Who Trusts Snape?! (OofP spoilers)

[tigerpatronus]

No: HPFGUIDX 66878

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Brooke" <brookeshanks at m...> 
wrote:
> Apparently Dumbledore trusts Snape, but I am having a harder time 
of 
> it.  <SNIP>   
> DOES ANYONE THINK SNAPE OWES DUMBLEDORE A LIFE DEBT, THEREFORE THAT 
> MAY BE WHY DUMBLEDORE TRUSTS HIM?  <SNIP>
> Brooke

TigerPatronus types wildly:

I also don't think that there's a life debt balance ledger out there, 
with some life debt accountant making sure that you don't get behind 
in your payments, otherwise, it's "curtains" or "portal veils" or 
whatever, for you. 

I think DD is just a terrible judge of character. You can call him 
sweet and just to give bad people second chances, maybe even more 
chances, but I think he's got a seriously flawed sense of who to 
trust. 

He didn't notice that Crouch!Moody was an imposter for nine months, 
and then it was one dumb act (absconding with Harry), not an 
accumulation of evidence about his personality or wrong reactions. If 
the pod people impersonated some old friend I'd fought a war with, I 
think I'd know. I hope I would. 

DD also hired Quirrel, a guy with a bad sense of who to hang around 
with, who was already in thrall to LV. 

And DD hired Lockehart, that poseur. 

And DD made Tom Riddle the Head Boy, the guy who got Hagrid thrown 
out and killed someone with his pet basilisk, who did some other less-
than-good stuff after he left Hogwarts. 

And DD thought SB was indeed the mass murderer. 

DD didn't suss out the truth about Wormtail, who lived in his school 
for almost three years as a rat, either. 

And DD never figured out he had three unregistered animagi running 
around Hogwarts for a couple years, hanging with his favorite 
lycanthrope, who he was supposed to be watching carefully. 

And DD left HP with the Dursleys, and while there may have 
been "blood magic" protecting his life, anyone who takes in a 
child "furiously, bitterly," isn't going to love or nurture that 
child. If love is Harry's greatest weapon, DD nearly stripped him of 
it by allowing his formative years to be spent with the Dursleys. If 
this weren't fiction, Harry would be seriously disturbed and have an 
attachment disorder. He would be a sociopath. (Thank all the Old Ones 
that this does not describe our sweet Harry, or even our angry, 
puberty-addled Harry.)

And DD froze HP out when HP was most vulnerable to LV who had been 
recently reincarnated, which DD knew about, thus exacerbating the 
situation, perhaps making HP more vulnerable to LV. 

And DD didn't tell HP things he should have known in a timely manner, 
which meant that HP made some really terrible mistakes in OotP. He 
still didn't explain everything. There was loads more that he didn't 
explain, like what that "in essence divided" snake thing meant. 

I don't think DD is actually evil, but just because his eyes twinkle 
and he makes silly jokes and he likes lemon drops, can we trust 
everything he says and everyone he trusts? 

In short, I don't trust Snape at all. I think DD's been wrong before 
and is wrong that Snape can be trusted this time, too. Sometimes, the 
evil ones turn out to be evil. 

TK