Snape fulfilling his life debt

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 42436

Hei Lun wrote:

> 
> Does anyone have a problem with the fact that Snape has a life-debt 
> to James Potter in the first place?  The only reason why James was 
> even in a position to save Snape's life was because James's best 
> friend had set Snape up to find another of James's friends as a 
> werewolf.  It doesn't seem right to me that James got Snape 
indebted 
> from a situation that his friends had created.  And arguably, James 
> saved Snape's life as much to prevent himself from being expelled 
(or 
> worse) as to actually save Snape's life.
> 
> --Hei Lun

Excellent point. Dumbledore speaks of life debts in almost 
reverential tones. It seems crazy to think that such power can be 
manipulated. I do not believe James set up Snape just to save him, 
putting him in his debt, but it would be easy to see how someone 
could set up a similar situation in order to secure life debts.

Again, there seems to be differences between how Harry saved Wormtail 
and how James saved Snape. 

First, Wormtail was guaranteed to die. Snape would have gone into an 
extremely dangerous situation, but perhaps could have gotten out of 
it on his own. 

Second, as you point out, James had something to gain by saving 
Snape. Harry really had nothing to gain. (It remains to be seen how 
Wormtail will pay back his debt, but Harry certainly did not know 
about life debts when he talked Lupin and Black out of killing 
Wormtail.)

My own pet theory is that Lily talked James into stopping Snape, 
making any indebtedness to Lily, rather than James.

The facts according to Dumbledore are that Snape feels indebted to 
James. Snape himself, at least in front of Harry, downplays, even 
denigrates, James' act.

I submit that Snape does feel a debt, but it is not a magically 
binding debt. It is something his own sense of honor demands.

Darrin
-- And I'd rather see the debt be to Lily anyway. :)