Fic: Quite the Little Dark Arts Expert
"Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I’ve wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape’s always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was." Sirius added, and Harry and Ron grinned at each other. "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly-all turned out to be Death Eaters." Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
This fic is an exploration of Sirius’s comment that Severus Snape had arrived at Hogwarts knowing more curses than many seventh years. If true, it indicates something far darker in Snape’s childhood than was hinted at through the memories Harry saw or the usually portrayals in fan fiction. I have based my interpretation on my experiences with neglected and abused children. I have provided more explanation at the end.
Word count: 5000
Warnings: this fic is basically unrelenting angst and hurt/ comfort, only with very little of the comfort. It contains scenes of family violence and child abuse. If you are a Snape fan, I recommend thinking of this as the prologue to a fic where Snape survives the war and ends up loved and cared for by your choice of witch/ wizard.
Rating: R. Tagged for adult content due to the scenes of child abuse.
Characters: Severus Snape, Lily Evans, Tobias Snape/ Eileen Snape etc
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc.
1.
Severus already knew how the argument would end.
His father had arrived home around eight. That meant he’d been to the pub, but he wouldn’t be too drunk. If he came straight from work, and sober, he’d be home around six. If he came after nine, he’d be so drunk he’d pass out before too long. But if he was only a little bit drunk, he was likely to start a fight.
“Eileen, I want to talk to you about Easter.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. The boy is going to my sister’s, and that’s final.”
“He doesn’t want to go, Eileen. He hates it there. You’ve seen how he is when he comes back.”
“It’s not my problem if he doesn’t like a bit of discipline.”
Eileen turned to leave the room.
“Discipline?”
Severus ducked under the table. He knew that his father wasn’t the only one in the mood for a fight. Eileen had spent the week brewing Amortentia and other illegal love potions, which she sold on the quiet as a source of galleons. As a result she hadn’t had time to brew the potions which soothed away her disgust and fury at being stuck in a miserable muggle town with a husband she despised and a son she resented.
“Is that what you call it? That’s not discipline. It’s sick.”
Eileen turned back to her husband.
“I didn’t ask your opinion, Tobias,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“I won’t let you send him away to those people. He’s my son.”
“You really are the master of stating the blindingly obvious, aren’t you, Tobias. He’s a pathetic, weak little swine. Of course he’s your son.”
Severus cringed as he saw his father pull his shoulders back slightly. When Tobias was sober, he had the sense to back off, but when he was drunk, he would lose his temper and shout at his wife. It wouldn’t end well.
“You bitch,” he yelled. “He’s your son too.”
“More’s the pity,” Eileen hissed back. “I should have got rid of him. Purged him from my body like the little tapeworm he is.”
“You shut your mouth, you evil witch. You’re the one that should have been got rid of at birth, you cow.”
Tobias raised his hand and stepped forward. For a moment he seemed to tower over his wife, he was a good head taller than her and had the strength of a man who laboured hard for his living. She ducked slightly as she reached for her wand, and whipped it up under his chin.
“Is that a good idea, Tobias?” she asked in falsely sweet voice.
He gave a roar of rage and made a grab for the wand, and then suddenly he was flat on his back. Severus gave a soft whimper. Eileen whirled around to where he hid.
“Get out from under the table, you useless little freak.”
Severus whimpered again and grabbed onto the table leg.
“Get out from there before I hex you out, swine.”
He saw her wand hand drop and the wand pointed at the table. Then he saw his father get to his feet and step between Severus and his mother.
“Leave him alone, Eileen.”
Severus heard her mother’s voice hissing at his father, but couldn’t make out the words. He saw the effect soon enough, as his father was thrown to the ground. Tobias’s eyes met his son’s and he mouthed the word “sorry”. Then he saw his mother move closer, wand pointed at his father’s body. He pressed his eyes closed and his hands over his ears as he waited for what would inevitably come next.
When his mother had exhausted her rage and swept from the room, he crawled over to his father and pressed his body close. He felt his father’s arm slip around his waist as they lay trembling together.
“You alright, son?”
Severus pressed his face against his father’s shoulder and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Da. I… I wet myself.”
“It’s alright, son. It’s not your fault.”
Severus clung to his father, sobbing. He fell asleep there, knowing that at least they were safe for the rest of the night.
2.
His father’s opposition had no effect, of course. Eileen wanted him out of the house at Easter, when it was time to complete the brewing of her Felix Felices. That was the hardest of the potions that she brewed, and it earned her the most money. The last thing she wanted was a child getting in the way.
Tobias was at work when Eileen’s sister and her husband arrived to pick him up.
“Hasn’t grown much, has he?”
His aunt grabbed his arm and gripped it tightly.
“What do you think, Walden? Has he put on any more meat than the last time you saw him?”
“Doesn’t look like it. Still a useless half-breed runt.”
His uncle grabbed his other arm.
“You hear that, you skinny little skrewt? A useless, half-breed runt.”
Severus dropped his eyes to the floor. He wished his father would come, even though he could do nothing.
“Right then, Eileen, you’ve got his things?”
“Right here, Carolyn.”
Eileen shrunk the small bag down and handed to her sister. Then she leaned down and kissed her son on the cheek.
“You be good for your aunt and uncle and do what they tell you. You should be very grateful that they’re taking you for a holiday. None of my other relatives would even touch you.”
She had turned her back even before her sister and brother-in-law had apparated him away.
His aunt and uncles’ house terrified Severus. His mother sometimes used magic, and that was frightening enough for him. But here the whole house was magical - the pictures on the wall moved, plates moved to and from the table, the house elves appeared and disappeared at random. He was almost too scared to speak.
“Oi, you, half-breed.”
Severus’s uncle grabbed his arm with bony fingers. Severus flinched.
“Look at me when I talk to you.”
Severus lifted his head cautiously to meet his uncle’s eyes. The coldness there frightened him and he looked away again. His uncle jerked his arm roughly.
“Look at me, you little swine.”
Severus looked up again, pressing his lips together and trying to control his emotions as his mother always told him to. He tried to avoid the awful eyes and found himself watching as the moustache on his lip twisted into a sneer.
“I’m going to show you something boy,” his uncle said, and dragged his reluctant nephew down into the cellar.
The first thing Severus noticed was the smell. He was good at smells, his mother made him identify potion ingredients blindfolded. This smell was complex. Damp, that was the strongest. But there were other smells too: a faint smell of rotten meat that could be a dead mouse or perhaps old blood, a trace of urine, the distinct odour of the house elves. They smelled stronger when they were afraid, he’d noticed, when his uncle called one close so he could grab it by the ear, or when he pointed his wand.
In the light from his uncle’s wand, he could see chains on the wall. The floor was stained, but he didn’t look closely.
Finally his uncle released his arm.
“Stand there boy.”
Severus looked up at his uncle, his eyes widening as he brought out his wand.
“Yes, you know what this is for, don’t you, you little swine. How about I give you a little demonstration of what it can do?”
His uncle pointed the wand at him.
“Locomotor wibbly.”
Severus felt his legs weaken beneath him. He went to take a step back and his legs completely collapsed. His uncle burst out laughing.
“If you could see your face, boy. Just priceless.”
Severus pushed himself backwards with his hands, his legs feeling completely useless. He backed up against the walls of the cellar, trying to get as far from his uncle as possible.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. Just a jelly-legs curse. You’d think I crucioed you. Finite incantatem.”
With a wave of his uncle’s wand, his legs were back to normal.
“Right then, your turn, runt.”
Severus looked at his uncle in confusion.
“Here.”
His uncle held out his wand, thrusting it into his hand.
“Take it. See, do you feel that? All that controlled power? Yes, you do, don’t you. I see it on your face.”
Severus grasped the wand. He had touched his mother’s wand before, but never held it properly. This was different. This was… magic.
He slowly looked up at his uncle, who suddenly grabbed him roughly by the wrist.
“Oh, no you don’t. I can see what you’re thinking of, cheeky little half-breed.”
His uncle called for one of the house elves, which appeared in front of him with a pop.
“Niffy, stand there. Now, boy, you point the wand, that’s right. The movement’s like this.”
His uncle moved his hand in a half circle and gave a flick at the end.
“Then, as you do it, you say the words locomotor wibbly. Go on.”
Severus could feel himself shaking. The elf was staring up at him with big eyes.
“Do it, runt, get on with it.”
“Lo… locomo… loco…”
“Merlin’s ball’s you’re a useless little shit aren’t you. Just like your filthy father. Repeat after me. Loco.”
“L… loco.”
“Motor.”
“Motor.”
“Wibbly.”
“Wibbly.”
“Locomotor wibbly.”
“Locomotor wibbly.”
“And now with the wand, get on with it. I want to see that elf on the floor.”
Severus turned towards the elf but kept looking at the ground.
“Locomotor wibbly.”
The elf collapsed to the floor and his uncle laughed with delight.
“There you go, half-breed. We’ll have you hexing that drunken soak of a father of yours in no time.”
Severus began to lose track of the hexes and curses after a while. There was one that stung him, but it was short, as if he’d been slapped. There was one which made foul snot pour from his nose. One made his eyes hurt and swell up, another made him vomit slugs. After every one, his uncle made him do the same curse on Niffy the elf. He got used to it after a while, and the elf didn’t complain any more than he did.
Finally, his uncle did something which made him drop to the ground and scream with pain. He’d never experienced anything like it before. It was over in a moment, but it left him lying on the filthy floor, trembling and crying.
“Get up boy, don’t be so pathetic.”
His uncle grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. At the sudden movement, he felt sick, and vomited over his uncle’s shoes.
“Filthy half-breed,” his uncle yelled, throwing him back to the floor. “And you’ve pissed yourself too.”
Severus began to drag himself away.
“Oh, no you don’t. You need to learn to clean this up. Now.”
He watched as his uncle waved his wand over his shoes with the word “evanesco”.
“Right then, runt, you need to clean up that piss.”
His uncle hauled him to his feet once more and shoved the wand back in his hand.
“Get on with it. Evanesco.”
Severus waved the wand again, vaguely in the direction of his trousers.
“Evanesco.”
The spell worked, but it was more than just the urine soaking his trousers which disappeared. His trousers and underwear completely vanished too. His uncle thought it was “priceless” and roared with laughter. Taking advantage of his uncle’s distractedness, Severus fled. He ran up through the house and to his bedroom, hiding himself in the back of the cupboard. He wrapped his arms around his knees and could no longer contain himself. He began to sob uncontrollably. He wanted to go home. He wanted his da. He wanted his ma. He just wanted to escape.
“What were you doing with that boy, Walden? He came running through here with no trousers on. Right state he was in, too.”
Severus’s aunt watched as her husband emerged from the basement.
“Stupid brat pissed himself. I made him clean himself up and he vanished his clothes along with his piss.”
The man gave a cruel laugh and his wife laughed along with him.
“Oh, that’s priceless," his wife replied "I thought you were raping him or something like that.”
“Merlin’s ball’s, Carolyn, I’m not a pervert. We were just practicing a few curses. I demonstrated them on him, and then got him to have a go on the house elf.”
“Oh yes? You got the little half-breed doing magic?”
“He’s actually rather talented. A lot of potential there. Something must have skipped a generation, he wouldn’t have got it from that blood-traitor sister of yours or her pathetic muggle husband.”
“Oh, really?”
“You should join us next time. He’s got quite the talent for hexes and curses. I don’t think it will be long before he’s quite the little dark arts expert.”
3.
Severus held the bottle in both hands, carrying it carefully across the room. It was heavy, and the liquid sloshed around, making it move in his hands. He bit his lip in concentration. He didn’t want to drop it.
“Just there, Severus.”
He lifted it to the bench and placed it down carefully. Then he watched his mother as she continued with her brewing.
“Pearl dust.”
Severus turned back and got the jar of pearl dust, carrying it across to his mother.
“This needs to be added very carefully. It must be scattered onto the surface of the potion, never too much at once. If you add too much, it will cause the potion to congeal.”
He watched her as she moved, slowly and carefully. She was in complete control, her face a picture of concentration. She took a pinch of the dust between her fingers and scattered it carefully across the surface of the gently steaming cauldron.
“Now, you can grind the moonstone for me.”
Severus walked over and collected the jar, shaking a few fragments into a mortar. He took the pestle and began grinding while his mother watched.
“Yes, like that, a bit more. Get it a bit finer.”
With both hands on the pestle and his mother holding the mortar, he ground the moonstone fragments finer.
“Yes, that’s it, good boy.”
Eileen took a small spoon and added the ground moonstone to her potions.
“Peppermint.”
Severus turned again, reaching for a small bottle on a high shelf. As he reached, his sleeve caught a jar and it fell to the floor, shattering. Eileen whirled around, and Severus looked up at her, tears forming in his eyes.
“You stupid, useless brat.
“I’m sorry, Ma, I’m sorry.”
“And how, exactly, does “sorry” restore my rose thorns from being scattered across the floor? Pick them up, idiot boy.”
He began to pick up the thorns from the floor. His mother stood watching him, tapping her foot. As he collected the thorns from among the broken glass, he cut his hand, and gave a small cry.
“Ma-“
“Stop your whining, brat. It’s just a little blood.”
He clutched his hand to his chest.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby.”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled out her wand. He cringed away from her and began to shake.
“Honestly, idiot child. I’m trying to help you.”
She held his hand while he cowered, tears beginning to run down his face. Her wand touched his hand and she murmured “Episkey”. The cut was gone and she released him. He curled on the floor, hands over his head, crying.
“How extraordinarily like your father you are. He too is a snivelling, weak fool, allowing his emotions to gain control of him. You’ll never amount to anything unless you learn to control your emotions.”
Severus hated to admit it, but he knew his mother was right. Since his father had lost his job in June, he seemed to have lost all his purpose. He seldom rose before noon and, once he had risen, all he did was stare out the sitting room window, wallowing in sad memories and barely speaking to his wife or son. Some days, he would leave the house in the afternoon to go to the pub. If he did, he never came home even remotely sober.
On returning from the pub he would usually wobble through the door and head back to the sitting room, where he would flop into a chair and be snoring within minutes. Some days he would shout a few insults into the kitchen, and some days Eileen would shout back. But he’d give up before things got too nasty. If Severus was there with him, he might say a slurred “hello, son” and pat his head. But he no longer wanted to hear how Severus’s day had been, how things had gone at school, what Eileen had done with him. Or to him. He didn’t seem to like or care about anything much. Nothing made him smile.
“Da?”
This time, Tobias hadn’t even made it to the sitting room. He had simply fallen flat on his face in the hallway and vomited over the floor.
“Da, you have to move.”
Severus shook his father’s shoulder, but received no response.
“Da, please.”
If his mother found his father lying in the hallway in a pool of vomit, she’d curse him across the room. He grabbed his father’s hands and tried to pull him, but Tobias was a hefty former steel worker, and Severus was an underfed eight year old.
Finally, Severus abandoned his attempts. He knew only one way that he could get his father into the sitting room.
His mother was snoring, having successfully made herself a large batch of a sleeping draught and consumed rather a lot. Her wand, fortunately, was on the dressing table, and he could get it without disturbing her. He crept back down the stairs, wand in hand.
“Da, you have to move.”
When his father failed to respond, he pointed the wand and gave it a flick as his uncle had showed him.
“Mobilicorpus.”
His father’s body raised itself from the ground, arms flopping, head sagging. He moved cautiously backwards, slowly directing his father to the battered chair in the sitting room. He positioned his father over the chair, then realised he didn’t know how to release him. Lowering the wand didn’t work, and other movements just directed his father away from the chair. Eventually he realised he had no choice but to drop him and hope he landed in the chair.
“Finite incantatem.”
Tobias flopped backwards, landing in the chair with a resounding thud. Severus jumped and his father woke, peering at him with eyes that wouldn’t focus. Severus waved the wand, vanishing the vomit with a quick evanesco. Tobias’s clothes stayed intact - he’d learned that spell properly now.
“What are you doing, son?”
He spied the wand in Severus’s hand.
“Put that away. You don’t want to be doing that stuff.”
“I’m helping you, da.”
“Not like that you’re not. I won’t have you doing that filthy magic in this house. I don’t need your help, you little freak.”
“Da, you passed out in the hall.”
“Get away boy. I won’t have you turning out like that bitch mother of yours. No magic.”
Severus turned and fled the sitting room. He stopped in the hallway to vanish the vomit there, then quietly returned the wand to his mother’s room. When he went back downstairs, his father was sound asleep.
4.
Severus never thought he’d see someone else in Cokeworth doing magic. The girl, though, the one with the red hair and the green eyes, was definitely a witch.
It had taken all of his courage to go up and talk to her, but he had. She hadn’t believed him when he told her about magic. She’d called him silly, and laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, as if she knew that there was something true in his words.
“I can prove it,” he said.
“Yeah?” she replied, hands on hips. “How?”
Severus looked around. He didn’t have his mother’s wand, and even if he did, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to show her most of what he knew. He knew that it horrified his father when he showed him the things he did with his Uncle Walden. Something told him that they would horrify the girl too. He could see that she wasn’t like him. She was clean. She smiled. She was nice.
“I can… um… you see how there’s a puddle on the path over there?”
It had been raining and there were, in fact, many puddles. This one was not too large.
“So what.”
“I can make it disappear.”
He was pretty sure he could too. Evanesco had proved pretty useful when his father came home drunk, and he’d got so he could do it without having to borrow his mother’s wand. He’d seen his mother clean up small spills with just a wave of her hand, so he had known it was possible. He was getting pretty good at wandlessly cleaning up his father’s vomit now.
Severus walked over to the puddle. He was suddenly nervous, but waved his hand quickly and said the incantation. The puddle shimmered and halved in size, and Severus gave a sigh of frustration.
“How did you do that?”
Severus looked up.
“It just went away,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “That’s amazing, how did you do it?”
“It didn’t all go away. The whole puddle was supposed to disappear.”
“But still, that was brilliant. You just waved your hand. Like it was magic.”
“It is magic, I told you.”
“So you did,” she said, and gave him a warm smile.
The girl, whose name was Lily Evans, soon became his friend. He’d never had a friend before. At school, the other children never liked him. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that he wasn’t supposed to talk about things at home. When the other children talked about their homes, he’d realised that his was different. And therefore he was different.
He was different from Lily too. Her house had a garden in the front and the back. The garden even had a few flowers, and out the back her father had a patch where he grew potatoes and carrots. She laughed a lot. She thought things were “brilliant”. At school, the teachers said she was a good girl. Very bright. Lovely manners, and what a beautiful smile. The never said things like that about him. But together they had that one thing, their magic, and Severus no longer felt so alone.
He should have known it was too good to last. His mother noticed.
“You’ve been playing with that girl from down the road.”
“So?”
“You shouldn’t. Her father’s a manager at the steel works. The works that your father got sacked from. He was probably the one who sacked him.”
“You said it was Da’s fault he got sacked. For being a useless drunk.”
Severus felt a stinging hex across his face.
“I will not take cheek from you, you nasty little boy. You’ve become much ruder since you’ve been hanging around with that girl.”
Severus looked at the ground. His mother might have been right. Now that he had found someone who treated him with a bit more kindness, he’d started to feel angry at those who didn’t. He didn’t mean to, but sometimes words slipped out.
“Samhain’s coming up. You’ll go to your aunt and uncle as usual. But maybe you will stay a bit longer there. A couple of weeks.”
“I’ll miss school.”
“It’s not like they teach you anything of use at that stupid, muggle place. You’ll learn all you need when you go to Hogwarts.”
“Please, just one week.”
“Two.”
He tried to hold himself back, but his emotions caused him to lose control of his mouth.
“But… that’s not fair,” he cried.
“It may have escaped your notice, boy,” his mother replied, in a chilling voice, “but life isn’t fair.”
Severus went silent. It had, in fact, escaped his notice. He’d always been told he deserved what he got because he was a nasty little half-breed. His father deserved it because he was a useless drunk, and his mother because she’d polluted the blood of the Prince line by having him. Lily was nice, so she had a nice family and nice things. Petunia wasn’t as nice as Lily, but then she wasn’t as pretty as her sister and wasn’t magical. She wasn’t the favourite. So it seemed to him that life was fair. He wondered what his mother meant.
He dreaded telling Lily he had to go away. She might forget about him. She might find a new friend. A better friend. One who deserved a nice friend.
“I have to go and stay with my aunt and uncle.”
“For how long? I’ll miss you, Severus.”
“A month. Mother said…”
“A month! That’s not fair.”
Severus hung his head. His mother had not liked him answering back. But he didn’t think he should tell Lily.
“There’s magic stuff. At Samhain. She wants me out of the way.”
“What’s Samhain?”
“It’s a day. Or a night. Like… Easter or something.”
Lily was looking at him with naked fascination on her face. She nearly dropped the daisy chain she had been making.
“A magical festival. How brilliant.”
Severus shook his head.
“I don’t really know, I’m never there. But my aunt and uncle don’t really do anything.”
“Are they magical?”
“What?”
“Your aunt and uncle?”
Severus looked at the ground and pressed his lips together. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about his visits. He’d tried to talk to his father and his mother had cursed them both. He wanted to tell Lily. He wanted her to know, so he wasn’t alone. But he couldn’t.
“Yes. My mother’s sister and her husband.”
“That’s exciting. Do they have a magical house?”
Snape could feel himself starting to shiver, as if the wind had turned cold.
“Magic isn’t all exciting, Lily.”
“What do you mean, Severus?”
She reached out her hand and idly summoned a daisy from the lawn. It floated up and she added it to the chain.
“Magic. It’s… it can be used to do things that aren’t nice.”
“So? I don’t understand.”
“They… my aunt and uncle… they don’t do nice magic.”
Lily’s eyes went wide.
“Is that like black magic?”
“It’s called Dark magic. Cursing people and things.”
“Can you do that? Dark magic.”
Severus looked at the ground.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
Severus wanted to run. This is what he didn’t want Lily to see. She had found it so exciting, being magical. She had learned to summon daisies and buttercups, to make the first autumn leaves fly around the park. He’d told her about some of the things his mother had told him about the magical school she’d been to, like learning to fly a broomstick and the paintings that spoke to you. They’d shared the wonder of imagining a world that was brighter, a world with possibilities. A world that wasn’t stained dirty grey from coal smoke, a world where the houses were warm and there was always enough for dinner. A world where Severus wasn’t scared every day.
Severus felt a warm hand slip inside his cold one.
“It’s alright, Severus. I’ll be here when you get back.”
He glanced up briefly at her face then looked down again, but he nodded and squeezed her hand.
“It will be okay,” she said “I’m here.”
That was what he wanted so much, to know that she’d always be there. But he knew that if she saw the darker side of his life, she’d be gone.
“You won’t… if you knew what I did, at my aunt’s and uncle’s. It’s bad.”
“That’s not your fault, Severus. I will be here. I’m on your side, Severus.”
“Really?”
She smiled and reached out her other arm to draw him into a hug.
“Always,” she said softly.
Notes
This fic is an exploration of Sirius’s comment that Severus Snape had arrived at Hogwarts knowing more curses than half the kids in their seventh year. If true, that statement gives a pretty disturbing insight into Severus’s childhood and how he is as an adult. If you look at it from my perspective - that of someone who has cared for children from backgrounds of neglect and abuse - the comment is heart-breaking. It suggests something different from the usual portrayals of Snape’s pre-Hogwarts years.
Knowing a lot of curses as an eleven year old seems to be the magical equivalent to a muggle child being exposed to a lot of adult things that children should not be exposed to. To me, it’s comparable to a child who has an extensive knowledge and experience of drugs or sex. It indicates that Severus’s magical parent, was, at best, spectacularly negligent in allowing him such free access to adult or illegal magic. In this case, I’ve chosen to have Severus being taught dark magic by his uncle and aunt, while his mother turns a blind eye and his father, as a muggle, is unable to protect him. Both his parents are substance abusers, another all too frequent reason that children are inadequately cared for by their parents.
At first, it may seem counterintuitive that the Severus portrayed in this fic would join the Death Eaters. It might appear he would be more sympathetic to muggles and less to pureblood wizards. However it’s a bitter irony that boys who see their fathers abuse their mothers often go on to abuse women, not defend them. It therefore seemed plausible that a magical child who watched a magical parent abuse a muggle parent would go on to despise and abuse muggles as a Death Eater. It’s also sadly true that children who are abused by their parents are more likely to abuse children themselves. I’ve therefore considered how Snape’s treatment of his students, and especially Harry, may reflect his own experiences.
In addition, while it is usually assumed that Snape’s friends were the ones who introduced him to the Death Eaters, many of the children who get drawn into crime, drugs and gangs with their friends have also been exposed to it within their own families. It therefore struck me as plausible that Severus may have had Death Eaters within his mother’s family.
While none of this excuses the things Snape's misdeeds, or the crimes of any violent and abusive adult, it does help to remember that some of these adults were once very frightened, traumatised children. There are no easy solutions, but if we can remember this point, it can help us keep our compassion and determination to help.
This fic is an exploration of Sirius’s comment that Severus Snape had arrived at Hogwarts knowing more curses than many seventh years. If true, it indicates something far darker in Snape’s childhood than was hinted at through the memories Harry saw or the usually portrayals in fan fiction. I have based my interpretation on my experiences with neglected and abused children. I have provided more explanation at the end.
Word count: 5000
Warnings: this fic is basically unrelenting angst and hurt/ comfort, only with very little of the comfort. It contains scenes of family violence and child abuse. If you are a Snape fan, I recommend thinking of this as the prologue to a fic where Snape survives the war and ends up loved and cared for by your choice of witch/ wizard.
Rating: R. Tagged for adult content due to the scenes of child abuse.
Characters: Severus Snape, Lily Evans, Tobias Snape/ Eileen Snape etc
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc.
1.
Severus already knew how the argument would end.
His father had arrived home around eight. That meant he’d been to the pub, but he wouldn’t be too drunk. If he came straight from work, and sober, he’d be home around six. If he came after nine, he’d be so drunk he’d pass out before too long. But if he was only a little bit drunk, he was likely to start a fight.
“Eileen, I want to talk to you about Easter.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. The boy is going to my sister’s, and that’s final.”
“He doesn’t want to go, Eileen. He hates it there. You’ve seen how he is when he comes back.”
“It’s not my problem if he doesn’t like a bit of discipline.”
Eileen turned to leave the room.
“Discipline?”
Severus ducked under the table. He knew that his father wasn’t the only one in the mood for a fight. Eileen had spent the week brewing Amortentia and other illegal love potions, which she sold on the quiet as a source of galleons. As a result she hadn’t had time to brew the potions which soothed away her disgust and fury at being stuck in a miserable muggle town with a husband she despised and a son she resented.
“Is that what you call it? That’s not discipline. It’s sick.”
Eileen turned back to her husband.
“I didn’t ask your opinion, Tobias,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“I won’t let you send him away to those people. He’s my son.”
“You really are the master of stating the blindingly obvious, aren’t you, Tobias. He’s a pathetic, weak little swine. Of course he’s your son.”
Severus cringed as he saw his father pull his shoulders back slightly. When Tobias was sober, he had the sense to back off, but when he was drunk, he would lose his temper and shout at his wife. It wouldn’t end well.
“You bitch,” he yelled. “He’s your son too.”
“More’s the pity,” Eileen hissed back. “I should have got rid of him. Purged him from my body like the little tapeworm he is.”
“You shut your mouth, you evil witch. You’re the one that should have been got rid of at birth, you cow.”
Tobias raised his hand and stepped forward. For a moment he seemed to tower over his wife, he was a good head taller than her and had the strength of a man who laboured hard for his living. She ducked slightly as she reached for her wand, and whipped it up under his chin.
“Is that a good idea, Tobias?” she asked in falsely sweet voice.
He gave a roar of rage and made a grab for the wand, and then suddenly he was flat on his back. Severus gave a soft whimper. Eileen whirled around to where he hid.
“Get out from under the table, you useless little freak.”
Severus whimpered again and grabbed onto the table leg.
“Get out from there before I hex you out, swine.”
He saw her wand hand drop and the wand pointed at the table. Then he saw his father get to his feet and step between Severus and his mother.
“Leave him alone, Eileen.”
Severus heard her mother’s voice hissing at his father, but couldn’t make out the words. He saw the effect soon enough, as his father was thrown to the ground. Tobias’s eyes met his son’s and he mouthed the word “sorry”. Then he saw his mother move closer, wand pointed at his father’s body. He pressed his eyes closed and his hands over his ears as he waited for what would inevitably come next.
When his mother had exhausted her rage and swept from the room, he crawled over to his father and pressed his body close. He felt his father’s arm slip around his waist as they lay trembling together.
“You alright, son?”
Severus pressed his face against his father’s shoulder and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Da. I… I wet myself.”
“It’s alright, son. It’s not your fault.”
Severus clung to his father, sobbing. He fell asleep there, knowing that at least they were safe for the rest of the night.
2.
His father’s opposition had no effect, of course. Eileen wanted him out of the house at Easter, when it was time to complete the brewing of her Felix Felices. That was the hardest of the potions that she brewed, and it earned her the most money. The last thing she wanted was a child getting in the way.
Tobias was at work when Eileen’s sister and her husband arrived to pick him up.
“Hasn’t grown much, has he?”
His aunt grabbed his arm and gripped it tightly.
“What do you think, Walden? Has he put on any more meat than the last time you saw him?”
“Doesn’t look like it. Still a useless half-breed runt.”
His uncle grabbed his other arm.
“You hear that, you skinny little skrewt? A useless, half-breed runt.”
Severus dropped his eyes to the floor. He wished his father would come, even though he could do nothing.
“Right then, Eileen, you’ve got his things?”
“Right here, Carolyn.”
Eileen shrunk the small bag down and handed to her sister. Then she leaned down and kissed her son on the cheek.
“You be good for your aunt and uncle and do what they tell you. You should be very grateful that they’re taking you for a holiday. None of my other relatives would even touch you.”
She had turned her back even before her sister and brother-in-law had apparated him away.
His aunt and uncles’ house terrified Severus. His mother sometimes used magic, and that was frightening enough for him. But here the whole house was magical - the pictures on the wall moved, plates moved to and from the table, the house elves appeared and disappeared at random. He was almost too scared to speak.
“Oi, you, half-breed.”
Severus’s uncle grabbed his arm with bony fingers. Severus flinched.
“Look at me when I talk to you.”
Severus lifted his head cautiously to meet his uncle’s eyes. The coldness there frightened him and he looked away again. His uncle jerked his arm roughly.
“Look at me, you little swine.”
Severus looked up again, pressing his lips together and trying to control his emotions as his mother always told him to. He tried to avoid the awful eyes and found himself watching as the moustache on his lip twisted into a sneer.
“I’m going to show you something boy,” his uncle said, and dragged his reluctant nephew down into the cellar.
The first thing Severus noticed was the smell. He was good at smells, his mother made him identify potion ingredients blindfolded. This smell was complex. Damp, that was the strongest. But there were other smells too: a faint smell of rotten meat that could be a dead mouse or perhaps old blood, a trace of urine, the distinct odour of the house elves. They smelled stronger when they were afraid, he’d noticed, when his uncle called one close so he could grab it by the ear, or when he pointed his wand.
In the light from his uncle’s wand, he could see chains on the wall. The floor was stained, but he didn’t look closely.
Finally his uncle released his arm.
“Stand there boy.”
Severus looked up at his uncle, his eyes widening as he brought out his wand.
“Yes, you know what this is for, don’t you, you little swine. How about I give you a little demonstration of what it can do?”
His uncle pointed the wand at him.
“Locomotor wibbly.”
Severus felt his legs weaken beneath him. He went to take a step back and his legs completely collapsed. His uncle burst out laughing.
“If you could see your face, boy. Just priceless.”
Severus pushed himself backwards with his hands, his legs feeling completely useless. He backed up against the walls of the cellar, trying to get as far from his uncle as possible.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. Just a jelly-legs curse. You’d think I crucioed you. Finite incantatem.”
With a wave of his uncle’s wand, his legs were back to normal.
“Right then, your turn, runt.”
Severus looked at his uncle in confusion.
“Here.”
His uncle held out his wand, thrusting it into his hand.
“Take it. See, do you feel that? All that controlled power? Yes, you do, don’t you. I see it on your face.”
Severus grasped the wand. He had touched his mother’s wand before, but never held it properly. This was different. This was… magic.
He slowly looked up at his uncle, who suddenly grabbed him roughly by the wrist.
“Oh, no you don’t. I can see what you’re thinking of, cheeky little half-breed.”
His uncle called for one of the house elves, which appeared in front of him with a pop.
“Niffy, stand there. Now, boy, you point the wand, that’s right. The movement’s like this.”
His uncle moved his hand in a half circle and gave a flick at the end.
“Then, as you do it, you say the words locomotor wibbly. Go on.”
Severus could feel himself shaking. The elf was staring up at him with big eyes.
“Do it, runt, get on with it.”
“Lo… locomo… loco…”
“Merlin’s ball’s you’re a useless little shit aren’t you. Just like your filthy father. Repeat after me. Loco.”
“L… loco.”
“Motor.”
“Motor.”
“Wibbly.”
“Wibbly.”
“Locomotor wibbly.”
“Locomotor wibbly.”
“And now with the wand, get on with it. I want to see that elf on the floor.”
Severus turned towards the elf but kept looking at the ground.
“Locomotor wibbly.”
The elf collapsed to the floor and his uncle laughed with delight.
“There you go, half-breed. We’ll have you hexing that drunken soak of a father of yours in no time.”
Severus began to lose track of the hexes and curses after a while. There was one that stung him, but it was short, as if he’d been slapped. There was one which made foul snot pour from his nose. One made his eyes hurt and swell up, another made him vomit slugs. After every one, his uncle made him do the same curse on Niffy the elf. He got used to it after a while, and the elf didn’t complain any more than he did.
Finally, his uncle did something which made him drop to the ground and scream with pain. He’d never experienced anything like it before. It was over in a moment, but it left him lying on the filthy floor, trembling and crying.
“Get up boy, don’t be so pathetic.”
His uncle grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. At the sudden movement, he felt sick, and vomited over his uncle’s shoes.
“Filthy half-breed,” his uncle yelled, throwing him back to the floor. “And you’ve pissed yourself too.”
Severus began to drag himself away.
“Oh, no you don’t. You need to learn to clean this up. Now.”
He watched as his uncle waved his wand over his shoes with the word “evanesco”.
“Right then, runt, you need to clean up that piss.”
His uncle hauled him to his feet once more and shoved the wand back in his hand.
“Get on with it. Evanesco.”
Severus waved the wand again, vaguely in the direction of his trousers.
“Evanesco.”
The spell worked, but it was more than just the urine soaking his trousers which disappeared. His trousers and underwear completely vanished too. His uncle thought it was “priceless” and roared with laughter. Taking advantage of his uncle’s distractedness, Severus fled. He ran up through the house and to his bedroom, hiding himself in the back of the cupboard. He wrapped his arms around his knees and could no longer contain himself. He began to sob uncontrollably. He wanted to go home. He wanted his da. He wanted his ma. He just wanted to escape.
“What were you doing with that boy, Walden? He came running through here with no trousers on. Right state he was in, too.”
Severus’s aunt watched as her husband emerged from the basement.
“Stupid brat pissed himself. I made him clean himself up and he vanished his clothes along with his piss.”
The man gave a cruel laugh and his wife laughed along with him.
“Oh, that’s priceless," his wife replied "I thought you were raping him or something like that.”
“Merlin’s ball’s, Carolyn, I’m not a pervert. We were just practicing a few curses. I demonstrated them on him, and then got him to have a go on the house elf.”
“Oh yes? You got the little half-breed doing magic?”
“He’s actually rather talented. A lot of potential there. Something must have skipped a generation, he wouldn’t have got it from that blood-traitor sister of yours or her pathetic muggle husband.”
“Oh, really?”
“You should join us next time. He’s got quite the talent for hexes and curses. I don’t think it will be long before he’s quite the little dark arts expert.”
3.
Severus held the bottle in both hands, carrying it carefully across the room. It was heavy, and the liquid sloshed around, making it move in his hands. He bit his lip in concentration. He didn’t want to drop it.
“Just there, Severus.”
He lifted it to the bench and placed it down carefully. Then he watched his mother as she continued with her brewing.
“Pearl dust.”
Severus turned back and got the jar of pearl dust, carrying it across to his mother.
“This needs to be added very carefully. It must be scattered onto the surface of the potion, never too much at once. If you add too much, it will cause the potion to congeal.”
He watched her as she moved, slowly and carefully. She was in complete control, her face a picture of concentration. She took a pinch of the dust between her fingers and scattered it carefully across the surface of the gently steaming cauldron.
“Now, you can grind the moonstone for me.”
Severus walked over and collected the jar, shaking a few fragments into a mortar. He took the pestle and began grinding while his mother watched.
“Yes, like that, a bit more. Get it a bit finer.”
With both hands on the pestle and his mother holding the mortar, he ground the moonstone fragments finer.
“Yes, that’s it, good boy.”
Eileen took a small spoon and added the ground moonstone to her potions.
“Peppermint.”
Severus turned again, reaching for a small bottle on a high shelf. As he reached, his sleeve caught a jar and it fell to the floor, shattering. Eileen whirled around, and Severus looked up at her, tears forming in his eyes.
“You stupid, useless brat.
“I’m sorry, Ma, I’m sorry.”
“And how, exactly, does “sorry” restore my rose thorns from being scattered across the floor? Pick them up, idiot boy.”
He began to pick up the thorns from the floor. His mother stood watching him, tapping her foot. As he collected the thorns from among the broken glass, he cut his hand, and gave a small cry.
“Ma-“
“Stop your whining, brat. It’s just a little blood.”
He clutched his hand to his chest.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby.”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled out her wand. He cringed away from her and began to shake.
“Honestly, idiot child. I’m trying to help you.”
She held his hand while he cowered, tears beginning to run down his face. Her wand touched his hand and she murmured “Episkey”. The cut was gone and she released him. He curled on the floor, hands over his head, crying.
“How extraordinarily like your father you are. He too is a snivelling, weak fool, allowing his emotions to gain control of him. You’ll never amount to anything unless you learn to control your emotions.”
Severus hated to admit it, but he knew his mother was right. Since his father had lost his job in June, he seemed to have lost all his purpose. He seldom rose before noon and, once he had risen, all he did was stare out the sitting room window, wallowing in sad memories and barely speaking to his wife or son. Some days, he would leave the house in the afternoon to go to the pub. If he did, he never came home even remotely sober.
On returning from the pub he would usually wobble through the door and head back to the sitting room, where he would flop into a chair and be snoring within minutes. Some days he would shout a few insults into the kitchen, and some days Eileen would shout back. But he’d give up before things got too nasty. If Severus was there with him, he might say a slurred “hello, son” and pat his head. But he no longer wanted to hear how Severus’s day had been, how things had gone at school, what Eileen had done with him. Or to him. He didn’t seem to like or care about anything much. Nothing made him smile.
“Da?”
This time, Tobias hadn’t even made it to the sitting room. He had simply fallen flat on his face in the hallway and vomited over the floor.
“Da, you have to move.”
Severus shook his father’s shoulder, but received no response.
“Da, please.”
If his mother found his father lying in the hallway in a pool of vomit, she’d curse him across the room. He grabbed his father’s hands and tried to pull him, but Tobias was a hefty former steel worker, and Severus was an underfed eight year old.
Finally, Severus abandoned his attempts. He knew only one way that he could get his father into the sitting room.
His mother was snoring, having successfully made herself a large batch of a sleeping draught and consumed rather a lot. Her wand, fortunately, was on the dressing table, and he could get it without disturbing her. He crept back down the stairs, wand in hand.
“Da, you have to move.”
When his father failed to respond, he pointed the wand and gave it a flick as his uncle had showed him.
“Mobilicorpus.”
His father’s body raised itself from the ground, arms flopping, head sagging. He moved cautiously backwards, slowly directing his father to the battered chair in the sitting room. He positioned his father over the chair, then realised he didn’t know how to release him. Lowering the wand didn’t work, and other movements just directed his father away from the chair. Eventually he realised he had no choice but to drop him and hope he landed in the chair.
“Finite incantatem.”
Tobias flopped backwards, landing in the chair with a resounding thud. Severus jumped and his father woke, peering at him with eyes that wouldn’t focus. Severus waved the wand, vanishing the vomit with a quick evanesco. Tobias’s clothes stayed intact - he’d learned that spell properly now.
“What are you doing, son?”
He spied the wand in Severus’s hand.
“Put that away. You don’t want to be doing that stuff.”
“I’m helping you, da.”
“Not like that you’re not. I won’t have you doing that filthy magic in this house. I don’t need your help, you little freak.”
“Da, you passed out in the hall.”
“Get away boy. I won’t have you turning out like that bitch mother of yours. No magic.”
Severus turned and fled the sitting room. He stopped in the hallway to vanish the vomit there, then quietly returned the wand to his mother’s room. When he went back downstairs, his father was sound asleep.
4.
Severus never thought he’d see someone else in Cokeworth doing magic. The girl, though, the one with the red hair and the green eyes, was definitely a witch.
It had taken all of his courage to go up and talk to her, but he had. She hadn’t believed him when he told her about magic. She’d called him silly, and laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, as if she knew that there was something true in his words.
“I can prove it,” he said.
“Yeah?” she replied, hands on hips. “How?”
Severus looked around. He didn’t have his mother’s wand, and even if he did, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to show her most of what he knew. He knew that it horrified his father when he showed him the things he did with his Uncle Walden. Something told him that they would horrify the girl too. He could see that she wasn’t like him. She was clean. She smiled. She was nice.
“I can… um… you see how there’s a puddle on the path over there?”
It had been raining and there were, in fact, many puddles. This one was not too large.
“So what.”
“I can make it disappear.”
He was pretty sure he could too. Evanesco had proved pretty useful when his father came home drunk, and he’d got so he could do it without having to borrow his mother’s wand. He’d seen his mother clean up small spills with just a wave of her hand, so he had known it was possible. He was getting pretty good at wandlessly cleaning up his father’s vomit now.
Severus walked over to the puddle. He was suddenly nervous, but waved his hand quickly and said the incantation. The puddle shimmered and halved in size, and Severus gave a sigh of frustration.
“How did you do that?”
Severus looked up.
“It just went away,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “That’s amazing, how did you do it?”
“It didn’t all go away. The whole puddle was supposed to disappear.”
“But still, that was brilliant. You just waved your hand. Like it was magic.”
“It is magic, I told you.”
“So you did,” she said, and gave him a warm smile.
The girl, whose name was Lily Evans, soon became his friend. He’d never had a friend before. At school, the other children never liked him. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that he wasn’t supposed to talk about things at home. When the other children talked about their homes, he’d realised that his was different. And therefore he was different.
He was different from Lily too. Her house had a garden in the front and the back. The garden even had a few flowers, and out the back her father had a patch where he grew potatoes and carrots. She laughed a lot. She thought things were “brilliant”. At school, the teachers said she was a good girl. Very bright. Lovely manners, and what a beautiful smile. The never said things like that about him. But together they had that one thing, their magic, and Severus no longer felt so alone.
He should have known it was too good to last. His mother noticed.
“You’ve been playing with that girl from down the road.”
“So?”
“You shouldn’t. Her father’s a manager at the steel works. The works that your father got sacked from. He was probably the one who sacked him.”
“You said it was Da’s fault he got sacked. For being a useless drunk.”
Severus felt a stinging hex across his face.
“I will not take cheek from you, you nasty little boy. You’ve become much ruder since you’ve been hanging around with that girl.”
Severus looked at the ground. His mother might have been right. Now that he had found someone who treated him with a bit more kindness, he’d started to feel angry at those who didn’t. He didn’t mean to, but sometimes words slipped out.
“Samhain’s coming up. You’ll go to your aunt and uncle as usual. But maybe you will stay a bit longer there. A couple of weeks.”
“I’ll miss school.”
“It’s not like they teach you anything of use at that stupid, muggle place. You’ll learn all you need when you go to Hogwarts.”
“Please, just one week.”
“Two.”
He tried to hold himself back, but his emotions caused him to lose control of his mouth.
“But… that’s not fair,” he cried.
“It may have escaped your notice, boy,” his mother replied, in a chilling voice, “but life isn’t fair.”
Severus went silent. It had, in fact, escaped his notice. He’d always been told he deserved what he got because he was a nasty little half-breed. His father deserved it because he was a useless drunk, and his mother because she’d polluted the blood of the Prince line by having him. Lily was nice, so she had a nice family and nice things. Petunia wasn’t as nice as Lily, but then she wasn’t as pretty as her sister and wasn’t magical. She wasn’t the favourite. So it seemed to him that life was fair. He wondered what his mother meant.
He dreaded telling Lily he had to go away. She might forget about him. She might find a new friend. A better friend. One who deserved a nice friend.
“I have to go and stay with my aunt and uncle.”
“For how long? I’ll miss you, Severus.”
“A month. Mother said…”
“A month! That’s not fair.”
Severus hung his head. His mother had not liked him answering back. But he didn’t think he should tell Lily.
“There’s magic stuff. At Samhain. She wants me out of the way.”
“What’s Samhain?”
“It’s a day. Or a night. Like… Easter or something.”
Lily was looking at him with naked fascination on her face. She nearly dropped the daisy chain she had been making.
“A magical festival. How brilliant.”
Severus shook his head.
“I don’t really know, I’m never there. But my aunt and uncle don’t really do anything.”
“Are they magical?”
“What?”
“Your aunt and uncle?”
Severus looked at the ground and pressed his lips together. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about his visits. He’d tried to talk to his father and his mother had cursed them both. He wanted to tell Lily. He wanted her to know, so he wasn’t alone. But he couldn’t.
“Yes. My mother’s sister and her husband.”
“That’s exciting. Do they have a magical house?”
Snape could feel himself starting to shiver, as if the wind had turned cold.
“Magic isn’t all exciting, Lily.”
“What do you mean, Severus?”
She reached out her hand and idly summoned a daisy from the lawn. It floated up and she added it to the chain.
“Magic. It’s… it can be used to do things that aren’t nice.”
“So? I don’t understand.”
“They… my aunt and uncle… they don’t do nice magic.”
Lily’s eyes went wide.
“Is that like black magic?”
“It’s called Dark magic. Cursing people and things.”
“Can you do that? Dark magic.”
Severus looked at the ground.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
Severus wanted to run. This is what he didn’t want Lily to see. She had found it so exciting, being magical. She had learned to summon daisies and buttercups, to make the first autumn leaves fly around the park. He’d told her about some of the things his mother had told him about the magical school she’d been to, like learning to fly a broomstick and the paintings that spoke to you. They’d shared the wonder of imagining a world that was brighter, a world with possibilities. A world that wasn’t stained dirty grey from coal smoke, a world where the houses were warm and there was always enough for dinner. A world where Severus wasn’t scared every day.
Severus felt a warm hand slip inside his cold one.
“It’s alright, Severus. I’ll be here when you get back.”
He glanced up briefly at her face then looked down again, but he nodded and squeezed her hand.
“It will be okay,” she said “I’m here.”
That was what he wanted so much, to know that she’d always be there. But he knew that if she saw the darker side of his life, she’d be gone.
“You won’t… if you knew what I did, at my aunt’s and uncle’s. It’s bad.”
“That’s not your fault, Severus. I will be here. I’m on your side, Severus.”
“Really?”
She smiled and reached out her other arm to draw him into a hug.
“Always,” she said softly.
Notes
This fic is an exploration of Sirius’s comment that Severus Snape had arrived at Hogwarts knowing more curses than half the kids in their seventh year. If true, that statement gives a pretty disturbing insight into Severus’s childhood and how he is as an adult. If you look at it from my perspective - that of someone who has cared for children from backgrounds of neglect and abuse - the comment is heart-breaking. It suggests something different from the usual portrayals of Snape’s pre-Hogwarts years.
Knowing a lot of curses as an eleven year old seems to be the magical equivalent to a muggle child being exposed to a lot of adult things that children should not be exposed to. To me, it’s comparable to a child who has an extensive knowledge and experience of drugs or sex. It indicates that Severus’s magical parent, was, at best, spectacularly negligent in allowing him such free access to adult or illegal magic. In this case, I’ve chosen to have Severus being taught dark magic by his uncle and aunt, while his mother turns a blind eye and his father, as a muggle, is unable to protect him. Both his parents are substance abusers, another all too frequent reason that children are inadequately cared for by their parents.
At first, it may seem counterintuitive that the Severus portrayed in this fic would join the Death Eaters. It might appear he would be more sympathetic to muggles and less to pureblood wizards. However it’s a bitter irony that boys who see their fathers abuse their mothers often go on to abuse women, not defend them. It therefore seemed plausible that a magical child who watched a magical parent abuse a muggle parent would go on to despise and abuse muggles as a Death Eater. It’s also sadly true that children who are abused by their parents are more likely to abuse children themselves. I’ve therefore considered how Snape’s treatment of his students, and especially Harry, may reflect his own experiences.
In addition, while it is usually assumed that Snape’s friends were the ones who introduced him to the Death Eaters, many of the children who get drawn into crime, drugs and gangs with their friends have also been exposed to it within their own families. It therefore struck me as plausible that Severus may have had Death Eaters within his mother’s family.
While none of this excuses the things Snape's misdeeds, or the crimes of any violent and abusive adult, it does help to remember that some of these adults were once very frightened, traumatised children. There are no easy solutions, but if we can remember this point, it can help us keep our compassion and determination to help.