TBAY: More Assassin!Snape, Good and Evil

[wynnde1 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47001


Wendy sits, innocently drinking her brandy, thinking to herself, "this stuff 
really grows on you." She's well pleased with her evening so far, she seems 
to be getting along well with the other patrons, even if they *did* think she 
was shipping Voldemort and Snape until she managed to get her story straight 
. . . oops, that is get her real point across. And now the room is filled 
with lively chatter, mostly about her beloved Severus, so she's feeling all 
warm and fuzzy, when suddenly there is a commotion in the doorway. A woman in 
red leaps into the room, in a move reminiscent of a young Errol Flynn. 
Following behind is a dishevelled, and rather thick-looking boy with messy 
dark hair and glasses, also draped in red. 

"No one expects the Sirius Apologist!" the woman shouts. 

No one in the room looks remotely startled. "We're not talking about
Sirius, Dicentra" drawls one of the occupants. "So that's her name," thinks 
Wendy.

"Oh, but you *were*!" Dicentra cries. "I distinctly heard someone dissing 
Sirius."  She looks around.  "It was HER!" she says, lunging forward, poking 
Wendy in the chest with her wand.  "SHE's the one who said...

"'We've got LOADS more dirt on Sirius Black, for example. We know of a
very specific awful thing he did.' 

"Then she looked around guiltily as if expecting me to charge in right
away, but as everyone knows, No One Expects The Sirius Apologist, so I
had to wait until her guard was down.  Fortunately, Eileen ran
interference for me by telling Wendy that the only Sirius apologist
was Cindy, who was a bit indisposed at the moment. And *then* she said...

Wendy stands up before the woman can finish her sentence, feeling fairly 
brave (probably the brandy), and pushes the wand away. "Don't point that at 
me, kid," she drawls in a really bad impression of Clint Eastwood or similar. 
"I was never looking around *guiltily* - it was just self-preservation. I 
wanted to be ready in case some mental case came along and tried to 
expelliarmus me into the next time zone." Wendy bites her lip, realising that 
she has probably just implied that this woman is mental. Hopefully she won't 
notice. "Erm, okay," Wendy continues quickly, "what is it you were saying?"

"I was just repeating your slanderous allegations," Dicentra fumes. "You 
said, 
"'[Sirius is] an adult, and should realise that what he did was
heinously wrong. But he still sticks to his, "Snape deserved it"
story. Which is a load of crap, any way you look at it. And I'm simply
unable to respect Sirius because of it. Which is a shame, really,
because he's actually Dead Sexy. Now that he's cleaned up a bit, anyway.'"

"Yep," Wendy admits proudly. "I said all that, I did."

"See?!?  We're getting that old 'Snape isn't as bad as Sirius'
argument.  And I must say I Beg To Differ!" 

Dicentra looks around the room wildly.

"WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE PRANK!" says the entire room in unison.

"Fine then," says Dicentra, pulling up a chair and perching herself on
the back.  Her companion, a dazed-looking boy with glasses and messy
black hair, leans against the wall.  "Let's talk about Snape, and how
Bad he was.  And I'll begin by returning to what SHE said," Dicentra
waves her want threateningly at Wendy.

Wendy is getting a bit miffed at all this wand pointing. "Oh, for Pete's 
sake, *put that thing AWAY*!" Then she smiles, hoping to take some of the 
sting out of her words, still a bit nervous that this woman might actually 
blast her into another time zone. "They're right . . . we're not talking 
about the prank in here. I was talking about the prank with SophineClaire, 
though. So if you're interested in hearing exactly what I think about your 
obviously" <cough> " 'precious' Sirius, you'll find that post floating around 
somewhere well outside of the boundaries of the Bay.

"One of my main points in that post is that, even if Severus turns out to 
have been murderin', torturin' and rapin' along with the best of them, it 
still doesn't change the fact that Sirius did something awful for which he 
shows no remorse and should have been expelled!" She takes a deep breath. 
"So, there," she mutters under her breath.

Dicentra scowls at this upstart newcomer, shaking her head. "They'll let 
*anyone* in here these days, won't they?" she comments to her thus far silent 
companion. He doesn't seem to have noticed that she addressed him, so she 
pokes at him with her wand and his eyes focus briefly, just long enough for 
him to nod and grunt, "uh-huh."

Seemingly satisfied with this, Dicentra continues, "You said, Wendy, that at 
this point, canonically, we know of *nothing* concrete that Snape
has done which would necessitate a redemption, do we? Yes, he was a
Death Eater, but we have no details of crimes he committed.'

Dicentra gets a rather disturbing - or is it *disturbed* - look in her eyes 
before continuing, "What's this 'Yes, he was a Death Eater BUT' going on 
here?  There's
no BUT when it comes to being a Death Eater.  Don't you realize what
'Death Eater' means?  It's not some pseudo-scary name that Voldemort
gave his Legions of Terror.  It's a descriptive name that says what
they do.  They Eat Death."  

<snip very interesting, but not entirely canonical description of the 
properties of yew> 

"Umnh," Wendy begins, "Did you read all that stuff about yew in one of the 
Harry Potter books, because I don't seem to remember any of it. Not that it's 
not interesting, or anything, but you see, I've got *real* canons to back up 
my gripe against Sirius. And you've got something about trees . . .?"

Seeing the look which flashes across Dicentra's face, Wendy is not at all 
happy to realise that the woman and that flunky she's got with her are 
blocking Wendy's access to the exit, if she should happen to want to flee. 
She wonders if there's a back way out of here.

"What did you just say?" Dicentra asks, then shakes her head and continues in 
a tone which makes clear she thinks Wendy may very well be a complete idiot. 
"As you can see, yew trees are themselves death eaters: feasters on the dead. 
But I doubt Voldemort and his cronies are exhuming graves to gnaw on moldy 
old bones. No, they've undoubtedly found a new way to eat death--cause it, 
then profit from it.

"Seeing as how Voldemort's ultimate quest is immortality, it stands to
reason that his DEs are following him down that same path.  Is it not
probable that they've learned how to 'eat' the death of someone
they've AK'ed, adding that person's remaining lifespan to their own? 
And is it not reasonable to assume that anyone who made it into
Voldemort's Inner Circle pursued that path toward immortality with the
same vigor as Voldemort himself?  Do you really mean to tell me that
Snape became a Death Eater without Eating Death?  Surely, you jest!"

Dicentra looks around triumphantly.

"Wow," Wendy says eventually. "And here I thought you were just some nut off 
the street. But that's a really awesome theory. The first time I've heard it 
- is it new, or did I just miss it before? Eating Death. Yeah. That totally 
fits. I like it *a lot*!"

Dicentra looks surprised, but then a voice from somewhere in the back shouts 
out, " I suggest that Snape kept his hands relatively clean while he was in 
the ranks of the DEs."

"Who said that?" Dicentra demands pointing her wand first at one
person, then another.  "No one will fess up, will they?  But I know
all you Snapefans want to think that Snape turned on Voldemort because
he couldn't bring himself to develop a taste for killing.  That he
never descended to the level of Lucius Malfoy or Walden Mcnair. 
You've all been talking to that George out there, haven't you?" 

Dicentra has begun to froth at the mouth ever so slightly.  Her
glittering black eyes dart around the room. 

"Goblet of Fire," she barks to her companion, who starts out of a
light nap.  He produces a thick tome from his robes.

"Here we are... end of the Pensive chapter...  'Harry looked into
Dumbledore's light blue eyes and the thing he really wanted to know
spilled out of his mouth before he could stop it.'

"'"What made you think he'd really stopped supporting Voldemort,
Professor?"'

"'Dumbledore held Harry's gaze for a few seconds, and then said,
"That, Harry, is a matter between Professor Snape and myself."'

"See?  There's no reason why Dumbledore couldn't have told Harry right
then and there that Snape had developed a distaste for Voldemort's
Death-Eating ways.  There's nothing so secret about that.  He could
have explained to Harry that Snape wasn't as bad as the rest.  Surely
Harry should know something like that.  But no, Dumbledore's sitting
on a Bang, as sure as I'm standing here.  Snape turned back after
having been in up to his eyebrows."

Everyone in the room was staring either at Dicentra or at the nearest
means of escape, except for Wendy, who was staring off into a corner 
thoughtfully, a strange smile spreading across her face. "That's a fine 
lookin' canon you've got there, Missy," (Wendy wonders why the *heck* this 
stupid bad Western movie voice keeps coming out of her mouth). Wendy pulls 
her wand out, twirling it like an old-fashioned gunfighter. She points it and 
says, "Bang, Bang. Oops! Sorry George, I didn't mean to be pointing it at 
*you.*"

As George picks himself up from where he'd flung himself to the floor, 
Dicentra continues, "Which means that Assassin!Snape isn't so far out of 
character.  As
Elkins said, Snape's concept of Evil goes so deeply into Pure Evil
that anything less than the extreme falls into the "that's not so bad"
category.  Bullying Harry and Neville, for example, seems inexcusable
to us, but he's done so much worse it looks positively righteous to
him.  So effecting a 'surgical' kill, to prevent more deaths later on,
is not going to register on his Evil scale and neither, might I add,
on Albus Dumbledore's.  

"Having moral courage sometimes means doing one awful thing to prevent
something worse from happening.  The cop who takes out a fleeing,
armed suspect isn't at all happy about killing another human being
(they routinely go in for therapy after killing someone), but it has
to be done to prevent the suspect from killing someone else.  Soldiers
in a war have to kill too, in horrific ways, but if that's what you
have to do to prevent a hostile nation from taking over your country,
that's what you do."

"Umnh," Wendy breaks in. "That's not necessarily my definition of moral 
courage. Personally, I think it takes more courage to choose a path of 
non-violence. Okay, this is potentially a really huge off-topic debate in the 
making, so maybe I'd better stop now. But I think we're also getting 
deliciously close to the subject of good and evil, and how difficult they can 
be to define, based upon just whose side you're on. Actually, the 
Sirius/Prank vs. Snape/DeathEater contest is a great example of this. People 
who like Sirius will go to great lengths to explain why what he did isn't 
evil. Likewise the Snape apologists in their attempt to justify various of 
his actions. But in reality, we know that Sirius did something awful, and we 
have lots and lots of compelling reasons to suspect that Snape has done some 
pretty awful things, as well. Perhaps the point here is that good and evil 
are all relative. Or, at least not readily found in the rather childish way 
we are often apt to conceive of them. After all, in a war the invadees think 
of the opposition as a hostile force. But do the invaders think of themselves 
as evil? Of course not. They think of themselves as rightful owners of the 
territory, or crusaders bent on wiping whatever "evil" they perceive in the 
other side. Not that this is, I think, what we are being shown in the 
Voldemort situation. But it is very easy to wonder about this sort of dynamic 
when discussing the Sirius/Snape relationship, or even the rivalry between 
Draco and Harry. For all we know, Draco feels like the injured party, and is 
just retaliating in the only way he knows. So what do we really know about 
good and evil?" Wendy asks earnestly. "I would like to think that JKR wishes 
to show us something more complex, more realistic than the cartoon character 
(or pantomime) versions of good and evil we so often see. And I think she's 
started doing just that, with, for example, Snape. And maybe even Sirius. 
Hmnh. I know I have more thoughts on this subject, but right now they aren't 
actually formed in my head yet. Must be all this brandy. But I think it's 
worth thinking about, anyhow."

Suddenly, Pippin Apparates on the scene, startling Dicentra.

"Snape is going after Sirius," she declares before Disapparating.

Dicentra, nonplussed, mouths silently like a fish for a few moments
before finding her voice.

"Right..." she says, her voice breaking slightly.  "Dumbledore sends
Sirius to pull the Old Crowd together, and moments later sends Snape
out to kill him.  *That's* effective."  But a few tears have pooled in
her eyes and she runs from the room.

"Is that woman okay?" Wendy asks the others.

"Ah, don't worry about her," Eileen answers. "Well, to answer your question, 
probably not, but it's still nothing to worry about." 

"Okay." Wendy looks thoughtful again. "I did really like that canon of hers. 
You know the one about Dumbledore. That's pretty compelling evidence that 
Snape could have actually been a full-fledged, card-carryin', bloody-handed 
Death Eater." She studies Eileen, and then grins. "You didn't pay her to tell 
me that, considering you're in the middle of a conversion attempt and all?"


Wendy,
(Who apologises to the other patrons for not mentioning them by name, but is 
still new at this and feels like she *knows* Eileen well enough to put words 
in her mouth, but just isn't that friendly with everyone else yet. And who 
*really* hopes she hasn't butchered Dicentra's character too badly in this 
post! And who apologises for having banged at George, even in jest.)



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