For Harry Potter Book Night I’m re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I won’t get it all finished tonight, so I thought I’d quickly share a little bit of Potter Love.

“Don’t forget to give Neville our love!’ Ginny told James as she hugged him.

‘Mum! I can’t give a professor love!’

‘But you know Neville-‘

James rolled his eyes.

‘Outside, yeah, but at school he’s Professor Longbottom, isn’t he? Ican’t walk into Herbology and give him love….”

During the ‘deciding on a name process’ when I was pregnant with my son, once we found out he was going to be a he, I wanted to name him Edmund or Neville. Edmund after Edmund Pevensie of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series and Neville (I’m sure you guessed it) after the blundering, brilliant, loveable, kind hearted, strong willed force that is Neville Longbottom. My husband wouldn’t have a bar of either names and my son ended up as Riley, not named after anything with a deeper meaning, just a name my husband liked. The compromise was that I got to choose his second name and I did – It is Paul after my father, another brilliant, loveable, strong willed force. To be honest I’ve grown to love the name Riley Paul and wouldn’t change it, but if we do go down the baby road a second time and it appears it’s going to be a boy, I’ll be pushing for a Nev or Eddy again.

“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”

“For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!”

From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

“After all this time?”

“Always,” said Snape.”            

I can’t read that without getting chills.

“Albus Severus,” Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, “you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

We start off hating, fearing and suspecting Snape along with Harry, all the time not knowing that under Snape’s nastiness he is always looking out for harry out of love for Lilly.

Oh Snape, Snape, Shape. In this, the last book, your character cemented itself in my heart. Always!