Snape's hysteria in PoA

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 15223

Pippin wrote:

> 	I have a theory about Snape's behavior... he says,to Harry, 
"You'd 
> have been well served if [Sirius had] killed you! You'd have died 
like 
> your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in 
Black..."
> 
> 	Suppose what happened was this: sometime before the murder of 
> James and Lily, Snape began to suspect that Sirius was the double 
> agent. Snape couldn't prove it, but secretly warned James. Snape has 
> thought all this time that James ignored his warnings and chose 
Sirius 
> anyway and Snape is referring to this in the quote above. 

I've wondered about this possibility.  Part of the undercurrent of 
Potter-hatred in Snape, then, would be the bitter knowledge that he 
took a huge risk to go undercover and then warn James against Sirius 
(knowing that James would find it very hard to believe, and harder 
still if James knew the information was coming from Snape) and that if 
only James had listened to him he'd still be alive.  For twelve years 
he's felt angry and rejected, but also self-righteous--that arrogant 
Potter doomed himself; (even) it serves him right.  (If you're of the 
Snape-loved-Lily school, which I'm not, you get an extra dose of 
bitterness--the arrogant bastard brought Lily down with him.)

But I hadn't thought of the implications that you add:

> 	The idea that  James did in fact change secret-keepers 
provoked a 
> hysterical rejection from Snape because if Snape did accept it, he 
> would have to believe that he himself was responsible for James' and 
> Lily's deaths. 
> 	Later, Snape might have learned from Dumbledore that Sirius 
> independently suggested changing secret-keepers, which would have 
made 
> it easier for Snape to accept the truth. 

Yes--this is great!  Snape has a very big stake in not believing that 
anyone but Sirius was the traitor.  

He =could= just have a very big stake in it anyway.  Even if he 
=didn't= think Sirius was the traitor ahead of time, the events of 
that night (as understood for the past 12 years) support his emotional 
drama re: James and Sirius very nicely.  James was always an arrogant 
so-and-so, and now he was betrayed by his best friend--figures--he 
never would have doubted his own judgment for a moment, even when he 
should have.  Snape always knew Sirius was a bad egg, look what he did 
when he was 16, yada yada.  Plus all the Lily-angst if you want to add 
it in.  The revelations in the Shrieking Shack require him to give up 
that story and see Sirius as a fellow-sufferer in the struggle against 
V, and the attempt to protect the Potters in particular.

Amy Z

--------------------------------------------------
   The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon
 and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling.  
 It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:
   "*I get that all the time*."
                -HP and the Philosopher's Stone 
--------------------------------------------------