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My "Snape in Fanfiction" Manifesto
Why I like so many different characters paired with Snape. (Contains spoilers for DH)

If this were for a broader audience, I would need to start off with some backing-up of the statement "Snape is an interesting character." For the moment, I'm going to take it as read that Snape fascinates many in fandom.

One thing I find fascinating is that Snape is endlessly faceted. I joked once that I had a hundred Snapes in my head, and I'd written about a dozen of them at various points. I think it's absolutely true; and different pairings allow us to imagine him as completely different kinds of people.


Part I: Why can we speculate so much about Snape?

Answer: We know so little about him. What we see of him in canon is based on three sources: Harry's point of view, the Spinner's End chapter, and Snape's own memories as seen in a pensieve. A quick deconstruction:

1. Harry's POV. Two major problems here, of course. First, Harry is prejudiced from his first real meeting with Snape, the potions class where Snape treats him unfairly (PS/SS-8). From then on Harry assumes Snape hates him (as the text specifically states), and he is ready to see everything about Snape in a negative light. If you believe Snape does this on purpose, you might see that as really the same reason as the second: Snape is presenting Harry with a front. At the very least, by omitting the fact that he knew Harry's parents. The extent of the front, and the degree to which it overlaps with "the real Snape" is something Harry doesn't know, and therefore we can't know from this source alone.

2. Spinner's End (HBP-2). At last, a chapter without "the Harry filter"! But there are serious doubts about anything we learn from Snape here, because he is presenting a front for Bellatrix.

3. Snape's memories (OotP-28 and DH-33). In these, we are presented with an objective viewing of a scene at the same time that Harry is, so the effect of the "Harry filter" is negligible. We can draw our own conclusions from what is said in the memories, and the memories give us a view of Snape that exists nowhere else in the books.

Even this final and possibly most honest source, Snape's memories, has its drawbacks. With the exception of "Snape's worst memory," they are hand-selected by him for Harry's viewing. It's possible that he chose the memories knowing how they would make him look. And even the information that we do get out of them is only the barest sketch of motivations and conflicts. Ultimately, the most important thing we learn from them, here in the final chapters of the final book, is that we didn't know Snape very well after all.

My point is: there is room for a lot of speculation about Snape.

(Side note: other characters that have lots of room for characterization variations are also fascinating to fandom, such as Draco. I think this has lessened after DH, though.)


Part II: Why fanfic?

Answer: Fanfic allows us to speculate in a deeply immersive, satisfying way: narrative. I mean, why not just write an essay describing what Snape would be like if his father had killed his mother when Snape was only four, and he'd gone to live with some distant relatives, the Blacks and their three daughters, Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa? Because it's a hell of a lot more fun as a story. Humans love stories. It's in our nature. They make us feel, and we love to feel. (It's the reason why "One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic." -Joseph Stalin. But I'm digressing again.)

Now we have two things: an interesting character with a lot of blanks we can fill in (Snape), and a compelling method of doing so (story-telling via fanfic). This is why I love to write about him. He's so versatile.


Part IIa: Why romantic fanfic?

I've thought a lot about this issue. Why does it have to be a relationship fic? What's wrong with gen? I do believe there is an underlying issue that women like to read about people's romantic emotions (witness: the entire romance novel industry), but for the purposes of this discussion there's something else going on. A romance makes it easier to characterize. ("We are at our best and at our worst when we are in love." -Summer Born.)

Just as knowing the shape of one puzzle piece tells us the shape of the one that connects to it, showing the reader how two characters fit together in a relationship automatically tells us something about the individual characters. It's a great way of showing instead of telling, which can be a problem in a genfic that focuses primarily on one character.

I'm going to use Snape for the rest of the discussion, though I think this probably applies generally to other characters as well.



Part III: How Specific Characters Work With Snape

Snape brings out strong reactions in other characters. In PS/SS alone, we see evidence that Harry hates him, Neville's afraid of him, Malfoy kisses up to him, Hagrid respects him, and Dumbledore trusts him (and as a bonus, that James hated him too) (various chapters).

Then again, many characters' views of Snape change over the course of the series. Is Neville still afraid of him in DH? How does McGonagall's respect change for him over the events of HBP and beyond? How many people believe what Harry says about him in the Great Hall while dueling Voldemort?

All of this adds up to a nearly endless supply of interesting relationships, any one of which can be the basis for a story that characterizes Snape in an interesting way (though some of them have been done more than others - I said "interesting", not "fresh to people who have been reading fanfic for years", heh). Add sex or love or both to any of them and the possibilities are staggering, because sex and love both complicate a relationship to such a staggering degree.

Now for the audience participation part of the essay! How do specific characters bring out specific sides of Snape? I will add to this section if anyone has any comments or suggestions. Let's see what you think!

• With James, Snape can be the jealous rival, the victim of bullying, or just the long-time sworn enemy. With Sirius we get the same hatred, but if you take Snape/Sirius to the post-Azkaban era, where Snape/James cannot go, then Snape is additionally in a position of power and superiority, which adds a new dimension to the snark.
  
• Bellatrix can give us a similar sense of rivalry, if we speculate based on the Spinner's End chapter, but with different nuances as they are nominally on the same side of the war.
  
• Young Snape paired with Lucius gives us either the more innocent, eager to learn Snape and his older mentor, or the interesting contrast of jaded or cynical Snape as seen by an older, more privileged schoolmate.
  
• With Lily, Snape can be idealistic, or a teenage boy who makes mistakes, or as an older man the man with the ultimate regrets. Even with what we see of Lily, so this pairing gives a lot of room for speculation.
  
• Harry brings out an unreasonable side of Snape, usually. My favorite way to see this pairing is Harry as the redeemer, savior, helper; which means Snape is the one with something broken that needs to be fixed. Sometimes this can be emotional, though I've also read satisfying Snarries in which it was physical or even a psychological problem. (Side note: Who else has a "saving people thing"? Could we get this same vulnerable, flawed, and angry Snape with some other pairing?)
  
• With Hermione.... I draw a huge blank. What do you see in Snape, in a Snape/Hermione story? He is an authority figure, but is there more?
  
• Lastly for now, I shall mention Lupin. In the same year as Snape, not being put in Azkaban after Voldemort was defeated, working alongside Snape at Hogwarts, and dying on the same day that Snape died, there is no one else who has as many opportunities to know Snape and to know different sides of Snape. At the same time, Lupin is rather flexible of characterization himself, since we see only a small part of him through Harry's filter, and it is fairly clear that there is more than meets the eye (especially true at the end of HBP and during DH). So speculation about Lupin is almost easier than it is about Snape. Add to these the idea that Lupin is a Dark creature, while Snape has worked with the Dark Arts, and it is easy to see why so many people have written them in a relationship before. They are both versatile, matched to each other in many ways, and give us a huge amount of discretion in characterization and situation. Snape/Lupin is the ship of possibility, and for this I love it dearly.