Snape? ... A question ...

[Stacy Stroud]

No: HPFGUIDX 32600

haruspica23 wrote:

[snip]

Snape was a DE (no suprises there) but when he become a spy
>for the "old crowd," would he not reasonably have revoked his ties
>and friendly associations with the DE's?... Yet, as is so often
>brought up, Draco is his favorite student

A couple of observations:

Snape may now be anti-DE, but he is still highly pro-Slytherin, and Draco 
is just about the most promising Slytherin we've seen so far among the 
current Hogwarts students.  (Many of the others, rather than "ambitious and 
conniving," seem to be more "thuggish and unpleasant.")  Draco is also the 
rival of a gang of rule-breaking Gryffindors, led by a Potter, who always 
seem to come up smelling like roses no matter how bad their behavior -- 
sound familiar?  Snape no doubt sees echoes of his young self in Master Malfoy.

I believe I have seen elsewhere (on this list or another fan board) the 
suggestion that Snape may also be trying to "rescue" Draco from growing up 
to be a DE like Dad.  What with Dumbledore and the rest of the faculty 
always cooing over Harry, it's left to Snape to be the best adult support 
figure he can for a boy who has clearly been indoctrinated from birth into 
believing that the DE movement is a good thing.  Snape is hardly the 
world's best "buddy," much less surrogate father-figure, but it's possible 
that part of his favoritism in class is his way of letting Draco know that 
there's someone he can go to besides his father, should the need arise.

There's also the question of how much ex-Death Eaters like the Malfoys know 
about Snape's treachery.  During the time he was a spy, he would have kept 
up his DE connections and his pretenses of loyalty to Voldemort -- that's 
the whole utility of having him as an informant for Dumbledore's 
faction.  Voldemort apparently knows, now, but we don't know if Snape's 
cover was blown before the Dark Lord's fall or not.  True, he was given a 
teaching position by Dumbledore -- something you wouldn't expect of a loyal 
DE -- but then Lucius Malfoy was a school governor for awhile, and 
Karkaroff *ran* a wizarding school.  They could easily have assumed (and 
Karkaroff's interactions with Snape in GoF would support this) that he was 
another case of a DE pretending to go straight, as they had.  In that case, 
fawning over Lucius Malfoy's son would also be a way for Snape to hide his 
true colors, and thus keep himself from being assassinated in the night by 
other ex-DEs who at least had the decency to wait until Voldy had AKed 
himself before denying their master....


Stacy Stroud (deadstop at gte.net)
Hex Entertainment, Inc. (http://www.hexgames.com)