn problems and leave me out of it.
[End transmission.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It was not the dungeon, but it would have to do. It would not have the solace of cold stone safety, nor the secrets he had learned by heart over the last twenty years etched deep as scars and twice as lasting. This place, in all it's mundane glory, would never thrum with a life of it's own, but he couldn't afford a castle. If it hadn't been for various initiatives in the city for imPorts, he wouldn't' have afforded this damn hole in the wall, either. Thank Merlin for small blessings: he had to go through all the bloody motions to get it, and so that made it all the more valuable - a little debt (his debt, his money) and a bit of work, not a little bit of schmoozing, and the right palms greased had made his shop a reality.
His shop. An apothecary. A proper one. He can't say it had been the job of his dreams but frankly, any thing that was his without being given, foisted upon or otherwise debted to anybody beyond a banker was welcome here. Dumbledore hadn't finagled it with his connections. Voldemort hadn't suggested it by candlelight to the right lackey. No; this was Snape's and that was important. He had so few things that were wholly his that the possessiveness he felt immediately for the miserable little building was shocking even to himself.
The apothecary was his. It was a hole in a wall, in a neighborhood that was less then fantastic, He could live with that, because it was his. He could handle himself against any foolishness this city threw at him, he was sure. The fact that he dressed in wool robes in the middle of a sweltering hot New York summer, spoke funny and didn't hide his imPort dog tags kept the baser riffraf from his doorstep. Oh, he'd step over the homeless on his way to work in the morning, but he'd be damned if he cared.
The rest, he'd deal with as it came.
The place would need a scrubbing, stock put to shelves and more made as swiftly as he could manage. Security for his sole, hard won possession would need wards in all the right place; he didn't count then among enemies, but he didn't put it past Sirirus to stir up old grudges out of spite -- after all, he'd do the same to the other man, given a worthy opportunity. The basement would be a laboratory in which to serve his needs and allow himself another place to be that wasn't the bloody MAC surrounded by strangers using bizarre magics willy-nilly. Away from the noise and the bustle.
Away from Lily and James and Harry.
He couldn't find enough space from that happy, reunited family to soothe his hurts, but he would do his best. This place was a second lease on life; he was not in some pauper's grave. It was what he had, and he had to make the best of it. Relocating from the City would be impossible for a time, but that's what the shop was for. A stepping stone -- to perhaps return to England, to otherwise vanish somewhere, once enough money was saved to start somewhere else and create himself completely anew, away from all the lies and doublespeak that the Order had defined him with.
For now, he knew he wouldn't feel alive until he had smooth glass bottles, iron cauldrons, silver stirrers... all of them, under one roof, bent to his will, creating what he demanded.
He shed his heavy cloak and overcoat, rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He hadn't been there fifteen minutes when the door chime from the last owner rang tinnily in his ears -- and he dreaded who it might be; Luna knew of his little project, and the little Ravenclaw could have spilled already, for her own inscrutable reasons. Then, Lily might find out.
He went silent, listening. The chime did not ring again. Whoever they were, they were waiting in the open space of the shop. Waiting for him to come out of the backroom and acknowledge them. Rolling down his sleeves, hiding the Dark Mark that slept faded on his skin, he stepped through the door, hoping it was Potter looking for a richly deserved thrashing, and not his wife.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER: Nope! The HP cast is aware he's being apped and supportive despite his personality and rudeness, so we're all good.