Real meaning behind Snape's first words to Harry Potter could change everything

The real meaning behind Professor Snape's first words to Harry in the beloved Harry Potter franchise changes everything we always thought about the character.

Of course, any fan will know how Snape's relationship with the 'Boy Who Lived' was complicated one.

But fans of the series think they have spotted a major clue to his character's transformation.

Those of you who are familiar with the books and films will know that the pair don't quite see eye-to-eye for the majority of their time together.

Now - sorry for the spoiler - but by the end of the series it becomes clear that all is not quite as it seems, with Snape giving up his life for the young wizard.

We also learn that Snape was deeply in love with Harry's mum, Lily, when they were both students at Hogwarts and was heartbroken by her death at the hands of Voldemort.

Fans of the books, however, spotted something in the first words ever uttered by Snape to Harry, which they believe hinted at this shocking revelation.

In The Philosopher's Stone, both in the book and the film, Snape asks Harry during his first potions class: "Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Warner Bros.

According to Potterheads out there, the real meaning behind his words were down to the following: "According to Victorian Flower Language, asphodel is a type of lily meaning, 'My regrets follow you to the grave' and wormwood means 'absence' and also typically symbolised bitter sorrow.

"If you combined that, it meant, 'I bitterly regret Lily's death'."

Mind blown?

But while most of us assumed that Snape hated Harry and was trying to do away with him at every turn, the actor who played him in the films, Alan Rickman - who sadly died in 2016 - knew all along what lay in store for the characters.

In Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, Rickman's former co-stars spoke about how much they had known about the future narrative while filming, with Sirius Black actor, Gary Oldman, said he wished he’d had the ‘whole picture’.

Daniel Radcliffe, who played the titular wizard in the films, also admitted he didn’t know everything either.

"Just Rickman,” Radcliffe told Oldman in the 2022 reunion special. "He had the inside line. He very, very early said to Jo, he was like, ‘I think I need to know what happens’.”

Oldman then laughed: “Rickman would have an in, wouldn’t he?!”

Warner Bros.

Radcliffe continued: “And he never told Chris [Columbus], he never told anyone. Chris would literally say to him, why are you doing that like that? He was like I’ll tell you later..."

In a 2011 interview with the LA Times' Hero Complex, Rickman himself said he had always known his character was going to be a 'double agent'.

He said: “Rumour has it that she put the ending in a bank vault when she was writing the beginning. So she held it all in her head, all seven books. It’s jaw-dropping, really.

"When we started she had only written three of the books so it was like trying to walk down two potential roads not at all knowing what the end would be but having some sense of what that man’s life was.

"I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that."