Either way, Dumbledore has sent Harry and Hermione off into the past to save the future and turns around to see Harry breathlessly say, “We did it! Sirius has gone, on Buckbeak. . . .” (PA418) Dumbledore’s plan succeeded! There’s just one loose end. . . Severus Snape.
Snape’s Anger
Thus far, I have avoided discussing Severus Snape, as there are entire books wholly devoted to the Potions Master. However, Snape is now unavoidable, because Dumbledore’s relationship with him proves key to much of the story.
Snape is in a towering rage for much of the night, which is unusual for him. While he is never happy, he usually maintains his composure, even when fireworks are set off in his class or when someone literally sets fire to him. So when he makes a dramatic entrance in the Shrieking Shack, we must consider what is going on. Of course, it all comes back to something Dumbledore did or did not do.
When Hermione implores Snape to hear Sirius out, instead of the usual cutting remark, he goes into CapsLock mode (giving us, in fact, the first instance of CapsLock in the series).
“KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!” Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. “DON’T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” (PA360)
Jo is always deliberate in her choice of words. Her word choice gives us a subconscious cue that Snape is the villain in this scene, because his language (“you stupid girl”) echoes Voldemort’s language from Harry’s dementor-induced flashbacks: “Stand aside, you silly girl. . .” (PA179)20
Snape may be many things, but he had never been described as deranged before. In fact, he never shouts, since he has “the gift of keeping a class silent without trying.” (SS136-137) However, in this scene, “there was a mad glint in Snape’s eyes that Harry had never seen before. He seemed beyond reason.” (PA360) Upon further provocation, Snape gets even crazier.
“SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!” Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. “Like father, like son, Potter! . . . You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You’d have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black—now get out of the way, or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY POTTER!” (PA361)
Snape says some pretty awful things to Harry over the course of six years, but never that Harry should have been killed. . . In fact, Snape’s only reason for living these days is to ensure that Harry isn’t killed.
But in the context of “The Prince’s Tale,” it makes sense. Snape says James died because he was “too arrogant to believe [he] might be mistaken in Black.” And who else died because of James’s perceived arrogance? Lily, Snape’s only love.
Snape blames Sirius for causing Lily’s death by his supposed betrayal, which is a huge factor in Snape acting so unhinged. Snape wants revenge on Sirius for Lily’s death. And he is livid that Harry is repeating his father’s mistakes by trusting Sirius.
For many years, I assumed that was all there was to it. But in SNAPE: A Definite Reading, Lorrie Kim makes a great argument that Snape was traumatized by The Prank. When he looks “quite deranged,” Lorrie attributes it to him “entering a state of post-traumatic flashback.” (p. 71) And that is what eventually leads to a big mess for Albus Dumbledore—but one that, rather like the Lucius Malfoy debacle, Dumbledore inadvertently brought upon himself with his anti-Slytherin bias.
The Prank
During the Marauders’ fifth year, there was an incident where Sirius attempted to play a prank on Snape. In Lupin’s words:
“Severus was very interested in where I went every month. [. . .] Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be—er—amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he’d be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it—if he’d got as far as this house, he’d have met a fully grown werewolf—but your father, who’d heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life . . . Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was. . . .” (PA357)
Snape, as he tells it, seems to agree with most of the facts.
“Your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn’t got cold feet at the last moment. There was nothing brave about what he did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had their joke succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts.” (PA285)
Snape believes that if he had actually been killed or turned into a werewolf, the Marauders would have been expelled. But attempted murder only gets a slap on the wrist for Sirius.
The fandom’s perception of The Prank has undergone a fascinating evolution of late. It was almost a decade after DH was published that a majority of fans came around to realizing that what Sirius did was absolutely not okay. He should have received a major punishment—instead, any punishment he received was mild enough to not even merit a mention in the narrative, presumably no more than lots of detentions.
Rather, it’s Severus who was punished with a gag order, forbidding him from telling anyone about what happened. It should not be understated how much
