The blaming of Snape is, for many a scribbler,
Considerably more than an idle-time game.
So you won’t think at first I’m as crazed as The Quibbler
When I tell you that Snape suffers three kinds of blame.

First of all, there’s the blame that his students hurl daily
For his greasiness, bias and sarcastic games,
For detentions spent slicing things slimy and scaly–
To a teacher of Potions, all workaday blames.
There are fans, as we know, who will make his excuses,
And not just because Rickman’s voice makes them drool.
They point to school bullies, to childhood abuses–
Sadly too common, for those who aren’t ‘cool’.

But I tell you our Snape needs a blame that makes history,
A blame that’s exclusive to Snape: Prince of Snide.
Else how could he keep up his aura of mystery,
Or spread out his sneering, or nurse his hurt pride?
So not just the Order but Voldemort’s plotters
Have cause to blame Snape for betrayal and lies.
If you add to all that his feud with the Potters,
Few men give so many so much to despise.

But below all these layers, there’s still one blame left over,
And it stems from the truth that we still can but guess,
The truth that no fandom debate can uncover–
Yes, Jo surely knows – but she’ll not yet confess.
When you notice a Snape in morose introspection
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His soul is engaged in a dark contemplation
Of his choices, betrayals, his guilt and his shame;
Of his terrible, inescapable
Incontrovertible
Deep and indelible
Bitter self-blame.