Severus Snape is Ever So Evil/Wandless Magic

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38187

Eloise on Cindy's proposal that Snape is Ever So Evil!:

1. Cindy is right.
Is it really possible that Snape's loyalty to Dumbledore is a sham? Well, 
he's apparently a spy. He must be able  to dissemble. Did he (as I asked once 
before) therefore recruit Pettigrew? Has he been preserving Harry to use his 
blood in that restorative potion when the time was right? 

My comment:

I think Cindy's wrong here (creative, nonetheless!).  Quirrell says he tried 
to kill Harry, presumably at Voldemort's direction, and Snape was performing 
the countercurse to save him.  That's not the action of a faithful servant.  
Besides, if Voldemort got the stone, Harry's blood would not have been 
needed.  And Voldemort surely knew all this, since he was under the turban 
while Snape was cajoling, harassing and attempting to terrorize Quirrell.  So 
I can't buy Snape as being, in truth, the faithful servant.

   Was he *really* 
> 

Or maybe just for himself?  Or for the glory of turning in a fellow professor 
who was out to steal the Stone?
> 
> 2. Voldemort *believes* that Snape is his Faithful Servant, but is actually 
> wrong.
> This could have some merit, I think. I think it was Tabouli who pointed out 
> that it was the perfect cover for (loyal to Dumbledore) Snape to pretend to 
> Voldemort that he was a double agent, to the point where he was outed 
> publically as an ex-DE.
> 
I don't think the evidence supports this one either.  Voldemort says 
specifically that the faithful servant procured Harry's attendance in the 
graveyard.  Unless Crouch Jr is lying through his teeth to get credit for 
Snape's actions (which I suppose is possible), Crouch is the faithful 
servant.  See also the comment to #1:  Voldemort saw what Snape was doing in 
PS/SS, so he's unlikely to still believe that Snape is a double agent working 
for him.

> 3. Voldemort is actully referring to Crouch/Moody. Well this is evidently 
> what we're *supposed* to believe, at least by the denoument. It's what 
> Crouch 
> Jr himself believes (although this again could be misdirection). I am 
> inclined to think, though, that the fact that Voldemort talks about how his 
> Faithful Servant will rejoin him, at a that point we know is in between his 
> torturing of Bertha for information and his arrival with Pettigrew at the 
> 

I agree that Crouch was the true faithful servant.  I also think Voldemort 
intended the DEs to believe that Crouch was one of the three dead, which 
would leave Snape as the faithful servant, in their eyes.  The DEs 
undoubtedly believe that Crouch is dead, and they make no noise when 
Voldemort references 3 dead in his service; they only begin to murmur at the 
revelation of the faithful servant.

Why would Voldemort misdirect his followers?  To protect the identity of his 
real spy at Hogwarts.  I doubt Voldemort trusts even those DEs that have 
returned; after all, he accuses them of having been unfaithful all these 
years. (Would you trust slime like this?)  He knows what Karkaroff did when 
he was caught, and he's not sure that others who avoided capture might not do 
the same in the future. Moreover, Crouch's usefulness as Moody does not end 
merely because he has delivered Harry to Voldemort.  Moody may have had a 
one-year appointment at Hogwarts, but he is still an Auror and has the 
contacts to be very useful.   Had the plan worked, Harry would have been 
dead, but the war would still be on, Voldemort would need a spy, and Snape is 
a turncoat and therefore unavailable.  Crouch/Moody would still appear to be 
the loyal Auror; he might even have been planning to finger Snape, whose 
loyalty to Dumbledore might still be suspect, as the insider who got Harry 
out of Hogwarts. 

There's only one thing wrong with this idea -- it's what Eloise calls the 
"creative accounting" problem.  Crouch is both the third dead DE and the 
faithful servant.  There are two ways around this:  one is Eloise's solution:

Well.....A nasty moment there. I don't think I can agree that Snape *is* the 
Faithful servant <sigh of relief>, but I do think Cindy is right in pointing 
out that we have an unidentified, dead DE. Any takers?

Me:

This is one possibility,  but if there IS a third dead DE, nobody except 
Voldemort knows he's dead.  Given this limitation, who could it be and why?  
Did someone give his body to be the baby?  Or die another way?  I'll have to 
comb the books for some likely candidates.

Or maybe the sixth missing DE is really alive -- either cowardly like 
Karkaroff or otherwise prevented from coming.  That's in fact what Cindy 
suggested:

> Who would that be?  Crouch Jr., of course.  See, Voldemort isn't stupid.  
> Well, maybe he is.  But he's smart enough not to reveal to the DEs 
> that Crouch Jr. is alive.  Voldemort tells his DEs in the graveyard 
> that there are three dead DEs knowing full well that the number is 
> only two.  

Perhaps Voldemort plans to to have the sixth person sacrifice himself as the 
one who has left Voldemort's service forever, to protect Crouch/Moody's 
cover.  This would set up the opportunity for a future revelation that some 
living person we know is a former DE.  Eloise and Cindy have already named 
some candidates, including my favorite, the Ever So Evil! Ludo Bagman.  I 
think I would prefer this scenario but for the fact that an outright lie is 
not JKR's typical method of misdirection.  (And isn't it one of the stupid 
things that literary villains always do to ensure their downfall, tell the 
truth in front of their intended victims while staging the pre-murder 
spectacle?)  

Either way, my view (Crouch as Faithful Servant But DEs Think Otherwise) 
leaves FMAT dead as a doornail, Fourth Man Avery still afloat on Theory Bay 
(I'm hovering near in my scuba gear), Snape's status as double agent before 
Voldemort's fall intact, and Snape safely out of the clutches of Evil.

But that's before we address scenario #4, from Caroline's husband:

> 4.  Snape is Ever So Evil but NOT a faithful DE
> 
> According to this theory, Snape has Evil Overlord ambitions of his 
> own.  He is keeping Harry alive because he knows Harry's Big Bangy 
> Secret (whatever that may be), the secret that means that Harry has 
> the best chance of anyone to defeat Voldemort.  
> 
> Snape's hatred of Harry doesn't have anything to do with LOLLIPOPS 
> (too soft for a guy like Snape, in my husband's opinion.)  Nope, 
> Snape resents Harry because he has to keep him alive.  Because for 
> whatever reason, Harry can do what Snape himself can't (defeat 
> Voldemort).
> 
> Then, of course, there will then be a scene in book #7, after Harry 
> defeats V, in which Snape turns and thanks Harry for ridding the 
> world of Voldemort… now no-one stands in the way! (followed by evil 
> laughter, general shock, and Ron—if still alive—making I-told-you-so 
> 

Hmm.  I shouldn't like this scenario at all, as I maintain Snape left the DEs 
at least in part out of principle.  But it fascinates.  I think he's on 
Dumbledore's side, for now.  But I can envision the possibility of Snape 
making the big power grab when Harry defeats Voldemort, even if he's not 
planning it now.  Why would he do this?  For the same reason he joined the 
DEs in the first place.  All his life, he's been bested in everything by 
Potter (well, almost everything; I still think Snape makes a better potion).  
At Hogwarts, Potter got everything he wanted (academic superiority, 
popularity, Lily, Dumbledore's approval, or any or all of the above), and 
Snape couldn't succeed in getting him expelled for his transgressions.  Now 
he's switched sides at great personal risk and labors in obscurity at 
Hogwarts, and once again Potter gets everything he wants.  Snape hounds 
Quirrell for an entire school year to get the information about the Stone, 
and when he's ready to catch Quirrell red-handed, Harry steps in and gets the 
glory for himself.  In PoA, just when the capture of Sirius Black was in his 
reach, Potter & friends step in, knock out Snape and arrange Black's escape 
-- all with Dumbledore's approval.  His efforts to get Potter expelled fall 
on Dumbledore's deaf ears (well, in truth, I don't think Snape expects Harry 
to be expelled, and it's not in Snape's interest as a former DE with a price 
on his head).  Snape is angry and frustrated about Potter, but he's older and 
wiser than when he was a teenager, and he knows better than to become a toady 
to Voldemort even if he could convince Voldemort not to kill him outright.  
But he wants glory for himself and a Potter will always stand in the way.  In 
the end, when Potter fulfills Trelawney's prophecy, it's too much for Snape 
and he initiates a coup, which will fail.

Well, that's the history repeats itself theory.  It would be consistent with 
JKR's evident dislike of him.  And while I like the parallels, I cannot, at 
least for now, accept the idea of Snape's treachery.  I think I'll remain a 
Snapefan.

And on Eloise's question about Voldemort's inability to do wandless magic:

Voldemort tells the DEs in the graveyard that without his body he was "as 
powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself 
. . . for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required 
the use of a wand."

Voldemort is capable of doing magic, because he states that he broke Bertha's 
Memory Charm himself, before he got Pettigrew to get him the baby body.  But 
evidently magic powerful enough to procure him a body requires a wand, and a 
powerful hand to wield it. 

Debbie, who wishes her husband had interesting theories about Snape, or 
anyone else for that matter


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