Snape//also COBOL

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 1172

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Blaise " wrote about Snape.

A few days ago, I posted quite a long essay on Snape on Harry Potter 
Anonymous (where no one replied) and Hogwarts Adult School (where a 
couple of people replied). (Both those are more e-groups.) Here I
will repeat SOME of what I said there, with SOME new points.  

> One thing I'd like to pick up is Snape's sense of duty and 
> responsibility.  Why would anyone lacking in a very powerful sense 
> of duty try to protect Harry for the reasons Dumbledore explained?  

I believe that Snape protects Harry's life because Snape is (or is 
pretending to be: someone made the good point about double agents) on 
the side that wants to destroy Voldemort, and Snape (and all 'the old 
gang') know (altho' Harry does not) that only the future, grown-up 
Harry can destroy Voldemort (Voldemort can be destroyed, at least now 
that he has made himself mortal again, even tho' evil cannot be 
destroyed and new evil beings will arise in the future). Thus, Snape 
finds it necessary to keep Harry alive in order to meet Snape's 
(shared) goal. Feeling a sense of obligation about James having 
saved his life is only the smallest part of it! 

It must be at least that small part, or else Dumbledore would have 
been lying to Harry after affirming that he would not lie, a scenario 
which I reject until proven otherwise, which causes me to believe 
that Socks really were what he saw in the Mirror of Erised. Maybe his 
old mother used to knit him socks as his present every Christmas and 
seeing his aged self holding a new pair of Mama's Xmas socks really 
means wishing that his mother were still alive. 

Snape hates Harry despite having to keep him alive -- I believe that 
the Marauders' 'practical joke' is nothing but frosting on that cake. 
He hated James and Sirius long before that, for reasons consisting 
largely of envy (you got him *exactly right* in the scene where they 
get their NEWT results!) and Remus from the moment of learning that 
he was a werewolf out of sheer bigotry. He hates Harry as the heir of 
all three (and the spitting image of the most hated one), and also 
hates Harry for being famous and getting special treatment -- special 
treatment like having Hagrid fetch him to Diagon Alley, which was not 
a piece of favoritism, but the result of being a wizard-born child 
raised by cruel Muggles. I mentioned that for an adult to hate a 
child out of envy is NOT a sign of good mental health, but does 
happen. 

> I think Snape's greatest fear is one a lot of people have - the 
> fear of failing.  (snip) So he always has to get in first with the 
> insult, before anyone can insult him.

Peg's question and your answer widens the topic, to why does Snape 
hate almost everyone? That can also be chalked up to envy. I had a 
high school math teacher who was exceedingly nasty to students. We 
figured he was crabby because of being hung-over most of the time 
because of being a drunk, but I also got the feeling that he was 
angry about being a failure in life and resented us teen-agers 
because we still had potential in front of us, the chance to be not a 
failure in life. I keep wanting to apply that to Snape, altho' it 
doesn't totally match: being a professor at Hogwarts is not a career 
failure, but a prestigeous job that I believe is well paid. 

So my second string theory is that he was never loved as a child, and 
therefore resents all the people who have family or even friends. 
(This would even explain his blatant favoritism to Slytherin, 
such as when refereeing Quidditch -- his Slytherins are his babies, 
the only family he ever had.) 

Which does not contradict my totally off-the-wall suggestion that 
Snape was Voldemort's child by some obedient female Death Eater, not 
merely raised but even begotten on purpose to serve Voldemort's 
schemes. That would explain why he, as a child, arrived at school 
with no social skills, an interest in the Dark Arts, and much 
knowledge of curses, why he became a Death Eater -- and even why he 
turned against the Dark Side: adolescent rebellion. 

(Somehow, while I wasn't looking, I have gotten so old that I don't 
remember if young people resent things being attributed to 
'adolescent rebellion' or find it funny. I do remember that we 
resented being called young people.)

> A side question, and one thing that makes me feel some doubt 
> towards Snape, is why he is so fond of Draco Malfoy, and why he 
> reacted when Harry mentioned that Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater.

I keep asking that question. People keep telling me that it is 
because Snape and Lucius were friends at school, but when Sirius says 
that Snape hung out with a gang of Slytherins who all turned out to
be Death Eaters, he mentions Wilkes and Rosier (dead), the Lestranges
(in Azkaban), and Avery (got off -- and is in the DE circle in the 
graveyard) -- he doesn't mention Malfoy. 

Someone on HAS suggested, in that case, maybe Lucius started at 
Hogwarts when Snape was like a seventh-year and Snape made him into a 
protege, but I replied that then there would have had to be a LOT of 
years between James, Sirius, Remus, Severus graduating (yeah, 
American phrase) and Harry and Draco being born at roughly the same 
time.

(Incidentally, I have a theory on Harry, Draco, Vincent Crabbe, 
Gregory Goyle, and the Nott who was sorted in Book 1 all being the 
same age -- there was a prophecy about a child born on a certain day, 
and Voldemort ordered all his Death Eaters to try to have children 
for that day -- Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott fathers are all in 
that DE circle.) 

Lee thinks that Draco being Snape's teacher's pet should be explained 
by a Snape/Draco slashfic, but it seems that Snape favored Draco from 
the beginning and he doesn't seem the love at first sight type. 
Unless it was Draco's strong family resemblance to Lucius awakening 
old feelings about Lucius...

I'm trying to limit the number of e-mails, so here also my 
reflections on Dee's post about the two teachers. First of all, 
having worked for pay as a pgmmer (mainly COBOL) since 1978, it has 
always been my experience that when you start the job, you only need 
to know as much of the specified computer language as it takes to 
pass the job interview. The actual language, using it to do what you 
want, with fluency, develops quickly as you do your first real 
assignment, with constant checking of the manual, much trial and 
error, and usually a lot of cussing. 

More important, there's a big difference between the merely strict 
and stern teacher whom Dee described, and the cruel and unfair Snape. 
Lee's uncle was at Harvard Law when the real life (tm) prototype of 
Kingsbery was teaching there, and he told her that he was quite 
unable to watch the PAPER CHASE tv show because the real Kingsbery 
had been so much worse, so totally evil that he still got nauseated 
thinking about him, and the uncle did not believe he had been any 
kind of good teacher, even tho' some people argue that law students 
should be treated harshly with cruelty and unkindness in order to 
toughen them up for courtroom battle. Programmers and potion makers, 
unlike lawyers and Marines, do not have combat as part of the job.