Bullying Insights In Pop Culture: Harry Potter To Mean Girls

Childhood Bullying: The Darkness Of Padfoot & Prongs

When I was in the second standard, I shared a desk & bench with a classmate. I was six and scrawny, he was seven (and to me he seemed burly). But this boy wasn’t just any classmate. He had a vivid imagination. He’d tell me that his bodyguards were skeletons hiding behind our desk. He said he would command them to come and kill me at night. I remember feeling absolute terror. The complete helplessness that only a child knows. In my young mind, it became absolute that bad things would happen on the whim of people more powerful than myself. All I could do was beg and grovel.

I went home in tears one day after hours of threats. Some days later, a teacher came to my classroom and had a brief word with my class teacher. Someone told me that she was his mother. As she left, she turned and said, “Sorry”. That’s all I remember. But the damage was done, and the fear had already taken root. I had joined the shadows of the bullied.

In ‘Snape’s Worst Memory’ from Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, the bullying of Severus Snape is both cruel and personal. At around the age of 15, Sirius and James mercilessly humiliate Snape, targeting his insecurities. James Potter mocks Snape’s appearance and social status, while Sirius Black joins in, further intensifying the humiliation. They don’t just belittle him with words. They physically humiliate him and the chapter ends with the implication that the assault went on worse and longer.

It was a difficult chapter to read but on balance, it feels like too little (I’ll explain later in this post). At least I had Anu to talk to about everything that came up in my most recent reading. We talked about childhood fears, about buried traumas. We often hear about incidents of bullying from the outside – the wounds on boys bodies inflicted by other boys. But we rarely get to see what happens within a person in a situation like this.

The Attached Bully: Dudley’s Affections

We meet Harry Potter’s Severus Snape as a formidable teacher, one who seems cruel and even bullying of some of his students. This chapter gives us an insight into the boy before he grew up into a man. The classmate who terrorized me wasn’t just a bully; he was a child dealing with his own fears and insecurities, projecting them onto me because I was an easy target. I had heard a rumour that his father used to beat up his mother. That was a child growing up in an abusive home.

Years later, when we were both in our final year, the school organised a special picnic for us because we had been working hard. The co-ordinator held up a list, proposing to read out the attendees. One of the students asked why, we’re all going to be there. She said, no not everyone and gave me a look. I was the only one who had not registered. I hadn’t intended for it to be quite so noticeable. In the split-second of silence as the class swiveled around to look at me, a voice broke out, furious and forceful,

“What??! You’re not going?!”

I braced myself as I always did when I heard his voice. But I was unprepared for his next sentence.

“Why are you not going?! If you’re not going, I’m not going either!”

I really did not understand that at all.

I didn’t realize then that his bullying had been less about me and more about him—about his need to control something in his small world. Psychological insights suggest that bullies often develop an emotional attachment to their victims, a twisted need to dominate and define their identity through their power over another person​ (Frontiers)​(Psychology Today). Another Potterverse bully, Dudley Dursley starts off, mean, selfish, and physically intimidating. But by the end of the series, there’s a moment of recognition, a sad acknowledgment that he will never see Harry again.

It is a very strange thing to think that your bully cares about your existence – even if only to torment you.

Bullying in Relationships: Regina George & the Burn Book

Another time, he called me ‘high-maintenance’ in front of my friends. When I protested, he laughed and said, “Of course you are,”. He wouldn’t stop jeering as my cheeks got hotter and my voice rose in pitch. My friends just seemed to be laughing along and agreeing with him. Face burning, I stood up and walked away from the table. I still couldn’t bring myself to ask,

“What about my life do you pay for? I pay my share in everything. And I got the tickets for this trip. In what way do you maintain me?”

Humiliating him was a boundary I could not cross, even in self-defense. But he had no such qualms. And my friends felt no compulsion enabling him. Later, they said awkwardly, “He’s your boyfriend; we were just having a little fun.”

There may be many reasons that I’ve chosen the kind of partners that I have. This behaviour has been consistent. They display hostility towards the other people in my life. That makes me feel grateful for the slightest bit of convivality. Even when I’m not included in it. Even when it involves mean jokes. Even when those jokes are not really funny. Even when it’s deliberately aimed at decimating me. Mean Girls’ Regina George wields this skill like a weapon. Physical intimidation and obvious threats are for kids and amateurs. Psychological manipulation takes on diabolic proportions as we see in the Burn Book and in the film Gaslight (which gave its name to the term gaslighting).

I predicted this in my 20s – that the women of my generation would continue growing and that the men would fall short when their support systems of family & society withered. What I didn’t anticipate is that this gender would come back with the diabolic vengeance of bullying. I see it in most relationships around me, that brittle tension that is like guns trained at targets. In waiting.

Revisiting the Past: When Bullying Festers, Carrie Happens

The most shocking incident came later. I rejoined the school Whatsapp group so I could attend a condolence meet for a classmate’s father. The next morning, amidst the good morning inanities and schooltime banalities was a porn image laid over with a rape joke. I pinged the sender (the administrator) telling him why it was upsetting. He was rude and worse, condescending. I could have reported it since pornography is illegal to distribute in India. I could have gotten them all into some uncomfortable times circling the Mumbai cops, the cyber cell and Whatsapp. Instead, I called it out on the group in an impersonal message. Unsurprisingly, the group reacted not with apology or agreement but ridicule. All because I had called it out. Several people were furious at me for speaking up. Some called me names, one issued a rape threat, another made nasty comments about the white saree that I wore to the funeral. Nobody apologised to me. The very idea that the offender, let alone the others should apologise to me filled them with rage.

It was a stark reminder that bullying doesn’t disappear; it just finds new avenues. There’s something deep and rotten when bullying happens. It needs to be weeded out, understood and resolved completely for any chance of normalcy. I naively imagined that the years would lay this dynamic to rest. That we as the adults we had all become could form new friendships. I was wrong.

Nobody Walks Away Unscathed: Lupin, The Enabler

This experience was eerily similar to the fawning responses described in psychological studies, where some people align with the aggressor to protect themselves, echoing and amplifying the harm done to the target​ (Psychology Today). In my case, the group’s collective response was to isolate me, rather than confront the real issue. It’s a pattern that is all too common in both real life and fiction—when faced with a bully, it’s easier to side with them than to stand up and risk becoming a target yourself.

One person stood up for me in this incident. It surprised me. We hadn’t been close in school. She was close friends with my childhood bully. But it’s likely she thought as I did – an adult dynamic for adults. And she made an adult decision. It brought up other complexities.

The school bully called her cross-continent, demanding to know why she was supporting me. She sounded disapointed when she told me this. Maybe there was hurt in that disappointment. After all, it is hard to see the flaws in a close friend, harder when they hold up a mirror to your own enabling. I asked her to forgive him but maybe that is not my place to suggest. Their friendship should have had nothing to do with me. Yet, it seems like forgiving him must start with me. It’s a heavy burden to carry.

The Shared Trauma of Bullying: Unhealed Rage

Perhaps he can’t anymore than I can forget him. Bullying inextriciably writes us into each other’s lifelong stories in the form of shared trauma. The only difference is that he inflicted it and I endured it. He’s the only one who can heal the situation; I can only heal or at least protect myself.

Coping Mechanisms As Personality: Lovely Luna

The past year of reflections have made me realise that my coping mechanisms seem to make my traumas invisible. People have trouble believing that anyone could take me down or that I get hurt. I have also enabled the enablers of bullies by allowing them to believe that bullying never really happened. We never really think of Luna when we think of bullying in Harry Potter, do we?

Who We Call Victim: Snape’s Journey

The stories we tell about bullies and their victims are more than just entertainment—they are reflections of our deepest fears and insecurities. They show us the complexity of these relationships, the ways in which power and fear intertwine, and how difficult it can be to break free from these dynamics.

If James & Sirus’ actions were just youthful follies, might that not be true of Snape’s early days as a Death Eater – a desperate bid to shelter with those that might protect him and offer him more dignity than he ever received? He’s the only one of his generation who actually learns and turns. That makes him the hero of a journey through bullying hell.

This narrative forces us to confront our own biases—why do we empathize with some victims but not others? Why do we forgive some bullies but condemn others? The stories we tell ourselves shape our understanding of these dynamics, often simplifying the complex web of emotions that underlie bullying.