SNAPESNAPESNAPE / Dumbledore / Secret Passage / Indoor Plumbing

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 34936

Tabouli wrote of Snape:

> I think Snape turning up to Hogwarts at 11 knowing more curses than
> the 7th years is a very worrying indicator of what his childhood 
> must have been like. Whom did he want to curse? An abusive parent
> or guardian?

My theory has been that his parents never wanted to be burdened with 
children, but had one out of duty to carry on the family name, whom 
they then left with a stern governess and the only time they ever 
showed any approval of him was when he displayed enthusiasm and 
aptitude for learning curses (and possibly other Dark Arts). This 
resembles Pippin's theory in that no one cared about young Severus 
(well, the first nanny did, so Father fired her for making him 
'soft') but differs in that I don't think they were servants or 
Squibs. I think they were an old Pureblood family of 'yeoman' class, 
but with an excellent library gradually accumulated over the 
centuries, and a family tradition of Dark Arts.

Marina wrote:

> Karakoff, who we *know* cut a deal to save his neck, is slinking 
> off with his tail between his neck, but Snape is sticking around 
> and, apparently, going right back into the viper pit. Not the 
> behavior of a man who's only out for himself.

Whatever was the reason that Snape turned from following Voldemort to 
following Dumbledore, he's been following Dumbledore for a long time 
by GoF. I believe that he has found (or made) Dumbledore's approval 
his best source of self-esteem (with which to beat down the constant 
internal self-blame that I'm sure he feels, *especially* about his 
Death Eater crimes), so risking (even losing) his life to please 
Dumbledore is to him a fair bargain. That can count as being out for 
himself, just not out only for saving his skin. 

Elkins wrote:

> I can, however, readily see why those who identify with Snape might
> prefer to reject the notion that he could possibly have ever liked 
> such people. They certainly do not, to our way of thinking, seem 
> like terribly likeable individuals.  Although Mrs. Lestrange sure 
> was *sexy,* wasn't she?

Yes. To my mind, that is one of the reasons that poor Sevvie didn't 
like her as much as he liked the blokes in the gang. To my mind, he 
gets very uncomfortable when exposed to female sexuality. That 
doesn't necessarily mean he's gay; I'm sure it is a more common 
pattern that a heterosexual man who can't cope with his own sexual 
feelings (believing them sinful, perceiving them as a loss of 
self-control, simply being scared of the unfamiliar) takes a 
dislike (and, in extreme cases, become a homicidal maniac) to women 
who stir up those feelings in him.

> that of the perceived emotional inability of Slytherins in general,
> and DEs in particular, to form anything that we might consider real 
> friendships.

I'm sure Voldemort would not want his followers to have real 
friendships with each other (and still less with outsiders) because
 he doesn't want them to have any loyalty other than loyalty to him. 
But I believe that he was not able to stamp out all friendships (and 
love of family) among his followers. I fantasize that no Death Eater 
who turned State's Evidence ratted out any fellow Death Eater who had 
been a fellow classmate in Slytherin House at the same time, and that 
the ones who saved their arses tried to save their friends' arses as 
well. (Specifically, I imagine that Lucius Malfoy told a lie and made 
a deal that saved Narcissa and Mr and Mrs Crabbe and Mr and Mrs Goyle 
as well as himself.)

I imagine the irony of, self-loathing with which, Snape as Head of 
Slytherin House firmly reminding his kids that *Slytherins stick 
together* while he, *unlike* any of the Slytherins on the *Dark* Side, 
*had* betrayed his Slytherin school friends.

> It makes it a matter of essentialism, rather than existentialism: 
> he was _always_ better than all the rest of them by his very nature
>, and so he made a choice that none of the rest of them could ever 
> have made. I find this idea...oh, I don't know. Distasteful, I 
> suppose. Both distasteful and severely disappointing. 

Ouch! I have to plead guilty here. Trying to figure out Severus's 
backstory, I tried to figure out why a person would join the Death 
Eaters and then turn against them at a time when they still seemed to 
be winning. The feelings I figured he had are well expressed in 
Tabouli words: << He is respected, but somehow the respect of fellow 
torturers and the cruel, half-mad Voldemort who Crucios his own 
followers is more disturbing than gratifying.>> But for that to work 
for me, he had to have never liked killing and torturing in the first 
place. I can't think why someone who did enjoy the killing and 
torturing would turn against the Death Eaters while they were winning 
unless they had some dramatic event. Like the young man who was in a 
USAmerican NeoNazi group whose principles included euthanasia of 
'defectives', then his son was born with cleft palette, then one of 
his comrades mentioned "In a decent society, he would have been 
euthanised at birth" and the father's reflex reaction was "I don't 
want to associate with people who want to kill my child". 

Judy wrote:

> Well, in PS/SS, Dumbledore says that Snape could never forgive 
> James for saving his life. (snip) I don't think Snape would like 
> Dumbledore if Dumbledore had saved Snape's life. 

While Dumbledore doesn't lie, he does tell truth in idiosyncratic 
ways that his listeners don't understand correctly until they get 
more information. I don't believe that his statement above means that 
Snape would automatically hate anyone who saved his life under any 
circumstances. Maybe part of Snape's feeling against James is that he 
thinks James was viewed as a hero and given points for saving Snape's 
life that never would have been in danger except that James had 
deliberately (in collusion with Sirius) put him in that danger. That 
would be sort of like the people who deliberately set a fire (that 
becomes one of the summer's terrible forest fires) who that they can 
be viewed as a hero for reporting the fire and helping fight it.

Kyrstyne wrote:

> would Dumbledore knowingly put a man in a position where he could 
> possibly be killed? 

How could he not? This is war. People do get killed. Besides, death
is just 'the next great adventure', not the worst thing that could 
possibly happen. (Dumbledore certainly wouldn't *conceal* the danger 
from the person who was going on the mission, but how *far* would he 
go to make sure that the volunteer really understood how much danger 
there was?)

Amanda wrote:

> It has made us focus on the passageways to such an extent have 
> forgotten there may be others that not even the marauders found 
> (as witnessed by the Chamber of Secrets).

In PoA, when Fred and George give the Map to Harry, they point out
the passages on it and say: "Don't bother with the one behind the 
mirror on the fourth floor. We used it until last winter, but it's 
caved in -- completely blocked." I've always thought that the passage 
that caved in last year was a reference to the passage in CoS which 
was blocked by the stone fall, altho' I've never been quite sure how 
the passage that goes down from first floor bathroom can also start 
on the fourth floor.

Tex wrote:

> Where was the tunnel to the Chamber before Hogwarts got indoor 
> plumbing?

(The following rant has no canon.)
Hogwarts has had indoor plumbing since the beginning. The wizarding 
folk have had indoor plumbing (with hot and cold running water, 
showers, and flush toilets) at least since they lived in Atlantis, 
maybe longer than that. All Muggle indoor plumbing was invented by 
Muggles who had visited wizard houses, seen the conveniences there, 
and tried to figure out how to have the same conveniences at home. 

Muggle technology up to steam engines and gaslight (and maybe the 
early railroads) was an attempt by clever Muggles to do what they had 
seen wizards doing by magic. Then electricity was harnessed, for 
motors, telegraph, and electric light, and from then, Muggle 
technology advanced from its own internal momentum, and the wizards 
tried to invent magical ways to do the nifty stuff they saw Muggles 
do. Evidence for that last claim: the name Wizarding Wireless 
Network. It obviously was an imitation of Muggle wireless, because it 
copied the Muggle name, which was because it came upon the heels of 
telegraph, which is 'wire'. But the wizards didn't have 'wire' so why 
would they name it 'wireless'?  

(We Muggles still speak of 'wiring' money to a relative in urgent 
distress in another city, altho' only old people like me still say 
'news wire' and 'wire service' for press agencies like AP and TASS 
(whose new Russian instead of Soviet acronym I can't remember))