Twenty years on .. Miss Suares and One Final Hogwartian Analogy (Part Four)

(Any Harry Potter fans who haven't yet read The Deathly Hallows? This post contains spoilers!)

With all the Harry Potteresque echoes to this whole Facebook revival, how could I resist not taking it further? And I love analogies, as anyone who's had the (mis)fortune to witness me once get going on my philosophical meanderings will confirm.

We have our own version of Platform 9 and 3/4's. We have our house rivalries and our midnight escapades. We are Cottons Girls and the rest of the world, poor dears, are Muggles.

Two incidents from yesterday's visit to Miss Suares stay with me, and give rise to this One Final Hogwartian Analogy, as yet unrevealed:

She told us a story about how, when a chief guest was with the then-principal Miss Hardy (this must have been in the 50s or 60s) in the auditorium (not the new one - the original hall which allegedly had a secret tunnel under the stage that led to the boys' school!!). The girls were, of course, making a racket, but suddenly fell silent.

"What happened?" the chief guest asked, for the change was drastic. Miss Hardy smiled and pointed out to him that Miss Suares had just entered the room.

Fear? Maybe. But respect too. There was something about Miss Suares, a presence she had that absolutely no other teacher was ever able to match. At one point, during the telling of these stories, she clasped her hands together and said, "I always thought, oh God, these girls must HATE me .. "

That's when it struck me. A little voice in my head whispered, "Good Lord .. Miss Suares is Professor Snape .. "

Now those of you who aren't fully into the Harry Potter books, or who perhaps haven't read all the way to the end, may think this is a horrible thing to say, because for quite a while there, JK Rowling made us think he was the villain of the story.

But those of you who DO know the whole story - and who also know of my utter devoted worship of Professor Snape - will understand that this is the greatest compliment I could pay anyone, and not a statement I would make lightly.

So who was Professor Snape? A hard, determined man with rather an iron-fisted attitude to his students - striking terror into Neville Longbottoms everywhere. An ex-student turned teacher, brilliant at what he did, bitter perhaps, but keeping his pains secret. Loyal, so loyal to Dumbledore and what Hogwarts stood for, at the cost of taking lives, and of giving his own too. Harry Potter hated him and feared him and misunderstood him. Right until the end. It's only in the Epilogue that we found, and wept over, Harry's recognition of Snape for what he was: Harry had named his son after Snape.

To me, that was too little, too late. So when I look at our get-together with Miss Suares yesterday, I like to think that we did more for her than JK Rowling did for Snape in that last paragraph of her book. Snape died never knowing whether his true colours were ever appreciated. I'm so glad to all of you who contributed to this reunion with your time, your letters, your phone calls and email forwards and your presence there yesterday. You made for a better happy ending than Rowling could ever write.