Hogwarts Herald

This chapter is the first where we really see how much Professor Snape hates Harry. Harry gets a good sense of it by Snape’s look at him during the first banquet of the year, but here he gets hit by full force in class. Snape speaks to him with disdain, and treats him with utter contempt. Throughout this first book his attitude toward Harry gets worse and worse. Of course this causes Harry to believe that Snape is the one that is after the Sorcerer’s Stone. In each successive book Snape’s behaviors become more and more agressive. The more that Harry begins to resemble his father, the more that Snape seems to despise him.

Eventually we find out that Snape attended school together with James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus. Also that Snape was just as much of an outcast as a student, as he is as a teacher and member of the Order of the Phoenix. His mother was a witch, but his father was a muggle, and he was bookish and snotty. In short, he was easy to pick on, and as hard as it was for Harry (and me) to believe it, James was one of the ones that did the most picking. James was handsome, and popular, and had a crush on the beautiful Lily Evans, who happened to be young Severus’ best friend. She was the only one who didn’t see him as a freak. She was friends with him because he was nice to her. She stepped away, however, when she found that he was as nasty to students he considered of lesser lineage, as James and his buddies were to him.

Yes, it is understandable that Severus Snape would not be too fond of the only child of James and Lily Potter. James had made his life a nightmare throughout school, and Lily, well he loved Lily more than he ever loved anyone before or after. Loved her enough that he risked his own life by going against the Dark Lord and going to Dumbledore once he figured out that he would be going after the Potters. Still, are the things that he has done to Harry excused by his dislike of his father? How about by the things that he has done to save Harry’s life? And do we think that he has saved Harrys life repeatedly because of his vows to Dumbledore, or because he loved Lily so much? What do you think readers? Was Snape’s near torture of a young boy excused by the fact that that boy’s father tortured him?