Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing the death eaters, Severus snape, and...murder.
Born in the year 1960 to a muggle father and witch mother, Snape began attending hogwarts
in 1971 along with Harry’s mother, Lily. Snape was sorted in to Slytherin while Lily
was sorted in to Gryffindor, this was very hard on Snape as he was in love with Lily.
At a young age, Snape began practicing the dark arts, fuelled by rage stemming from incessant
bullying at the hands of James Potter and Sirius Black. This led him down a dark path,
and Snape ended up joining the Death Eaters along with other Slytherins from his year.
Snape was a true death eater for quite a while before eventually joining the good guys and
acting as a double agent. While acting as a double agent during the wizarding war, Snape
amazingly managed to stop voldemort from reading his mind, this allowed Snape to trick Voldemort
and the death eaters in to thinking that his allegiance was with them. This was an example
of his extreme aptitude in occlumency.
In his youth, Snape was a very promising young wizard, and while learning his primary course
material at Hogwarts, would scribble in his notebook and invent curses, charms, and potions.
Snape even produces his own version of the potions class textbook under the alias ‘The
Half Blood Prince’, which in addition to the regular textbook content contained shortcuts
to creating potions, as well as spells that Snape himself had created. Some were more
vicious than others, particularly sectumsempra which is vicious dark curse that acts like
an invisible sword, causing lacerations, haemorrhaging and cuts upon it’s target. Often after being
struck the target will lay there motionless as they lose blood. It would be a great choice
of spell for someone wishing to commit MURDER which is the topic of this video.
Though Snape’s allegiance later changed, and while Snape proved himself to be an invaluable
ally, it cannot be completely ignored that, for a time, Snape WAS A full-fledged death
eater. I don’t think that Snape was a death eater because he was hellbent on power, or
wished to inflict harm upon people, it was simply because he had nowhere else to go.
He was extremely talented, and with the death eaters he was praised for his magical knowledge-
it was somewhere that he could belong, even if only for a little while. Additionally,
Snape experimented with all forms of the magic, and didn’t avoid the dark arts like other
witches and wizards would. The following excerpt from the Goblet of Fire discusses Snape’s
initial attraction to the dark arts:
"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."
And the following passage from the Deathly Hallows further outline’s Snape’s affinity
with the dark arts, finding ‘humour’ where Lily Evans clearly did not:
"... thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?”
“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m
sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy!
D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?”
Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face.
“That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all-”
“It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny-”
It was by hanging out with people like Mulciber and Avery that Snape further distanced himself
from Lily, as outlined in the following interview with JK Rowling:
The interviewer asks: “Lily detested Mulciber and Avery. If Snape really loved her, why
didn't he sacrifice their company for her sake?”
To which Rowling responds: “Well, that is Snape’s tragedy. Given his time over again
he would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people (like
Wormtail) he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive. He
wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion;
he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive
if he became a real Death Eater.”
So, Snape had a true pull to the dark side for a while, and it’s not unreasonable for
us to wonder: what sort of ‘dark’ things did snape do? Did he kill anyone? Torture
anyone? He was certainly a death eater for long enough to have had the opportunity.
I believe that the following exchange between Dumbledore and Snape indicates that he never
actually directly committed an act of murder:
“If you don’t mind dying,” said Snape roughly, “why not let Draco do it?”
“That boy’s soul is not yet so damaged,” said Dumbledore. “I would not have it ripped
apart on my account.” “And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?”
What this tell us is that Snape is concerned for his own, untarnished soul. If Snape had
truly led a dark path where murder had become common for him, then his soul would already
be badly damaged. The reason that Dumbledore wants Snape to kill him, and not Draco, is
to protect Draco’s soul. If Snape had ever experienced or performed something akin to
murder, then this would not be of any concern to him. So, I believe that this pretty convincingly
suggests that Snape, though a death eater for many years, never committed an act of
murder. Sure, he may have been involved with or present when another of the death eaters
performed the act, but he himself had not. At times, it sure seemed like Snape would
have been capable of it - but I just can’t see how Snape could be so genuinely concerned
for his own soul if he had done it before.
And that’s it for this video! What do you guys think? Did Snape commit direct murder
as a death eater? Let me know down in the comment section below.
Until next time
YER A WIZARD ARRY