Snape and the Longbottoms

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 33934

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Eric Oppen" <oppen at c...> wrote:

 > One thing to keep in mind about Snape's attitude toward the 
 > senior Longbottoms is that during the latter stages of the 
 > First Voldemort War, the Aurors were about as ruthless and 
 > hair-triggered as the DEs themselves.  We don't _know_ how 
 > Mr. Longbottom, or both Longbottoms if they were both
 > Aurors, approached their duties...were they like Mad-Eye 
 > Moody, and at least willing to _try_ not to kill, or were 
 > they more like Judge Dredd on acid?

Heh.  Oh, boy, do I like *you!*  My original de-lurk actually
had some very harsh things to say about Aurors, but I was too
cowardly to leave them in.  You're very brave.

But I can't quite bring myself to believe that Longbottom
was Judge Dredd on acid.  Dumbledore gives too great an
impression of having approved of the man, and while my
readings of the books may often be a tad subversive, I
just can't quite help myself.  I do trust Dumbledore.

No, I'm sure that Frank Longbottom was not all that bad, as
Aurors go.  (I don't think that his wife was an Auror,
BTW.  Had she been one, then Crouch's summary of his son's 
crimes in the Pensieve scene would surely have included 
something about the prisoners having captured *two* Aurors, 
rather than an Auror and "his wife.")  I feel reasonably
confident that Longbottom was a "Good Auror."

For whatever *that's* worth.

I mean, let's take a look at our exemplar of "Good Auror"
for a moment, shall we?  Alastor Moody.  Dumbledore's friend.
The man Sirius claims was one of the better ones.  Tried to
avoid killing.  All of that.  What do we know about him?

Well, he doesn't believe in plea bargains, which is certainly
understandable -- most cops don't.  But he also seems to 
consider it morally acceptable to _break faith_ with captive
prisoners ("Let's hear his information, I say, and throw him
straight back to the dementors.")  He is not adverse to 
dehumanizing his enemies; he feels free to sneer at them;
in the course of a single page, he refers to Karkaroff as both
"filth" and "scum."  He is skeptical of Dumbledore's 
judgement of Snape; he does not believe in second chances.
He tries not to kill, but he doesn't seem unduly bothered
by it when he does so.  And he approves of the use of the 
dementors as prison guards.  ("For scum like this...")

Also, word of Crouch/Moody's decision to torture a student 
surely must have made its way to Dumbledore's ears at some
point, and it didn't tip him off.  I think it safe to assume
that such an action would have been in character for the
real Moody as well.

And this is one of the GOOD Aurors.

I know that many people on this board really really *like*
Moody, and that I'm probably making myself very unpopular 
by saying this, but I simply must.  I don't like Moody.  
I really don't care for him at all.  He strikes me as the 
sort of person who would happily strip away all of my civil 
liberties, given half the chance, and I consider such men a 
serious threat to civilized society.  

<deep breath>

There.  I've said it.  I feel better now.

<Eric offers a hypothetical scenario which would explain
why Snape might have a bone to pick with the Longbottoms>

A while back, JudySerenity wrote that the fates of Snape's
old friends might have given him a "powerful reason to hate 
Aurors."  To which I was sorely tempted to reply: does 
anyone really need a *personal* reason to hate Aurors?

Sirius -- no bleeding-heart himself -- says that many of 
the Aurors descended to the level of the Death Eaters.
We've heard about the licence to kill; we've heard about
the licence to use the Unforgivables.  God only knows how
many innocent people were interrogated under Cruciatus
in those dark days before Voldemort's defeat.  Or, for
that matter, how many other "special powers" Crouch invested
in his jackbooted thu...er, excuse me, I mean Protectors of
the People, before he was done.  Search and seizure, anyone?
Surveillance without warrant?  Indefinite detention without
arrest?

(Am I treading too closely on current political events here?)

Hey, or how about Profiling?  Returning briefly to the issue of 
the members of Snape's little clique who did *not* become 
Death Eaters, does anyone but me worry about what might have 
happened to them during those years?  

If we want to assume that Snape doesn't like Aurors, I really
don't think we have to wander too far into the realms of the
personal.  There are plenty of reasons why even perfectly
law-abiding witches and wizards with no personal baggage
might dislike them as a general class.


             -- Elkins