What if the Harry Potter series was written from the perspective of Severus Snape? Pottermore imagines what that would look like.
Severus Snape and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Severus Snape and the Order of the Phoenix…doesn’t sound quite right, does it? For most of the Harry Potter series, Snape was the nasty potions professor who lived to make Harry’s life harder. By the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we’d figured out that there was a lot more to him than we’d thought. What would the books have been like if they were told from his point of view?
Snape and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Pottermore has imagined what that might look like, writing summaries of all seven books from the Severus Snape cycle. A sample from Severus Snape and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
"Towards the end of the year, Snape finally caught [Sirius Black] in the Shrieking Shack. Once there Snape was hailed as a hero by Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, who promised that he would be duly rewarded. The Order of Merlin! A profile in the Daily Prophet! Finally, everything’s coming up Severus!"
Image: Warner Bros.
And here, an excerpt from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
"In the end, Snape performed his duty, killing his closest ally, his dearest friend, and branding himself as a murderer in the eyes of the people he sought to protect. For that was the sort of man Severus Snape was: a hero so heroic that he would cast himself as the villain – as long as it meant doing the right thing."
Next: J.K. Rowling likens Donald Trump to a grade-schooler
It’s an interesting idea, writing the books from another point of view, and there is some precedent. Stephenie Meyer, the author behind the Twilight books, was at one point working on a book called Midnight Sun, which retold the story of the original novel in her series from the point of view of another character. I’d rather have Rowling focus on writing new material in the Potterverse, but the idea is there if she wants it…