Think All Of My Problems Would Be Fixed If Sirius And James Kissed Every Once In A While

Haha I also don't always agree with you on everything but I genuinely loveeee your perspectives. You are bringing a lot of reason to hp fandom girl 😊

I think you're genuinely so smart. I can ignore some of your more...wrong opinions. Because I love reading what you have to say, it's always very interesting! Keep going love 💜

My therapists think so too, to be honest. Though I always say that I might be more or less intelligent, I don’t really care about that—what I do firmly believe is that I’m always right lol.

Btw Thank You 🙏🏻♥️

Definitely not Peter, he's too cunning and smart for that. James would, he's the trusting sort.

please explain reasoning

Not all kinks have to be accepted. We should accept that it's normal to have these kinks and not shame the people for it, but some practices of kinks shouldn’t be supported or normalized as a good thing. Talking about cnc mostly. It is dangerous to participate in it and people should be wary to even consider it if they have these fantasies. It's okay to have all types of fantasies, but not every fantasy is good for the person or anyone involved. Critical thinking is important in this context. But I agree with the rest.

Boundary setting, LGBTQIA acceptance, and kink positivity, and enthusiastic consent are requirements of a sex positive culture.

The last part is...interesting 😧 But the rest is absolute gold!

Thoughts on Peter Pettigrew? And if you ship him with anyone, who?

thank you very much for the ask, pal! peter is a fascinating character and i always enjoy properly thinking about him.

because - let's be honest - he really goes under the radar, in both canon and fanon. he's extraordinarily cunning, ruthless, powerful, adaptable, emotionally literate, intelligent…

and yet you wouldn't get that impression if you take harry's narrative at face value. even after peter escapes at the end of prisoner of azkaban/cuts his own hand off in goblet of fire.

[which is one of harry's most interesting character traits - his tendency to split the world into black-and-white "good people" and "bad people" is something we talk about a lot, but he also has a tendency to split the world into "special people, who have agency" and "unspecial people, who don't"... hence his attitude to characters such as stan shunpike.]

but the main thing i find fascinating about peter isn't actually the way his talents are overlooked by the text. it's the way he embodies one of the series' central messages: that "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" [PS 12].

when dumbledore says this to harry, it's as advice on how to deal productively with grief. and obviously that's a good and healthy message to receive - especially for the children who are philosopher's stone's intended audience.

but the statement has another application, which ties to another one of the series' themes: that all that glitters is not gold.

so much of the overarching seven-book narrative is about jealousy and longing - harry's longing for a family, ron's jealousy of harry's fame, petunia's longing for magic and jealousy of lily, snape's longing for lily and jealousy of james, etc.

and it's also about how this jealousy and longing leads us to see what we want to see - ron becoming convinced that harry's feelings for hermione are romantic, lupin's inability to criticise james leading to his rage when harry's appalled at him walking out on tonks, the death eaters being convinced that voldemort is a champion of pureblood oligarchy, fudge refusing to believe that voldemort has returned etc.

as both ron and harry learn after ron stabs the locket-horcrux, you have to live the life you actually have and you have to know the people you know as they actually are. you can't imagine them into something they're not, become sad and/or angry when they fail to meet expectations it was always impossible for them to fulfil, and then let that sadness and anger fester until the poison within you can no longer be contained...

which is the peter pettigrew special, really...

sirius' assessment of peter in prisoner of azkaban comes in clutch for us on this point:

"Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you. Voldemort's been in hiding for fifteen years, they say he's half dead. You weren't about to commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore's nose, for a wreck of a wizard who'd lost all of his power, were you? You'd want to be quite sure he was the biggest bully in the playground before you went back to him, wouldn't you?" [PoA 19]

i love this line for a lot of reasons - especially sirius' tacit admission that he and james once met that criteria of "biggest bully in the playground" - but i particularly like the way it aligns peter with [dumbledore's assessment of] voldemort's school friends:

"As he moved up the school, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated, Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts." [HBP 17]

peter is fundamentally someone ambitious seeking shared glory. and he does this - like, it's implied, quite a lot of death eaters - by putting on his rose-tinted glasses and deluding himself into believing that the person he expects to share that glory with him actually will share it... until everything comes crashing down and he's forced to see that they actually think of him as unworthy of sharing anything with. and his fury becomes toxic.

because peter is someone who inherently views himself as a follower.

lord voldemort would never - to borrow sirius' phrase - do something for someone else unless he could see what was in it for him. but voldemort's selfishness is because he sees himself as the unparalleled superior of everyone he meets - there's no need to help those under you if they're the only people who benefit!

peter's selfishness is slightly different - everything he does is in pursuit of vicarious glory. he wants to be praised and rewarded by a leader he's made more powerful. he doesn't want to be that leader himself.

peter the marauder

indeed, canon emphasises that this is what attracted him to james and sirius:

To Sirius' right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. [DH 10]

obviously this is harry's subjective view ["much-admired rebels" is a bit of a stretch, let's be real…], which the text does acknowledge ["or was it simply because harry knew how it had been, that he saw these things in the picture?"].

but harry's assessment of the teenage peter here matches the one we're given across the series:

"Pettigrew... that fat little boy who was always tagging around after them at Hogwarts?" said Madam Rosmerta. "Hero-worshipped Black and Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "Never quite in their league, talent-wise." [PoA 10]

James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom farther and farther away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second. Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open. Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded. After five minutes of this, Harry wondered why James didn't tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be enjoying the attention. [OotP 28]

peter is set up as someone who's understood by everyone not to occupy the same role in society [both "society" as in the social ecosystem of hogwarts, and as in wizarding society more generally] as james and sirius.

this is almost certainly for class and blood-status related reasons - and hello to another anon on this point:

the fact that the only parent mentioned in the text is his mother strongly suggests that he's a half-blood with a muggle or muggleborn father [which his narrative parallels with snape, his narrative relationship with voldemort, and his narrative contrast with barty crouch jr. also support].

the way his mother is spoken about by other characters in prisoner of azkaban - especially fudge: "black was taken away by twenty members of the magical law enforcement squad and pettigrew received the order of merlin, first class, which i think was some comfort to his poor mother" [PoA 10] - sets her up as the passive figure in her relationship to the state [the ministry deigns to provide her with comfort], thus implying that she was ordinary, middle-class, and respectable, but lacked the class-based social power to occupy a more active role in the relationship.

[contrast her, for example, with someone like augusta longbottom, who is a much more active figure narratively.]

but she also can't come from a working-class background, because otherwise voldemort wouldn't seek to humiliate peter by making him live in snape's slum house as his servant.

but peter is also set up as someone who - while he accepts that james and sirius are his superiors and doesn't want to usurp their positions - nonetheless thinks that the two of them will do all they can to increase his chances of helping them accrue more glory, thus allowing the glory he shares in to be all the greater.

and why not? after all, he has plenty of evidence that they'd be capable of doing this, given the lengths they go to for remus…

i think he can be very easily understood as somebody who thinks that - once the three of them have nailed the animagus transformation and achieved their goal of supporting remus during the full moon - then the next thing on james and sirius' list of priorities is putting in a similar level of effort on his behalf.

indeed, the text does imply this - in snape's worst memory, peter goes from being positioned with remus as james and sirius' inferior:

Snape was on his feet again, and was stowing the O.W.L. paper in his bag. As he emerged from the shadows of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up. Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting.

to being physically positioned with remus but clearly wanting to be an active member of james and sirius' shenanigans:

Lupin was still staring down at his book, though his eyes were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows. Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face. [...] Wormtail was on his feet now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin to get a clearer view.

to physically joining - but still being excluded from equality of power with - james and sirius:

"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" said James. "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment," said Sirius viciously. "There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word."   Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular. Wormtail sniggered shrilly. 

to being positioned as sirius' equal under james' leadership:

"Well," said James, appearing to deliberate the point, "it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean..." Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included.

to being included as both james and sirius' equal:

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James' face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants. Many people in the small crowd watching cheered. Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter. [OotP 28]

but this symbolic ascent towards james and sirius recognising and including him isn't what actually comes to pass, is it?

[and as a little shipping-related aside... this is an immaculate wormbucks or padtail premise.]

clearly, peter's experience from the beginning of his sixth year onwards [so from the autumn of 1976] is one in which his hero-worship of james and sirius [and it is just james and sirius - if he felt aggrieved enough by remus that he wanted to implicate him in the potters' deaths he absolutely could have done so] begins to crumble...

and then to fester...

until he's reached a point where the following isn't something he believes is actually true:

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" [PoA 19]

[this - as an aside - is one of the major differences between harry and james/sirius. harry's understanding of loyalty and sacrifice is much less transactional: "dumbledore knew, as voldemort knew, that harry would not let anyone else die for him now that he had discovered it was in his power to stop it" [DH 34].]

and decides that he should probably transfer his loyalties to the much bigger bully who's just arrived on the scene.

enter lord voldemort.

peter the death eater

while there are some key differences [peter is the one who has to approach voldemort, rather than the other way round, and - as i've said here - i think voldemort withholds the dark mark from him to keep him striving], peter's recruitment by the death eaters has a huge amount in common with draco malfoy's.

[more on which... here.]

voldemort must win him over by validating his belief that james and sirius [and also dumbledore/the order] don't take him and his talents seriously, that they need to be punished for this, and that when peter has humiliated them, he will have the time of his life basking in the glow of the victorious voldemort, who will also reward him spectacularly.

this is what voldemort does with quite a few of his minions - including regulus [another fantastic ship for peter], barty crouch jr. [likewise], and, of course, snape [which flops], all of whom have that corrosive perception of themselves as always being overlooked.

in the first war, then, voldemort must be pretty nice to him.

[or as nice as voldemort ever gets...]

the threats and the punishment come later.

[as another aside, the implication of canon is that voldemort's use of violence against his minions is relatively infrequent - and only used in specific circumstances - in the first war. the egregious torture he subjects them to in the second - and the fact that he does this publicly - shocks, terrifies, and humiliates even the most ardent first war loyalists. i think we can assume, then, that peter returned to voldemort expecting to find him in the same "you catch more flies with honey" mode as in the first war. he was mistaken.]

the contempt 90s!voldemort holds peter in is iconic - so many of his best lines are times he's mocking him!

but something which always stands out to me is that voldemort's contempt for peter is inextricably linked to his previous position as one of the four marauders.

[indeed, i find it fascinating that voldemort says that peter "faked his own death to escape justice" [DH 33], because the only thing he can mean by "justice" in this context is that peter should have let sirius murder him...]

and the most explicit demonstration of this is the fact that he always calls him wormtail.

this is a fascinating twist on the way voldemort plays with the language of intimacy with his death eaters. his favourites get referred to by their given names, while the rest are referred to more formally, using their surnames:

"Severus, here," said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right. "Yaxley - beside Dolohov." [DH 1]

and, of course, his ultimate favourite gets referred to by her nickname.

but peter isn't being called wormtail by the dark lord as a show of affection... it's an expression of disregard.

it's clear that the voldemort of the second war deeply understands that peter's life between the potters' deaths and his unmasking at the end of prisoner of azkaban [that is, the period when he didn't get the glory he wanted, he just got a dead james, two friends who want to murder him, and a master who hates him] made him start to regret his resentment of james and sirius for not living up to the versions of themselves he'd invented in his head - especially following sirius' death, when he receives a second demonstration of voldemort's contempt for him, since the moment sirius is out of the picture, the dark lord declares him surplus to requirements and dumps him on snape.

voldemort also knows that peter can only suppress these regrets and pretend they don't exist for so long...

and so everything about their second war relationship is voldemort pre-empting a betrayal he knows will come, when peter's long-buried grief for his friends comes roaring back. hence him setting up peter's silver hand to kill him when his loyalty wavers.

or, more succinctly:

"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?" [DH 33]

peter the [un]man

there's one final thing which i think is really interesting about peter's portrayal in the text, and that's his relationship with gender.

he's someone whose presentation as unmasculine is consistent across his appearances - and is consistently intended to be belittling. but he's also someone whose lack of masculinity is used both to underscore his villainy [and to emphasise that it's the worst type of villainy - to quote jkr, "i loathe a traitor"; peter is the most reprehensible villain in the doylist text's eyes] and to misdirect the reader away from it.

before he's unmasked at the end of prisoner of azkaban, peter is associated narratively with neville:

A hatred such as he had never known before was coursing through Harry like poison. He could see Black laughing at him through the darkness, as though somebody had pasted the picture from the album over his eyes. He watched, as though somebody was playing him a piece of film, Sirius Black blasting Peter Pettigrew (who resembled Neville Longbottom) into a thousand pieces. [PoA 11]

and - therefore - is associated with a lack of masculinity in a fond way. neville is a character the reader is supposed to like, but not a character the reader is supposed to aspire to be like.

the text uses both peter and neville's appearance - especially the fact that both of them are noted to be fat [neville gets described as "plump", which is understood as slightly more polite, but the meaning is the same...] - to emphasise this. they're soft and shy and unsporty. they're passive, in contrast to harry [and james'] masculine vigour. they're both followers, but in a good way.

or, they both occupy the role female characters tend to: conduits for the male characters' deeds and desires, but lacking the agency to have deeds and desires of their own.

[hence why i am extremely compelled by @whinlatter's theory that the best lightning-gen parallel for peter is ginny...]

this is the tone of the secret keeper swap. peter is chosen by james and sirius precisely because they understand him as a vessel. he can contain and surround and envelope the potters and keep them safe that way, while sirius - who embodies the active qualities of a masculine protector - protects them by fighting and running and being hunted.

but - of course - peter doesn't perform this feminine protector role. he corrupts it. and this another way the text underscores that he's its worst villain... he bastardises a role typically associated with motherhood.

he and sirius are set up narratively as the parallel to james and lily: sirius is the masculine figure, the father, the "take harry and run"; peter is the feminine, the mother, the "refuses to stand aside".

once peter is unmasked at the end of prisoner of azkaban and his corruption of his maternal role is revealed, the text's presentation of his unmanliness then becomes something used to emphasise how vile and creepy the reader is supposed to find him.

it does this while maintaining the corrupted motherhood metaphor - hence him having to nurse voldemort's pseudo-infant form in goblet of fire, and hence him being positioned as inferior to barty crouch jr., who joins voldemort and peter, his "wife", to take the narrative role of voldemort's son and heir.

this is extremely interesting, since the text typically uses a lack of maternal or pseudo-maternal experience to indicate that its female villains [especially bellatrix and umbridge] are to be understood as villains by the reader. the exceptions, petunia dursley and walburga black, are fascinating parallels for peter, given the way that they also embody the corrosiveness of resentment and the impact it has on truly being able to grieve.

but peter also becomes a second, specific form of unman once he's unmasked...

the eunuch.

it's really striking that - from the latter chapters of prisoner of azkaban onwards - peter is frequently associated with the theme of voyeurism:

But Ron was staring at Pettigrew with the utmost revulsion. "I let you sleep in my bed," he said. [PoA 19]

Snape held up a hand to stop her, then pointed his wand again at the concealed staircase door. There was a loud bang and a squeal, followed by the sound of Wormtail scurrying back up the stairs. "My apologies," said Snape. "He has lately taken to listening at doors, I don't know what he means by it." [HBP 2]

the sexual undertone to these associations is really significant, because - when combined with the presentation of peter as a follower/an outsider looking in and with the presentation of him as lacking in virility - it renders him sexless, but in a specifically jealous way. he's not voldemort, whose canon presentation as aromantic is used to underscore his villainy by implying there's something "wrong" with him... he's someone who should have been able to access the "normal" structures of love and family, but who has self-castrated himself from this "normality" due to his corruption arc, and who is forced to watch from the sidelines coveting what others have and regretting his decisions and loathing himself.

[hence my absolute conviction that the reason he's not at home on halloween 1981, when sirius goes to check on him and finds his safe-house empty, is because he's snuck into the potters' house in rat form to watch james and lily be murdered...]

and this idea of peter as somebody unsexed or castrated is really interesting as a lens to examine one of his most sinister moments - his role in the torture and murder of bertha jorkins.

nb: there is a discussion of rape in what follows.

i liked this post by @pangaeaseas - and the discussion in the notes -about voldemort's treatment of peter surrounding his capture of bertha jorkins. but i thought it was interesting how a lot of this discussion focused on the ways voldemort is insulting peter's intellect in this context... and not the ways he's attacking his sexual prowess.

the text is pretty clear - not least in the enormous victim-blaming undertone to the way many characters [especially male ones] talk about bertha's disappearance - that peter brought bertha to voldemort after convincing her that he wanted to engage in some form of consensual sexual encounter [described by voldemort, in pg-13 terms, as a "nighttime stroll"]. voldemort's astonishment at peter managing to accomplish this isn't so much him being shocked that he had the way with words/quick thinking abilities to talk bertha into going with him, it's him being shocked that someone he considers to be so unmanly as to be impotent managed to pull.

and then - it is heavily implied, both in the text itself and in jkr's statements since publication that her editor looked like she wanted to be sick when she described how voldemort was restored to a rudimentary body - to rape:

"He was the penis able-bodied servant I needed, and, eunuch poor wizard though he is, Wormtail was able to violate a woman follow the instructions I gave him, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients for true rebirth." [GoF 33]

I believe canon Sirius was straight, but if he was gay or bi, there is no way he would fall for Remus. Sirius would be pining hard and miserably after James Potter and he'd die pining after James's ghost.

Hinny wasn’t an epic romance. It wasn’t meant to be at the time. It fits Harry perfectly not to fall in love and develop a close romantic bond with someone during a time when he was grieving Sirius and had tons of responsibilities on his shoulders. After reading the books again, I have realized that Harry didn’t actually like Ginny for who she was but merely for what she represented. She provided comfort and a hopeful future. She was a distraction, just like stalking Draco was a distraction. That doesn’t mean Ginny and Harry didn’t mature and develop genuine love as adults, but it was not like that during the war. It was a teenage, shallow, physical distraction based on hormones and the need for comfort/sense of normalcy. At least for Harry. I’m not sure about Ginny.

Educated = Hot

The Class Dynamics between James Potter and Severus Snape: A Critical Analysis:

This is a dedication to all those who say that class has nothing to do with the bullying that James exerted on Severus, to those who claim that James couldn't be classist because "he never proactively despised anyone for being poor" or because "he was friends with Remus," to those who say "Snape also attacked him" or suggest it was a "rivalry" and that they were on equal footing, or simply to those who say they are "fictional characters" and that fiction has nothing to do with reality, blah blah blah. This is something I have written with bibliographical references because, once in a while, I can stop being a simp goof and show off my university degree in political science. And yes, I am going to be an authentic pedant because I can, and because many people seem to live in a candy-coated world regarding these issues, and it wouldn't hurt them to get a bit educated. That said, here goes my essay:

When analysing the interactions between James Potter and Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" universe, it is common to find vehement defences of James, arguing that his bullying was not class-motivated. However, it is crucial to untangle how class dynamics operate structurally and how this influences interpersonal relationships. James Potter, as a member of a wealthy, pure-blood family, represents the dominant class, while Severus Snape, coming from a poor, working-class background, embodies the subordinate classes. In the magical world, pure-blood lineage is associated with inherited privileges similar to aristocracy in the real world, where blood purity is a marker of status and power. Authors like Anderson and Löwe (2006) have explored how heritage and lineage have been determining factors in the distribution of power and privileges throughout history, both in fictional and real contexts. This socioeconomic background plays a crucial role in the power dynamics between characters like James and Severus, highlighting how class structures affect their interactions and perpetuate inequality.

Social class, according to Marxist analysis, is a structural category that determines individuals' positions within society based on their access to the means of production. In "Harry Potter", pure-blood status equates to magical aristocracy, while Muggle-borns, Half-Bloods with muggle parent and those from humble origins, like Snape, represent the working or marginalised classes. James Potter, on the other hand, embodies the privileges of the elite, not only through his wealth but also through his lineage, which grants him a status that influences his interactions with others.

The bullying James exerts over Severus cannot be disconnected from its socioeconomic context. Although James may not have explicitly expressed disdain towards Severus for being poor, the way he exploits his superior position to humiliate and subdue Severus reflects power dynamics based on class. Pierre Bourdieu describes how power structures are reproduced through symbolic violence, where the dominant classes impose their cultural and social legitimacy over the subordinate ones, perpetuating inequality. In the context of 'Harry Potter', this symbolic violence is reflected in how the magical aristocracy imposes its values and norms on those of humble origin. The public humiliations James inflicts on Severus are not just acts of bullying but also manifestations of a structural power that favours the privileged like James. Besides Bourdieu, other theorists such as Michel Foucault could provide complementary perspectives on how power is exercised and perpetuated in institutions, in this case, Hogwarts as a microcosm of magical society.

In James and Severus's case, this symbolic violence manifests in the public humiliations James inflicts on Severus, using his status to ensure there are no significant repercussions. James's position as a popular and privileged student grants him social immunity that Severus, due to his humble origin, cannot counter. This demonstrates how class structures influence the dynamics of school bullying, where resources and social capital determine which behaviours are acceptable and which are not.

The "Harry Potter" fandom often minimises James's actions, portraying him as a mere prankster without malice, while pathologising Severus's response, attributing it to resentment and bitterness. This narrative reinforces the whitewashing of the actions of the rich and popular to the detriment of the poor and marginalised. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, in their "Dialectic of Enlightenment", explain how the culture industry and hegemonic discourses contribute to naturalising domination relationships, presenting them as inevitable or even fair. Their analysis reveals that modern media perpetuates class dynamics by presenting power structures as natural and immutable. This can be observed in how the dominant narrative in the 'Harry Potter' franchise tends to glorify high-class characters like James while marginalising figures like Severus, whose resistance to the system is viewed with suspicion or disapproval. Contemporary studies, such as Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" (2009), also highlight how media reinforces the current economic and social status quo, making it difficult to imagine alternatives to the existing system.

By justifying James's bullying as mere youthful pranks, the fandom perpetuates a narrative that excuses the abuse of power and classism, ignoring the impact these actions have on individuals like Severus, who are already in a structurally disadvantaged position. This reinforces social hierarchies and strips victims of their agency and dignity.

Severus's portrayal as a bullying victim is intrinsically linked to his social class. His marginalisation is not just a product of his actions or personal choices but a consequence of social structures that privilege figures like James Potter. Antonio Gramsci's theories on cultural hegemony are useful here to understand how the dominant class's ideas are imposed as normative, silencing the oppressed voices and legitimising the violence they suffer. In the 'Harry Potter' narrative, this hegemony manifests through the glorification of the values and behaviours of pure-blood characters like James, while the perspectives of the marginalised, like Severus, are dismissed or vilified. For example, the Marauders, led by James and Sirius, both rich pure-bloods, are portrayed as mischievous heroes despite their aggressive behaviour towards Snape, who is depicted much more negatively even when acting in self-defence. This reflects how cultural hegemony shapes public perception, perpetuating a value system that favours the privileged and marginalises the oppressed. Authors like Stuart Hall have explored how media and popular culture reinforce these hegemonic structures, underscoring the need for critical analysis to dismantle these dominant narratives.

Severus, in this sense, represents those who are constantly repressed by power structures and whose narrative is distorted to fit a worldview that favours the privileged. His resistance and eventual adoption of extreme ideologies can be understood as a response to this marginalisation, a desperate attempt to reclaim agency systematically denied to him.

To fully understand the relationship between James Potter and Severus Snape, it is essential to acknowledge the influence of class structures on their interactions. The narrative that minimises James's bullying and blames Severus perpetuates a simplistic and biased view that ignores the complexities of social inequality and power. By applying a critical analysis based on Marxist theories, we can unravel how classism permeates these relationships. Studies on young adult literature, such as those by Maria Nikolajeva, and the analysis of victimisation frameworks in popular culture by Henry Jenkins provide a theoretical framework that reinforces the need to re-examine fandom's conceptions to avoid perpetuating these structural injustices. These investigations highlight how narratives of power and oppression are often shaped by dominant interests and how this affects the public's perception of marginalised characters like Severus.

Harry’s problem with authority and his “saving people thing”

Harry has a problem with authority in general. He grew up being ordered around by the Dursleys, and does not appreciate it when people try to exert authority over him, even when they do so with good intentions. He’s touched by Mrs. Weasley saying he’s as good as a son, but impatient with her mollycoddling because he’s not used to the idea of being shielded from information for his own good. He cares for Hermione, but ignores her or lashes out when she nags him.

He’s much more willing to openly contradict authority figures. Snape, Umbridge, Scrimgeour, Dumbledore, and even Lupin in DH. He’s polite, but he does not take it for granted that authority figures deserve respect because they’re authority figures.

He does have adults in his life that care deeply for him, but the problem is that Harry already knows that adults don’t have all of the answers.

And his attitude toward authority is closely related to his “saving people thing.”

Harry learned from a young age that adults could not or would not solve his problems for him. He learned that if he needed help or someone else needed help, he was going to have to do it himself.

So he learned to solve his own problems. And if someone is in danger, he can’t just blindly trust that adults will handle the situation. He doesn’t have that implicit knee-jerk “adults will solve this problem for us” reaction. This is perfectly illustrated when he pulls Gabrielle from the lake in GoF. Ron and Hermione are exasperated with him for not realizing that of course Dumbledore wouldn’t actually let them drown. Harry attributes this to the general creepiness of the lake, but I think it’s deeper than that. It simply doesn’t occur to him that of course the headmaster of the school wouldn’t put an 8-year-old girl at risk for a school event like that.

When you’re little and you think there’s a monster under your bed, you usually run to your parents. Because you see them as infallible human beings and trust implicitly that they’re capable of handling whatever horrible creature is under your bed.

Harry never had that. He had to handle his own monsters. And Voldemort is no different.

Two up, two down

We talk about Potter as a timeless series, as quills and parchment will never date, but there are a few key elements which are of their time, and I sometimes suspect that eventually, their original meaning may be lost.

Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is one of these.  If you visit Surrey, a house akin to Number 4 on Privet Drive can be found on hundreds of identical estates.  Indeed, the three-bedroom house with a garage, and both front and back gardens, situated on a private housing estate in leafy surburbia is one that most British people will have strolled through at some point.

But Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is the opposite of the Dursleys’ aspirational abode, and is somewhere that few modern readers will have seen in its original form with their own eyes.  Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is a traditional two up, two down through terraced house, mired deep in a maze of identical cobbled streets, overlooked by a looming mill chimney, and seemingly – by the 90s – entirely abandoned.

The difficulty that some may have in accurately picturing this scene is because these houses, in this state, no longer exist.  A large percentage of two up, two down terraces were demolished as part of slum clearance, which should tell you all that you need to know about the state of the houses.  

Those which remained have been extensively modified – usually knocking down the privy (outside toilet), and then building a two storey extension across the bulk of the yard to create a third room downstairs, and a bathroom upstairs.  Some houses only have a single extension; it is rather common in some areas of the Midlands to have a bathroom that leads off the kitchen downstairs – because the bathroom was the missing room, and it was cheaper to build one storey than two.

Pottermore had an article earlier in the year which explained how the filmmakers originally wanted to film on location, but could not, because the houses simply did not exist in their traditional state.

The houses were typically constructed with two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs with a tiny backyard entry leading to the outhouse. Craig actually considered shooting on location, but even though the buildings were intact, they had been brought into the modern era, with up-to-date kitchens and plastic extensions, so the set was built at the studio.

Throughout the 20th century, cobbled streets were routinely replaced by various other road surfaces, namely tarmac and asphalt – and, of course, the scarcity of cobblestones now means that such streets are aesthetically desirable.  However, the cobblestones in Spinner’s End are not an indication of affluence, but an indication of an area left behind. This is further illustrated by the rusted railings, the broken streetlights, and the boarded up windows.

These were workers houses, often funded by the owners of the mill, and therefore tied – meaning that rent was deducted from your wage before you received it.  There were benefits to being in tied accommodation, including being close to work and having a guaranteed landlord – but that was as much benefit to the mill owner as the worker.  Seeing great competition, some mill owners invested in their properties to entice workers – but Spinner’s End is not an example of this; Spinner’s End would’ve been regarded as little better than a slum even when fully occupied.

The narrow streets are indicative of when these houses were built, presumably in the late 1800s – cars were not a concern, and the attitude was to build as many houses on as small a piece of land as possible.

By the time the 90s roll around, and we see Narcissa and Bellatrix descend upon the street, Spinner’s End appears to be mostly deserted.  With the closure of traditional manual industries, families would be keen to relocate to where work could be found.  Estates which hadn’t already been cleared by the 60s would find themselves left to rack and ruin, their former occupants long gone – whether seeking a new life elsewhere, or having died.

For once, Bellatrix is not being anti-Muggle when she sneers at the Muggle dunghill; she is unnervingly accurate. It is a slum by her standards, but most importantly, it was a slum by everyone else’s standards as well.  By the time Severus was born, work should’ve been well under way to clear the area, or to renovate it.  This evidently did not occur – which itself explains how undesirable the area is; nobody wanted to spruce it up - they wanted to leave.  There were no jobs, no amenities, no services – and eventually, no people.

We often ponder why Snape remains at Spinner’s End, but perhaps there lies the answer; he wasn’t just hiding from the magical world, but he was also hiding from the Muggle world as well…

Why are Molly haters always so rude? 😮‍💨