Snape

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 27564

Rowena wrote:

>     Harry believes only Dumbledore's intervention kept
> Snape from failing him but I think he's wrong. Severus
> has his own kind of integrity. Just as he would never
> physically harm a student I don't believe he would
> fail one who'd earned a pass - even if he did give
> them the lowest grade he could manage.

It is really Dumbledore's integrity being called into question here.  
During the exam, Snape "scribbled something that looked suspiciously 
like a zero" and there's nothing in the description of the exam to 
indicate that Harry deserved higher (PA 16).  If Dumbledore 
intervened, it may well have been to get Snape to pass Harry even 
though his grade didn't merit it.  (An unfounded American college 
legend says that if your roommate dies, you automatically get straight 
A's for that semester.  What do you get if during the year in 
question, the insane right-hand man of the Evil Overlord tried to kill 
you while soul-sucking creatures forced you to relive your parents' 
murder?)

OTOH, Harry isn't always realistic in assessing this kind of thing--cf 
his panic attack at the beginning of the book when he thinks he's 
going to be at least expelled and probably sent to Azkaban for nothing 
more than a magically-enhanced temper tantrum--so maybe he was never 
really in any danger of failing.  Whew.  Poor Albus has already been 
accused of being vain this week; I hate to add corrupt.

Amy Z
prolific today because she has an enormous pile of work she actually 
should be doing

----------------------------------------------
 Snape made them all nervous, breathing down
 their necks while they tried to remember 
 how to make a Forgetfulness potion.
             -HP and the Philosopher's Stone 
----------------------------------------------