the most unrealistic thing about harry potter
is that no teacher ever called him James by accident, or that Ron never was called “Bill-, eh Charl-, no Per-, argh!”
As a younger sister who knows this struggle all too well: THIS IS REAL. Pretty sure 70% of my past teachers still think I’m called what my sister is called in fact.
Imagine Fred being called Percy by McGonagall accidentally and then he gets so offended that he refers to her by “Professor [insert any other name but McGonagall” for the rest of the year, costing Gryffindor a considerable amount of points one at a time.
From then on, she vows to just call them all Mr Weasley.
Until Ginny comes along and she calls her Mr Weasley by accident and Ginny “accidentally’ calls her Sir and it starts again.
It’s lightly off-topic but also slightly relevant but I have long cherished this mental image of Professor Snape saying something snappish to Harry in just the wrong tone of voice and Harry absentmindedly, wearily, and completely accidentally responding with, “Yes, Aunt Petunia.”
which would have all kinds of additional ramifications when you remember snape is the only one who knew petunia personally
He asks Harry to stay after class and straight up asks him “Am I truly that unpleasant?”
Okay, okay, okay, this is probably deeply off-track, but all I can think of is Harry––who upon learning that Snape, of all people, his pain in the neck potions professor knows his aunt––has now received what can only be called a psychic punch to balls.
How, how, how, is a teenage boy supposed to rectify this, mentally? Connect these strange unjoined worlds to somehow explain that Snape––Snape!––knows his Aunt Petunia?
“It doesn’t make any sense, mate,” Harry tells Ron, blearily, desperately wishing at age thirteen years that his butter beer was a real beer. “It just––it can’t be. Why would he know Aunt Petunia?”
Ron grimaces. “Why would he want to? I mean, I know he’s Snape, and all that, but––”
Harry writes his only letter back to #4 Privet Drive, dotted with tears, and it has one line: How do you know Severus Snape?
Petunia writes back: DO NOT MENTION THAT MAN EVER AGAIN.
And this. This. Sparks a light in Harry’s head. This is the same way Petunia talks about celebrities who have deeply, personally offended her. Usually when she fancied them and then they got married. It’s so completely clear to him, now: Snape is deeply, irrevocably, utterly in love with Aunt Petunia.