Is Snape confident?

[junediamanti]

No: HPFGUIDX 86220

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nora Renka" <nrenka at y...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "junediamanti" 
> <june.diamanti at b...> wrote:
> 
> <snips shamelessly and with reckless abandon!>

June:
Snip away - we're all pals here!
> 
>> 
> *emerges from the woodwork yet again*
> 
> I will cheerfully concede that Snape is wonderfully confident in 
that 
> opening; a good way to rivet a class, and make sure they pay 
> attention--and Potions seems to have a high level 
of....occupational 
> hazard, so that's important.  But Snape isn't always confident, 
being 
> Mr. Walking Contradiction that he is.  Think about the Shrieking 
> Shack--yes, he's under stress, yes...but the way he *explodes* when 
> Hermione suggests taking a listen, and thinking things through?  
> That's not confidence.  That's 'I-want-to-get-this-over-with-NOW', 
> and something else...

June:
I don't think Snape's going into meltdown suggests a crisis of 
confidence.  Here's the next episode in my Snape loved Lily take (and 
I don't particularly claim any original thinking here) but lets look 
at his motivation in the Shrieking Shack incident very carefully in 
the light of what I believe.  On 31 October c. 1981 (I am adhering to 
the Lexicon Timeline here)Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow to what 
should have been a safe house and murdered James and Lily Potter.  
They were in a safe house precisely because Snape had tipped off 
Dumbledore, and by implication the Order, that this might happen. He 
had been the eavesdropper at the Hogs Head.  After he tells LV - he 
realises just who the prophecy concerns - and now it's personal. 
Following understanding this information Snape not only becomes an 
informant but actively changes sides.  I suspect that at this point, 
he learned Occlumency from the real master Occlumens - Dumbledore.  
Dumbledore takes Snape's tip off seriously as well he might - and as 
a skilled Legilimens he is able to make a good judgement as to 
whether it is true or not - this by the way is why he trusts Snape so 
much.  Following this, arrangements are made for the concealment of 
the Potters and remember Dumbledore also knows the contents of the 
Prophecy and thanks to Snape is able to see the game from both ends.  

How to protect the Potters?  The special Fidelius charm is operated 
with a secret keeper.  Now I believe that Snape would automatically 
suspect that Sirius Black was the secret keeper - and why not - it's 
the obvious choice.  If anything, he's going to avoid knowing any 
real details about this like the plague, given that he is so close to 
LV so at no time before the murders is he going to ask Dumbledore for 
information as to who the secret keeper really is.

Naturally, we all know that Sirius wasn't the secret keeper - 
Pettigrew was and he ratted on them fairly quickly.  So the Potters 
die and Harry is saved.

The next canon evidence we have of what Snape was doing is that he 
was appointed Potions Master at Hogwarts the September following the 
death of the Potters and the Fall of LV. So what was he doing before 
that?  My suggestion is that he was pretty much in a state of 
breakdown.  He probably found out about the deaths and the fall very 
early (my own suspicion is he knew that very night) and if he did 
love Lily, and given the fact that he was so involved in getting 
information on the prophecy for Voldemort - regardless of the fact 
that he changed sides, this messes with his mind quite a bit.  He was 
appointed to Hogwarts because there was a vacancy, because he needed 
somewhere to stay and was pretty fragile at the time.

Time passes, and he mends a bit, though only outwardly I suspect.  He 
constructs a fairly effective outward shell of nastymindedness.  One 
thing is in his mind and that is revenge - he feels heavily 
implicated in the deaths of the Potters, but there is a worse traitor 
in his eyes - the secret keeper who betrayed them - Sirius Black and 
given his and Snape's history - Snape is not going to believe 
anything but the worst of Black.  So putting Black into a fate worse 
than death is certainly not "a schoolboy grudge" it goes much deeper 
than that.  

And the sight of people who (Snape feels) should know better 
conniving at the escape of this accessory before the fact of murder 
puts him beyond fury.

> 
>> 
> Which reminds me, Snape-apologists; is one of Snape's most chilling 
> quotes (to me) just a role being played?
> 
> PoA, p. 416 (Scholastic hardcover)
> 
> "...only hope Dumbledore's not going to make difficulties," Snape 
was 
> saying.
> 
> Unless that's Fudge-Pandering-Role-Playing!Snape, that's not a good 
> sentiment. At all.  Wanting your superior, who you clearly owe a 
lot, 
> out of the way?  An attempt to get something done that you really 
> know you shouldn't?  Comments?

June:
Yeah, one or two <g>.  Snape has been on the receiving end of DD's 
soft heart - a harder man might well have handed him (Snape)over to 
the authorities.  Snape doesn't want the "charming" Sirius Black 
getting the opportunity to work that ole Black magic on any 
sympathetic listeners.  Just let the Dementors snog him and have 
done.  

You might wish to know that I consider Snape's actions on the night 
of the Shrieking shack his very worst moments in the entire canon.  
There may well have been a rather long employee/boss interview later 
that night or early that morning.  And even if he was sorry, he still 
found time to be very petty and expose Lupin as a werewolf the next 
day,  I don't think his actions are entirely excusable.  His apparent 
smugness at the idea of Black getting his is repellent - even to me, 
a big time Snape fan.  However, when we consider this in the light of 
a man finally achieving a long goal - ie sticking Lily's murder to 
Black, his actions become understandable if not entirely excusable. 


> -Nora (who loves arguing with the Snape apologists, and means no 
> offense by any comments of a moral nature or otherwise)

June:
None taken whatsoever!

June - who will jump at the chance to defend the REAL hero of the 
saga.