SHIP: Snape the VAMPISH TRICKSTER, Ron as 7th son

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 38236

Dawn breaks over the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS, and a single golden sunbeam pierces the porthole, illuminating the MAGIC (Magnificent Acronym Generating Intelligent Computer) machine in the corner of her cabin.  Captain Tabouli smiles peacefully, and is just about to roll over and go back to sleep when she hears a familiar, sinister voice hissing at the door.

Cindy:
>We need an acronym -- a really long, impossible-to-remember acronym.

There is a soft slithering noise, and a note appears under the door.  Rubbing her eyes wearily, the Captain stumbles to the door and picks it up.  It is scattered with bloodstained owl feathers.  The Captain brushes these away and tries to focus on what appears to be a list of evidence that Snape is Ever So Evil.  As she muses, a second note slips under the door.

Eloise:
>Of course he wanted to save the Stone from Voldemort. He 
didn't want Voldemort to be immortal. He instead played a waiting game, 
waiting just like Voldemort for the right moment, the moment when Voldemort 
would be strong enough to regain his body and then aids the process by 
providing the recipe (at least) of a potion which contains the fatal flaw 
which will allow his downfall - Harry's blood. Is it a coincidence, I ask 
myself, that Snape is an expert in the very field which restores Voldemort to 
his body?<

Chilled, Captain Tabouli considers this.

All in all, she muses, Snape's actions have been very... conflicting.  It's clear that he hates Harry, yet he saved him from death at the hands of Quirrell, Voldemort's servant.  He learned truckloads of curses as a small boy, and joined Voldemort as a young man, revelling in the torture of innocent people, yet then he *apparently* swapped sides and turned spy for Dumbledore - or so Dumbledore announced at Karkaroff's trial in front of hundreds of wizards - and from his reaction to Fake Moody's insinuation in GoF, appears to value the trust Dumbledore puts in him.  He relishes bullying and intimidating his students, yet he secretly looks after them behind the scenes, even after they've knocked him unconscious.  Lucius Malfoy is in Voldemort's inner circle, and therefore technically now Snape's enemy, yet he fawns on and favours Lucius' son.  Snape clearly does not care whether people like him, yet he seems to crave the honour of an Order of Merlin.

Could it be that instead of negotiating conflicting loyalties between his honourable soul and vindictive nature, Snape's behaviour reflects that he is pursuing his own, obscure, and yet unmistakeably sinister agenda, and has convinced not only Dumbledore, but Fudge and Voldemort that he is actually working in their interests?  Is he saving Harry up for use as a secret weapon against Voldemort?  Does he value Dumbledore's trust because Dumbledore, of all people, is the one he most needs to keep fooled?  Does he bully Neville because Neville alone has residual toddler memories of the Truth about Snape?  Does he favour Draco because he is secretly colluding with Lucius Malfoy to take over first the Death Eaters, and then the world? Is he just seducing everyone into a sense of false security, convincing everyone he's their ally, in preparation for the devastating revolution to come? Oooo, the V.A.M.P.I.S.H. T.R.I.C.K.S.T.E.R... (Voldemort's A Mere Pawn In Snape's Hands.  The Really Iniquitous Crime King's Snape, The Evil Reprobate!)

Pleased with her morning's work, the Captain files away her new acronym and heads for the deck.  Just as she has settled into her favorite deck chair to eat her breakfast and watch the sun play on Theory Bay, her cabin boy whispers news of a terrible slander in her ear:

Caroline and husband:
> 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.)

Soft?  SOFT???

A roar shakes the rigging as Captain Tabouli rises, scattering and shattering the components of her breakfast.  SOFT??  What is the meaning of this?  Is this man implying that Snape is too tough a guy to succumb to romance?  Too hard?  Too cool and calculating and nasty, too MACHO to fall victim to Cupid's arrow?

Two burly crew members restrain the roaring captain, while the deck hands timidly sweep up the mess.

Ha!  snarls the Captain, quivering with indignation.  Snape, a Lone Ranger Macho Man With No Emotions?  He goes into poetic torrents over a pot full of rat spleens!  He bullies 11 year old children!  Despite being a senior teacher and professional adult, he can't restrain himself from blistering stares at Harry, allegedly because Harry's dad was better than him at Quidditch and rescued him at school!  He *totally* loses his cool in PoA and lets a few kids turn him into a shaking, screeching mess!!  He gloats, he sneers, he glares witheringly, he looks like he wants to strangle people, he grips the back of chairs when Ginny is taken into the Chamber, he gets all upset when Fake Moody implies that Dumbledore shouldn't trust him...

...Snape is a *very* emotional man.  A passionate man.  He's passionate about his discipline, he's passionate about his likes and dislikes, he's passionate about his grudges.  He's even pale with greasy dark hair and dresses in swirling black cloaks!  The man is practically a Goth romantic!  He has more than enough emotions to fall in love and be extremely passionate and tortured about it.  And, judging by his ability to hold grudges unto the second generation even when the original culprit is dead, capable of letting that passion torture him long after she has died.

Nope, nope, won't budge on this one.  Snape is an *ideal* candidate for a tortured romance.  And, when you consider what he would have gone through if he did indeed love Lily, it's not soft at all.  In fact, the bitterness of what has happened ever since the fateful Potions class where he fell for her is most likely part of what turned him so hard...


Ama:
> Unfortunately, my own theorylet "S.N.A.P.E.C.L.I.F.F."
(Swarthy Nursling Abuses Potter jr., Enraged he Caused
Lilly's Immolation; will Fester Forever) never left
the harbour.  Perhaps Captain Tabouli needs some extra
ballast for the H.M.S. Lollipops, in which case
S.N.A.P.E.C.L.I.F.F. is ready to be of service!<

Calming down at last, Captain Tabouli returns to the remains of her breakfast, and is just about to order a second breakfast when a black cloaked figure swirls into view.  The hood falls back to reveal a face contorted with anguish.  With a sweeping, tragic gesture, the figure flourishes an acronym, SNAPECLIFF, in her face, before hurling itself against the mast with a howl of pain.  There are several sprigs of what appear to be heather caught on the cloak.

The Captain is taken aback, but reminds herself of her welcoming, inclusive nature and kindly offers the cloaked figure a cup of tea and a bleak, windswept room near the stern of the ship, offering grim views of the dying theories who float sadly in the wake of LOLLIPOPS...

Athena:
> This is a call to Tabouli and/or Grey Wolf for an acronym to one of my pet
theories.  The one with the slightly obscured alphabetic naming scheme to
hide a missing Weasley son which would make Ron a seventh son and have
latent psychic powers which would allow him to flourish outside the shadows
of his brothers and Harry.<

Poor old Ron, eh?  It's just not fair.  Overshadowed by his brother, overshadowed by his best friends... what a:

W.A.N.T.O.N. M.O.R.A.S.S. O.F. T.O.S.H. (Weasleys Alphabetically Named Third Omitted Nipper, Making Our Ron A Seventh Son, Outstripping Fellows Through Oracular Secrets Harboured)


Grey Wolf (quoting Felicia):
>> a more vengeful version of L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S. (see
>> Tabouliani for in depth explanations and discussions).
>
>Note: the name is "Tabouli". Haven't the faintiest of what it means, 
though. I remember because it reminds me of a continent in a fantasy 
book.<

Ah.  I think Felicia meant to say "Tabouliana", her personal term for the output of my keyboard.  As for "Tabouli" itself, as I once recounted on OT, this is my favorite spelling of a Middle Eastern salad whose main ingredients, according to my Mediterranean cookbook, are parsley, mint, bulgur wheat (?), and tomatoes.  Don't especially like the salad (also spelt tabbouleh, tabuli, various others), but I always liked the word...

Tabouli.


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