Did your favourite make this list?
That time he called out Harry’s lack of Potions knowledge in his first ever lesson
“Potter!’ said Snape suddenly. ‘What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?’
Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione’s hand had shot into the air.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Harry.
Snape’s lips curled into a sneer.
‘Tut, tut – fame clearly isn’t everything.”
That time he appeared to know something was up with the Golden Trio
“You shouldn’t be inside on a day like this,’ he said, with an odd, twisted smile.
‘We were –’ Harry began, without any idea what he was going to say.
‘You want to be more careful,’ said Snape. ‘Hanging around like this, people will think you’re up to something. And Gryffindor really can’t afford to lose any more points, can they?’
Harry flushed. They turned to go back outside, but Snape called them back.
‘Be warned, Potter – any more night-time wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled. Good day to you.”
That time he crept up behind Harry and Ron and dispelled their theories...
‘‘Maybe he’s left,’ said Harry, ‘because he missed out on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again!’
‘Or he might have been sacked!’ said Ron enthusiastically. ‘I mean, everyone hates him –’
‘Or maybe,’ said a very cold voice right behind them, ‘he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.”
That time he duelled with Professor Lockhart...
‘‘As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position,’ Lockhart told the silent crowd. ‘On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ Harry murmured, watching Snape baring his teeth.
‘One – two – three –’
Both of them swung their wands up and over their shoulders. Snape cried: ‘Expelliarmus!’ There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: he flew backwards off the stage, smashed into the wall and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.’
That time he was insulted by the Marauder’s Map whilst talking to one of the manufacturers...
‘‘‘Well?’ said Snape again. ‘This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?’
Lupin looked up and, by the merest half glance in Harry’s direction, warned him not to interrupt.
‘Full of Dark Magic?’ he repeated mildly. ‘Do you really think so, Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who tries to read it. Childish, but surely not dangerous? I imagine Harry got it from a joke-shop –’
‘Indeed?’ said Snape. His jaw had gone rigid with anger. ‘You think a joke-shop could supply him with such a thing? You don’t think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?’
That time he apparently ran out of Veritaserum...
‘‘I wish to interrogate him!’ shouted Umbridge angrily, and Snape looked away from Harry back into her furiously quivering face. ‘I wish you to provide me with a potion that will force him to tell me the truth!’
‘I have already told you,’ said Snape smoothly, ‘that I have no further stocks of Veritaserum. Unless you wish to poison Potter – and I assure you I would have the greatest sympathy with you if you did – I cannot help you. The only trouble is that most venoms act too fast to give the victim much time for truth-telling.”
That time Snape called Harry out on a pretty silly DADA answer...
‘‘Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost.’
The whole class looked round at Harry, who hastily tried to recall what Dumbledore had told him the night that they had gone to visit Slughorn. ‘Er – well – ghosts are transparent –’ he said.
‘Oh, very good,’ interrupted Snape, his lip curling. ‘Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent.”
That time his last moments were looking into a pair of green eyes...
‘A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hands by Hermione. Harry lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask was full to the brim, and Snape looked as though there was no blood left in him, his grip on Harry’s robes slackened.
‘Look ... at ... me ...’ he whispered.
The green eyes found the black, but after a second something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.’
Always...
‘‘I have spied for you, and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter –’
‘But this is touching, Severus,’ said Dumbledore seriously. ‘Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?’
‘For him?’ shouted Snape. ‘Expecto patronum!’
From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: she landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office and soared out of glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
‘After all this time?’
‘Always,’ said Snape.”
And because that all got a bit dark towards the end, here’s a video for you of some of Alan Rickman’s most brilliant Severus Snape facial expressions.
Pssst... Obviously is at 0.25 seconds…
