u/eternalexiistence

one of my favorite things about Alan Rickman’s diaries is how he’d sometimes be writing about some frustrating moment on set, and then suddenly slip in a little pun.

Like this entry from November 16, 2009:

"An empty sound stage with David Yates, Ralph and me. David is the most impenetrable mix of sweet-natured and immovable. He prefers, really, to just tell you what the story is, who you are playing, what you are thinking and where you stand, move, sit, look. Ralph and I (in a boathouse) put our oars in and I see David making a huge effort to let us have our heads. We start to get somewhere oxygenated."

He even put "(in a boathouse)" in parentheses. I lost it.

And for anyone who didn’t know this little behind-the-scenes detail >!David Yates originally wanted Snape to be killed with Avada Kedavra instead of by Nagini. Alan had actually read the books and pushed back because Snape wouldn’t have been able to pass his memories to Harry afterward. He stood his ground against the change, and the film ultimately kept the version we know today.!<

This part in POA has Snape at his most vulnerable. He's throwing his own past on Dumbledore’s biased face and implying that he's letting Black escape justice again.

Protecting Lupin was understandable. But a good approach would've been to bind everyone involved in it to silence. Instead, Snape was the only one silenced, which left him with the typical "you mustn't talk about this" trauma while the other side shamelessly controlled the narrative and boasted. No wonder they got emboldened and sexually assaulted the same victim in public, and took a rabid werewolf out endangering hogsmeade for cheap thrills.

A better headmaster would've protected the werewolf while also acknowledging that Snape had been wronged, and expelled the sociopath whose sadistic action nearly got one student killed, another outed and thrown into Azkaban (if not executed), and the headmaster himself ousted. Or done the bare minimum of ensuring that the horrid bullies left Snape alone for the remainder of his Hogwarts years.

P.S. Anyone who comes up with Snape shouldn’t have gone is blissfully ignoring the years of torment which made him so willing to risk everything just to get the people who made his life hell removed from the school.