I don’t want a handsome Snape. I don’t need him to be “hot.” I don’t need excuses to find him attractive. I want the Severus who couldn’t care less about his appearance because he’s utterly depressed—the Severus who couldn’t afford kids’ clothes and had to wear his mother’s hand-me-downs. I want the Severus with the long nose, crooked teeth, hunched posture, and that sleep-deprived look that says he hasn’t seen a good night’s rest in a century. I want the Severus whose physical appearance speaks to his miserable life in some crumbling neighborhood in the roughest part of England—the Severus who’s basically the embodiment of the poorest of the working class. That’s the Severus I find hot.
If he ever had to leave his mess of a home on Spinner’s End and look “presentable,” he’d throw on the oldest, most threadbare clothes he owns, probably oversized because he’s skeletal from stress. He’d look like some ghost from up north, his face reflecting both his awful life and the harsh social class he was born into. This is a Snape who doesn’t give off tortured anti-hero vibes in some romantic Byron-esque way. No, he’s straight out of an Irvine Welsh, Charles Bukowski, or John Fante novel—the kind of Snape who’d be right at home in a Guy Ritchie movie. That’s the Snape I want, feeding into my terrible, questionable tastes.
I’m not interested in some elegant, well-groomed, or conventionally sexy Snape. Please, keep that image far away from me.