Severus Snape | S F W

Personality and traits

A complicated, withdrawn person, Severus Snape's life was overwhelmed with many complex emotions that he never fully disclosed. At times, Snape could appear cold, cynical, malicious, bitter, and sarcastic. He had a commanding presence that exuded gravitas, authority, and control; like Professor McGonagall, he had the ability to keep a class quiet without effort. He tended to hold grudges and was extremely spiteful toward those whom he disliked. In particular, he disdained Gryffindor students, considering them to be arrogant and attention-seeking. Descriptions of his social interactions as a child suggest that he had poor interpersonal skills and that he may have suffered from depression. Snape was a repressed, solitary man with no friends. In his early life, he was insecure, vulnerable, and yearned to be part of something better. As a child, the bleak normality of working-class suburbia compounded with his neglectful Muggle father inspired in him a contempt for ordinariness. This urgent desire to be a part of something powerful and important was what drew him to Lord Voldemort's inner circle. Snape's bitterness and resentment towards the world was exacerbated even more by the relentless bullying he endured in school, causing him to shut himself in even more. He appeared to have a prominent hatred of almost every child under his tutelage, except for Slytherins. Privately, however, he cared deeply for his students and went to great pains to make sure they had a good magical education. He would constantly review his own potions before class to make sure his students could understand him, putting his own life in danger to collect ingredients like Acromantula venom for them. He was also highly protective of the students, sometimes placing his own life in danger to make sure they survived. Despite this, many students thought he actively hated them and so chose to hate him in kind, which led to Snape resenting them for not understanding the work he placed in educating them

Physical appearance

Severus Snape was a thin man with sallow skin, a large, hooked nose and yellow, uneven teeth. He usually dressed in flowing black robes which made him resemble "an overgrown bat". He had shoulder-length, greasy black hair which framed his face in curtains, curling lips and dark, penetrating eyes that resembled tunnels. As a Death Eater, he bore the Dark Mark on his left inner forearm. The younger Snape had a "stringy, pallid look", being "round-shouldered yet angular" and with a "twitchy walk that recalled a spider", as well as "long oily hair that jumped about his face". Snape had a strong, authoritative presence. He spoke in a soft, contained voice most of the time, except during the occasional instances when he lost his temper.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 1)

Magical mastery: Even at a young age, Severus was a gifted wizard, having knowledge of deep secrets of the wizarding world that he would usually relay to his crush, Lily Potter. In addition, Sirius Black, a known rival of his, claimed that Severus knew more about the Dark Arts than half of the seventh years at Hogwarts, which speaks for his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of magic. He was proficient in creating many useful spells used by the Death Eaters and even his rivals. He was also proficient in altering the formula for potions, resulting in an easier and more efficient way to produce them, which enhanced Harry Potter's proficiency in Potions to the point of easily surpassing even the results of Hermione Granger. His magical prowess was so great as a teenager that his bully and rival, James Potter would never have taken him on in a one on one fight unless he was backed up by his three other talented friends. As an adult, Snape had became an incredibly powerful and skilled wizard and acknowledged by his fellow professors and Lord Voldemort for his great prowess. He proved capable of effortlessly defeating the likes of Harry Potter and also holding his own against the extremely powerful witch Minerva McGonagall, who was capable of surviving a duel with Voldemort himself. Love: Severus was one of the only people in Voldemort's inner circle who was capable of feeling unconditional love.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 2)

Potions: Severus was extremely adept in the art of potion-making and worked as the Potions Master at Hogwarts for about fifteen years. His prowess at potion-making extended beyond simple execution from formally documented recipes accepted and followed by the general public. When he was still only a student, he would alter official instructions with his own variations, which usually resulted in quicker and more efficient results. He was capable of brewing highly complicated potions such as Veritaserum, Wolfsbane Potion, and the Mandrake Restorative Draught. In 1996, Professor Slughorn mentioned that in all his years of teaching, only one student had ever managed to brew an acceptable Draught of Living Death and claim the Felix Felicis being offered as a prize. It is implied, though not confirmed, that Snape was this student. Snape was also able to identify Polyjuice Potion by smell and produce fake Veritaserum that seemed real enough to fool Dolores Umbridge (though Umbridge was not portrayed as being particularly intelligent with practicality). In addition, Snape used an unidentified golden potion to help slow a curse that was slowly killing Dumbledore. Dark Arts: Severus had a passion for the Dark Arts from a young age, and he was especially talented with curses, or so some believed. According to Sirius Black, Snape was "up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts" when he was at school. However, they had an age-old rivalry which could have influenced Sirius's words. When he was still a student, Snape was already talented enough that he was capable of creating new dark spells, as most of the spells he created were curses, hexes, and jinxes. As an adult at least, Snape was capable of performing the Killing Curse, one of the Unforgivable Curses that required a considerable level of magical skill, using the curse to kill Dumbledore on his orders.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 3)

Defence Against the Dark Arts: Though Snape had a zest for dark magic, he possessed outstanding knowledge and abilities in protecting from it. His encyclopaedic understanding of the dark arts may have contributed to this. Snape taught the class at N.E.W.T level to such an effect that even Harry Potter could not help but be enchanted by his knowledge. Snape effectively "assisted" the 1992 duelling club and understood the need for students handling pragmatism as well as theory in the subject. Snape's speciality in DADA was particularly in the area of counter-curses. In fact, his abilities in countering curses were so great that he was able to temporarily save Dumbledore (himself an expert on the subject) with wand-enhanced incantations and a potion simultaneously from a "curse of extraordinary power", Dumbledore noted that he was only able to (temporarily) survive due to Snape's expertise. He was also able to prevent the curse that Katie Bell was inflicted with when she touched the necklace on Borgin and Burkes from spreading any further, saving her life. Snape had also developed effective counter-curses for his own dark charms, such as the magic he used to heal Draco from the effects of Sectumsempra. Occlumency and Legilimency: Snape's unerring ability to conceal his thoughts and feelings from external penetration proved to be crucial for him. His skills in Occlumency were so great that for seventeen years, he managed to hide facts from Lord Voldemort such as his remorse for Lily Evans's death and his secret alliance with Albus Dumbledore; it was his mastery of hiding his mind that made both sides distrust him. Snape was also very skilled at Legilimency; Harry Potter often felt as if Snape had the ability to read minds even before learning what the art was. Snape used Legilimency on Harry constantly while attempting to teach him Occlumency in their private lessons and later used it to effortlessly deflect Harry's spells and curses.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 4)

Transfiguration: Severus was highly accomplished with transfiguration, given his proficiency with Conjuration and Vanishment, two very difficult and advanced branches of this field. He was talented with the vanishing of physical matter, as shown when he vanished Harry Potter's failed Draught of Peace potion in 1995 with the Vanishing Spell and when he vanished the snake that Draco Malfoy summoned in 1992 with the Snake-Vanishing Spell. He also successfully conjured ropes with the Incarcerous Spell to bind Sirius Black and Remus Lupin in the Shrieking Shack in 1994. He also transfigured the whirlwind-shaped fire that McGonagall launched at him shortly before the Battle of Hogwarts into a great black snake. Charms: Snape was highly talented in charms as he not only could use basic to advanced charms without fail, such as levitation, disarming, summoning, banishing, locking doors, repairing, illuminating, igniting, creating water, shielding and stunning, but he was even able to cast the incredibly difficult Patronus Charm, conjuring a corporeal doe Patronus. He was also able to write instructions on a blackboard with a single flick of his wand. Flying: Snape was a very capable flyer on a broomstick, as during the Battle of the Seven Potters, he was not blasted off his broom, and he was knowledgeable enough in the rules of Quidditch to take over the position of referee at least once. However, in one of Snape's memories, Lily was laughing as he attempted to mount a bucking broomstick, so perhaps he was not always a good flyer. Later on, Severus was also capable of Unsupported flight. The only other known wizard that was able to do this was Lord Voldemort himself (who is likely to have passed down this skill to Snape personally). In 1998, he used this skill to escape from Hogwarts after his duel with Minerva McGonagall.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 5)

Teaching skills: Despite his unpleasant nature and strained relationship with many of the Hogwarts students outside Slytherin, Snape was nevertheless a relatively effective teacher as the Potions Master, and he was one of the few teachers at Hogwarts who could keep a class quiet with minimal effort, with some students like Percy Weasley and Hermione Granger able to achieve O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s under his teaching, despite Snape only allowing students with top grades to do Potions in the NEWT level. In addition to being the Potions Master at Hogwarts for most of his teaching career, Snape's teaching skills allowed him to eventually become the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, the teaching post he sought after the most at Hogwarts. It was also effective enough for him to be respected by most of the other professors until he killed Dumbledore, pass Dolores Umbridge's inspection of him and for Voldemort to make him Headmaster of Hogwarts following the Fall of the Ministry of Magic. Leadership skills: Snape had good leadership skills, given that they were sufficient for both Dumbledore and Voldemort (both for different reasons) to consider him suitable to be the next Headmaster of Hogwarts after Dumbledore's death and the Fall of the Ministry of Magic. Despite opposition from the other professors of Hogwarts due to them being ignorant of his true loyalties which resulted in his eventual ousting, Snape was able to carry out his duties as Headmaster for at least a year and managed to secretly protect some students from the Carrows' torturous punishments without revealing his true loyalties to either Voldemort or the other Death Eaters. His leadership skills were also shown during the Battle of the Astronomy Tower as he managed to convince the other Death Eaters present that he was the one who should kill Dumbledore and ordered them all to leave Hogwarts after killing Dumbledore while still hiding his true loyalties.

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 6)

Acting skills: Snape was an extremely adept actor, as he flawlessly succeeded in hiding his true allegiance to Albus Dumbledore from the Death Eaters, even able to fool Voldemort himself completely to the point of the latter having complete trust in him to such an extent that after he killed Dumbledore, Voldemort was fully willing to make him Hogwarts's Headmaster. Snape's skill in acting allowed him to keep his motives dubious in the eyes of both friend and ally alike. This makes Snape likely the most accomplished actor and spy in wizarding history. Duelling: Although he rarely engaged in duels, Snape was shown to be a highly capable duellist. During his days as a Death Eater, he likely had to fight against aurors and members of the Order of the Phoenix. He was able to hold his own against the extremely powerful Minerva McGonagall (who was capable of duelling Voldemort along with Kingsley and Slughorn) during their brief duel, before she forced him to hide behind a shield of armour. He then fled when Pomona Sprout and Filius Flitwick arrived to assist. Spell creation: As a student at Hogwarts, Severus was very inventive with new spells. Some of the spells he created were Sectumsempra, Langlock, Muffliato, Levicorpus and its counter-jinx Liberacorpus.[27] The last two somehow became common knowledge around the school. It is unknown what thoughts and techniques Snape put into his creations. Wandless and nonverbal magic: Snape was highly skilled at using non-verbal spells, from the most basic uses (such as instruction-writing on blackboards and cleanups) to the most advanced (such as combat curses). Snape was also skilled at performing wandless magic, such as rope conjuring, counter-jinxing, and memory extraction. (Although memory extraction does not require explicitly the use of a wand, relying instead on direct eye contact, conjuring and counter-jinxing are more often depicted to take place with the help of a wand.)

Magical Abilities and Skills (Part 7)

Healing magic: Snape was also very skilled with healing magic, as he reduced the effects of the Curse on Marvolo Gaunt's ring on Albus Dumbledore, which allowed him to survive for at least a year, and saved Katie Bell's life by preventing any further spread of the cursed necklace in her body. He also healed Draco Malfoy's wounds with Vulnera Sanentur, a healing spell and counter-curse, after Harry Potter recklessly used the Sectumsempra curse on him and seriously injured him. His knowledge in healing was such that Dumbledore once quoted to Harry that Snape was more experienced in healing against Dark magic than Poppy Pomfrey was. He also successfully brewed the Mandrake Restorative Draught in the 1992–1993 school year, which cured all the victims of petrification that year. Apparition: Like most accomplished adult wizards, Snape could apparate successfully at will. He disapparated away from Hogwarts after the Battle of the Astronomy Tower in 1997 from beyond the Hogwarts gates. Intellectual giftedness: Snape's logic and deductive reasoning skills were such that he helped protect the Philosopher's Stone by creating an obstacle, which was based on logic rather than magical skill. According to Hermione Granger, many powerful wizards have a blind spot in regards to logic. Poetry: A skill that Snape possessed but did not make very much mention or display of, Snape was capable of fluidly crafting his words in a way that could often befuddle the reader. His only known composition was the logic puzzle that he used as part of his defences of the Philosopher's Stone. Since this poem showed Snape's logical thinking, it was obviously one of his own creations. Snape's other possible works, if they exist, remain unknown. Alchemy: Intimately connected with Potion-making among other things, Snape had great respect for the field of alchemy, believing it was as much about gaining intellectual wealth as the physical one. Language of flowers: Snape used floriography to express himself.