Wizard secrecy, Snape, Percy's choices

[David]

No: HPFGUIDX 30796

Joshua Dyal wrote:

> As a point of nit-pickiness, we don't actually know that this (fear 
of persecution) is why 
> the wizarding world is hidden.  Arthur Weasley says it's because 
> wizards don't want to be bothered with coming up with magical 
> solutions for everybody's problems, although that's likely a 
> simplistic view.

I feel a Philip Nel type question coming on: different characters 
give different reasons for the concealment of the wizarding world.  
What do these reasons tell us about these characters?

Snape
-----
Gwendolyn Grace wrote:

> Why is it so important that Snape be able to worm his way back into
> Voldemort's good graces? Because tactically, at the end of GoF, 
there is no
> other course of action I can conceive that does him or Dumbledore 
any more
> good than going back to be a spy again. If he does NOT, he openly 
declares
> that his loyalty has shifted and all kinds of bad things happen. 
First of
> all, he becomes a marked man. Secondly, the Slytherin students 
whose parents
> are involved will no longer trust him, so he certainly ceases to be 
a
> sounding board for them. Third, Dumbledore is once again left 
without a
> source of information from Voldemort's camp. Fourth, he can't use 
Severus
> any other way because the DE's will be looking for him, so he'd 
become a
> virtual prisoner at Hogwarts.

I agree that if Snape went back to Voldemort, it must be more or less 
as you say; and he goes as himself, not in disguise.  But I'm not 
convinced these are cast-iron reasons.  We don't know enough of 
Dumbledore's wider plans to know how Snape might be useful; although 
the DEs may be after Snape, V himself is not yet that powerful and it 
surely is possible for Snape to undertake quiet extra-Hogwarts 
missions that may be risky but not necessarily suicide; given that 
Dumbledore is plainly in control of his own school, what weight are 
DEs going to give to the presence of Snape? whether Dumbledore has a 
source of information is outside his control since we are debating 
whether the DEs could *still* believe Snape is one of them, not 
whether Snape would try to get *back* into V's good graces.

> Say he goes to contact the Dementors or the vampires. Say even that 
they
> promise to protect his life. Can Dementors behave in that sort of 
way? 

I don't believe that Dumbledore has any interest in contacting the 
Dementors.  The idea that they are part of his task follows from the 
things Dumbledore mentions to Fudge: ally with the giants; remove 
Azkaban from the Dementors.  When Fudge defaults (a possibility long 
foreseen by Dumbledore), Hagrid gets the first, Snape gets whatever D 
can salvage from the second: perhaps to investigate, in whatever way 
possible, what is going on between the imprisoned DEs and the 
Dementors.  The Weasleys get the MOM as their task.

Protection of Snape's life, insofar as he can't look after himself, 
remain's Dumbledore's responsibility.  I would back Snape in a duel 
with any individual DE, though I grant ambushes and numerical odds 
could get him.

My personal objection to the go-back-as-spy theory is that it's so 
obvious:  JKR has just (in the context of the whole series) sprung on 
us that he was a DE; he then gets a frightening task from Dumbledore 
just after V has returned - it just feels so much like something JKR 
wants us to think that it can't actually be true.  I realise that 
this type of argument can't really be used alongside the others - 
either we argue within the framework of the Potterverse, or we argue 
from the POV of literary probability.

I agree totally about the irrelevance of his love life (wouldn't it 
be good if we find in OOP that he is, in fact, celebrating the 
fifteenth anniversary of his happy marriage to his childhood 
sweetheart?) and substantially on the DADA issue.  However, I don't 
believe Hagrid's statement that Lockhart was the 'on'y man for the 
job' is conclusive: if Snape had informally approached Dumbledore and 
been turned down, he would not then apply formally, and Hagrid would 
never know.  As an aside, I have never understood why the DADA post 
was thought to be jinxed that early in the series: only Quirrell has 
suffered at that time - a case of JKR unconsciously assuming the 
perspective of future events not known to the reader?

On Snape as head of house, I feel a lot of ink has been spilt on what 
is a simple issue: does Dumbledore consider him up to the job?  I 
don't believe he needs to consult or please anyone else: his 
accountability to the governors is of the all-or-nothing 'back me or 
sack me' kind.

--------------------

Percy's choices:  I'm sure Penny or one of the other P.I.N.E.s has 
pointed this out before, but there is a pleasing symmetry in JKR's 
famous statement about doing what is easy and doing what is right as 
far as he is concerned.  I can see the situation developing where 
Percy will consider that he should take the hard decision to do 
the 'right thing' and follow MOM policy, rather than the 'easy thing' 
of going along with his parents' unofficial alliance with Dumbledore; 
in reality for him the hard thing is to recognise that ethical 
imperatives may outweigh the rules; the easy thing being to be 
legalistic.

David