About

"You Dare Use My Own Spells Against Me" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Snape in the book and film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Screenshots of Snape saying the line in the film have been used in a series of reaction image macros expressing the feeling of having one's own tactics used against them.

Origin

On July 16th, 2005, the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published.^[1] In the book, the character character Harry Potter attempts to attack his teacher Professor Snape with a spell devised by Snape. The professor responds to these attacks by saying, "You dare use my own spells against me."^[2]

Four years later, on July 15th, 2009, a film adaptation of the book featured the characters Harry and Snape (portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Rickman, respectively) having the exchange (shown below).

Spread

On July 14th, 2014, the Twitter ^[3] account for the Harry Potter film series posted the quote with a screenshot of Snape. The post received more than 2,000 likes and 1,200 retweets in less than six years (shown below, left).

About six years later, the screen capture of the moment became a meme on Reddit, expressing when one's aggressive tactics are used against them. One of the earliest known usage was published on January 15th, 2020 by Redditor^[4] NOTDHRUVIL. The post received more than 131,000 points (94% upvoted) and 460 comments in less than 24 hours (shown below, center).

Following the post, others began sharing variations, such as the one posted by Redditor^[5] StonyTark3000 on the /r/dankmemes subreddit, which received more than 17,000 points (97% upvoted) in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References