InsaneJournal

Name: Severus Bran Snape
Birthday: 9 January, 1960
House: Slytherin
Year: 5th
Kind of blood: Half-blood
Pet: None
Wand: ebony and Welsh Green heartstring, 10 7/8 inches, rather inflexible

Physical Appearance: Severus is 5'8" and weighs in at just over 8 1/2 stone (approximately 120 pounds), with a hooked nose, crooked yellow teeth, a mouth that is all too predisposed to frowning, deep black eyes, an olive complexion that becomes sallow when he hasn't had enough sun (which is the norm), chin-length black hair, greasy skin (although he's overcome his acne problems, thanks to bubotuber pus), and a face only a mother could love (since she looks just like him, except for the Snape nose, which -- besides his temper -- was the only thing he inherited from his father). He also has several black freckles on his shoulders and upper arms about which he is especially self-conscious. Severus gives the general impression of a wilted plant that hasn't seen sunlight in ages, due in no small part to his rounded shoulders and his limp, stringy hair, which usually hangs in his face. He dresses entirely in black, except for when the occasion calls for dress robes, and then it's bottle green silk noil.

Biography: Severus is the only son of Eileen Wynn Snape née Prince and Tobias Markus Snape, who met on the Isle of Man in 1959. A Muggle coal miner, Tobias was on holiday at the time, and Eileen was attending a Quidditch match in support of her national team (Wales) when they played Ireland to determine which team would represent Britain in the Quidditch World Cup. Severus knows very little about his father's family. He has never met any of them, and his father is more than a little reluctant to take his wife and son to visit them in North Yorkshire.

The Snape family live in a council house in Spinner's End, Conwy, near a powdered coal mill. The majority of the houses in the area are occupied by coal miners and mill workers. Before Severus started at Hogwarts, Eileen often took him on the Muggle tours of Gwydir Castle (the former Wynn family seat) to acquaint him with her family's history -- to ensure that he'd grow up proud of his heritage, even if there was little wealth left in the family coffers. Though he did appreciate his lineage, Severus took something else entirely away from those tours: an extreme dislike of Muggles, who put their filthy hands all over things that were rightfully his.

For young Severus, life was more or less tolerable up until the age of three, when his sister died in infancy from ingestion of potion ingredients. Following his sister's death, his father became cold and distant at best, and even more prone to violence at worst, as he began drinking heavily. His mother's reaction was quite different: she made certain her son knew everything there was to know about potion ingredients and brewing. Though Severus was not overly fond of potion-making for its own sake, he has many pleasant associations from these early experiences of brewing with his mother.

Since Severus spent most of his time in his formative years with his mother, he spoke Welsh long before he learnt English, and he also taught himself to read, in both English and Welsh, as well as to tell time, by the age of four. When her son's acceptance letter to Hogwarts arrived, at first Eileen wasn't certain how they would pay for his attendance, but she were determined to manage. She had kept most of her old school books, so they only had to purchase the few new texts the Hogwarts staff had decided to use since her years at school. As both her contractual and extra brewing normally consisted of short periods of preparation followed by long waiting times, Eileen also began to take in Muggle laundry, as well, to help with the expenses of her son's education.

Severus loves his mother dearly, though he doesn't always listen to her (plentiful) advice as to how to live his life. His relationship with his father is ... strained. He has been known to curse his father in fits of anger -- especially when he is berating, browbeating, threatening, or hitting his mother, the first time being when he had just turned six. As he feared for his mother's life, in his first and only episode of wandless magic, Severus managed to remove the bones from both his father's arms and tie them in a knot until Tobias had cooled down and slept it off. He also took a bit too much pleasure in his father's discomfort of enduring not only a hangover but also the painful experience of regrowing his bones the next day. Impressed with her son's innate abilities at spell-casting, Eileen presented him with her wand on his very next birthday. She had never had much use for it, and she wanted to nuture her son's magical abilities in any way she could.

Though he has always found the Dark Arts fascinating for their own sake, once Severus was old enough to understand the "arguments" between his parents, his motivation to study the Dark Arts grew exponentially. All his free time, in fact, was spent poring over books in an attempt to decipher subjects that flew far over his head in order to pick out a few incantations with which he could protect his mother. Intelligent as he was, it didn't take him long to realise that he could cow his Muggle father with only the threat of magic. He soon developed a taste for threats, as well, dropping casual hints into conversation as to all the jinxes he had learnt (not to mention a few that he had invented himself). From the age of thirteen on, he has managed to keep his father from harming his mother during holidays, but he worries about her constantly when he's away at school.

Whilst reading in a nearby play park one day when he was nine, Severus happened to notice two Muggle girls on the roundabout -- except the more he watched, the more easily he could tell one of them wasn't a Muggle at all. Once he'd worked up the nerve to talk to her, things didn't go nearly as well as he'd hoped, but somehow Lily Evans overlooked that, and the two became friends. When they started Hogwarts two years later, however, they were sorted into different Houses, and their friendship has been going downhill every since.

Severus had many youthful fantasies of becoming an Auror -- following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather Everard Wynn -- and, of course, personally delivering his father to the dementors. His substandard performance in Transfiguration, however, soon disabused him of that notion. And besides that, most Aurors seemed historically to come from Gryffindor, which was a House he had no desire to associate himself with, even in the smallest of ways. When he first arrived at Hogwarts, Severus had a very thick Welsh accent, which he's worked very hard to lose. He has cultivated many allies in Slytherin House, if not true friends, and has come to treasure his House's noble history, along with that of its founder, whom he idolises.

His pride in his House is a sore spot with Lily, who seems to think nothing of putting down Slytherin House in Severus' presence. Every time she does so, he grows a little more resentful and distant. Over the last few years, Severus has become increasingly disenchanted with the side of supposed "good," and he's come to see the inherent logic and utility contained in Lord Voldemort's plans for remaking the wizarding world. As with any subject that takes his fancy, however, he feels more research is in order before making the final commitment, but more and more he's beginning to think becoming a Death Eater is his calling in life.

Health Information: Severus suffers from Marfan Syndrome, which is a hereditary disorder of connective tissue that he inherited from his mother. (Eileen doesn't have the disorder herself, though she is a carrier.) The condition is characterised by abnormal elongation of the bones and often by ocular and circulatory defects. There is no known cure in either the Muggle or Wizarding worlds. The most obvious physical symptoms in his case are:

-- elongated bones, most evident in his tall stature (even though he is average for a human male, Severus is fairly tall for someone with goblin blood), long fingers, and long, narrow feet
-- curvature of the spine, resulting in a round-shouldered look
-- a deformed rib cage (pigeon-breast)
-- abnormally small jaws, resulting in crowded, crooked teeth
-- asymmetrical facial features that make him appear rather homely (think of Abraham Lincoln, who is widely believed to have suffered from Marfan Syndrome)

The disorder is not generally debilitating, but Severus' life expectancy will likely be unnaturally short for a wizard -- probably on par with a Muggle -- due to cardiovascular problems. In addition to already exhibiting astigmatism and myopia, as is common with the disorder, Severus may also develop more severe vision problems as he grows older. Dislocation of the lenses in his eyes is one risk that would ultimately result in blindness.

A dislocated lens can be counteracted magically, but it has to be detected first. This is a major concern in Severus' case -- not because he is especially at risk, but because his eyes are so very dark. The normal test to determine a dislocated lens involves dilating the pupil and inspecting the iris with a slit lamp, but this procedure does little good where his eyes are concerned. Therefore he must see Madam Pomfrey monthly for regular checkups and a somewhat uncomfortable magical procedure used to map the location of his lenses with respect to his pupils.

Other conditions for which Marfan Syndrome increases the risk factors (early onset cataracts, retinal detachment, glaucoma, and strabismus -- the inability of one eye to attain binocular vision with the other because of imbalance of the muscles of the eyeball, often resulting in squinting) can also be treated magically. His exceptionally bad vision led to his diagnosis with Marfan Syndrome, but his parents opted to get him contact lenses rather than spectacles, as he had enough problems fitting in at school (despite the safety issues involved with potion spills and vapours getting trapped beneath the lenses). His corrected vision is close enough to 20/20 that his vision problems aren't readily noticeable, though Severus sometimes has trouble focussing his eyes when he is especially stressed or fatigued.

The main immediate health risk associated with Marfan Syndrome is a wide, fragile aorta, which is progressive and can cause leakage of the aortic valve or tears in the aortic wall. As a result, Madam Pomfrey recommended that Snape study the mind-clearing and relaxation techniques espoused in Occlumency. This helps to keep his blood pressure low and, consequently, reduce stress on his aorta (and perhaps lower his risks of glaucoma, though the link between glaucoma and blood pressure is the subject of much controversy in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds).

Severus was forced to give up his position on the Slytherin Quidditch team (Beater) early in his fourth year when he was first diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome, as strenuous exercise and contact sports are contraindicated. As he could rarely see the Bludgers well enough to hit them anyway, the Slytherin team was not the least bit disappointed to see him go. He does not plan to have children -- ever! -- because he would have a 50% chance of passing the condition on. Severus doesn't like to think of himself as "disabled," though he does have physical limitations. Despite his Marfan Syndrome Syndrome, however, he is in relatively good health.

Likes: Sappho Duncannon, Lily Evans, red heads, green eyes, Quidditch, the Dark arts, studying, writing a well-constructed essay, spying on and ratting out other students, correcting professors in class, Potions, the colour black, Slytherin traditions, Chopin, gobstones, and he has an exceptional weakness for dark chocolate

Dislikes: Potter and his gang, his father, Muggles, his father, Mudbloods, his father, incompetence, his father, Gryffindors in general (other than Lily), his father, colours other than black, his father, most people, his father, Ogden's Old Firewhisky, his father ... oh, and did I mention his father?

Extracurricular Activities: In his spare time, Severus enjoys conspiring with Mr Filch to get the Marauders expelled (in exchange for unlimited access to the Library's Restricted Section after hours), researching and documenting the mistakes his professors make during his lessons, and performing independent Potions research in an empty broom cupboard in the dungeons that Mr Filch is kind enough to let him use, in addition to brewing illicit many potions (mostly contraceptive potions and abortifacients) for pocket money. Ever since he was forced to leave the Slytherin team in his fourth year, he pretends to have no use for Quidditch, though he is secretly studying to become a referee by correspondence course. His other hobbies include writing really bad poetry in Welsh (lots of it, and often), though so far none of his poems have escaped the grate of the Slytherin common room only one of his poems has escaped the grate of the Slytherin common room.

Romantic history: Severus hasn't had much luck in this area, as he is widely considered one of the ugliest boys in school. In addition, he is especially self-conscious about his body (due to his Marfan Syndrome and the freckles on his shoulders and upper arms) and therefore tries to keep himself well-covered at all times, which would make heated snogging sessions a little impractical. He carries carried a torch for Lily Evans, and has since they were children, though he has never worked up the nerve to tell her that he considers considered her anything more than his best friend. After receiving a letter from a secret admirer on his most recent birthday, Severus became intrigued. At first he was determined to discover who she was in order to date her and make Lily jealous, but soon enough he began to grow fond of her in her own right. Once he had worked out her identity (Sappho Duncannon), he asked her out, and they have been all but inseparable ever since.

Goals: Severus expects to earn "Outstanding" OWLs in both Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts and to enter the NEWT classes next autumn. He would also very much like to earn an E or better on his Transfiguration OWL, but he doesn't consider that likely. In addition, he'd like to see Potter and his friends finally be expelled (and not in the least because Potter seems to be paying Lily a great deal more attention lately). He also has the long-standing ambitions of asking Lily out and trying to get his mother to leave the bastard already.

Astrology: THE MERRY MEGALOMANIAC (Capricorn/Pig) -- This mix creates a being of infinite talent and aspirations to match. The sky is the limit. Capricorn/Pigs never see themselves as less than monstrously famous and hugely wealthy. These folks are grandeur specialists, whose personal goals of cosmic proportions don't stand in the way of their equally epic egos. There is, in the Capricorn/Pig makeup, a certain refreshing purity of desire. No Capricorn/Pig ever underestimates him- or herself. Some claim that such a clearheaded attitude toward blatant self-seeking ambition is healthy. I make no judgment, but I will tell you that most of Capricorn/Pigs I have had the pleasure of knowing have contributed something enriching to my life. This subject undertakes vast artistic projects and gives generously to cultural institutions. The Capricorn/Pig is a faithful and passionate lover, but he is also a smothering one. Possessive is a mild word to describe how they cling to the object of their desire. Scenes. Rows. Rages. Fits. They don't get angry often, but when they do ... run for your life.

Status before Dumbledore's Spell: killed by Voldemort (Avada Kedavra).

DISCLAIMER: This journal is for role-play purposes only. I am not Noah Taylor, nor do I own Severus Snape -- more's the pity. If I did, I'd be rich, and I'd be writing about him for real, instead of merely playing him.