Whose Man Snape?

[derannimer]

No: HPFGUIDX 69563

Ya know, I initially hated this idea, but I am really starting to think that Snape *was* 
the eavesdropper in the pub. 

For one simple reason.

Which has probably already been brought up fifty times before.

Sorry.

Anyway, though, here it is: unless the eavesdropper in the Hogs Head is important, 
there is no reason to have an eavesdropper at all. Because there was *another* 
channel for Voldemort to have plausibly found out about the Prophecy -- Rookwood. 
Why didn't JKR just have *Rookwood,* who works, as we know from GOF and OOP, at 
the Department of Mysteries, tell Voldemort about the Prophecy? There is simply no 
reason to go through all of this rigamarole about a mysterious eavesdropper unless 
the mysterious eavesdropper is important for reasons *other* than the plot necessity 
of Voldemort's discovering about the existence of the Prophecy. 

I bet it's Snape. 

Can you *imagine* how Harry would react?

Btw, as those who know me could perhaps have predicted, I am by no means weaving 
any of this into a Severus Snape Is Ever So Evil spec. 

<Derannimer shoots a nasty look at Darrin.>

Trelawney's prediction was, what, more than a year before Voldemort fell, right? 
There is absolutely no reason that Snape couldn't have told the Prophecy -- or what 
he heard of it -- to Voldemort and then switched sides. Actually, at the moment my 
preferred scenario is that he told Voldemort the Prophecy, not knowing who the 
Prophecy would eventually apply to; Voldemort, after a moment's swift thinking -- 
<snort> -- decides to go after the Potter's; Snape, because of Love Of Lily or the life 
debt to James or what have you, switches sides, not just out of general guilt over his 
DE-hood, but also from a specific concern to try and avert some of the damage he 
has set in motion. 

<Derannimer takes a moment to feel fond of Snape, then notices that people are 
looking at her strangely, and briskly continues.>

Anyway, I think that a scenario like this would explain a great deal of Dumbledore's 
caginess with Harry over Snape's past. It isn't just that Harry has no real right to 
know; Dumbledore is also concerned about letting Harry know because Snape's 
defection from the DE's is closely connected to the loss of Harry's parents.

Oh, and I asked before how people thought Harry would react to discovering this? 
(Particularly if he hears about Snape being the eavesdropper before he hears that 
Snape left the DE's as a direct consequence of having been the eavesdropper? Which 
he will?)

I've got a theory, myself, as to how he might react. 

Briefly: badly.

In more depth, I've been wondering a fair bit *why* JKR sets up this huge "he would 
never forgive Snape, never" business. As Pip, I believe -- apologies if it was actually 
Pippin -- recently said, Sirius's death has as much or more to do with giving Harry 
another reason to hate Snape as it does with giving Harry another reason to hate 
Voldemort. But I do wonder *why* it's so important that Harry hate Snape, and that 
we know that Harry hates Snape. Because, although I've seen some people describe 
Harry's relationship to Snape at the end of OOP as basically a return to the status quo, 
it really represents, IMHO, a huge, bad change in Harry's attitude. Because Harry 
never really has *hated* Snape before. He's never really actively wished for his ill. (Or 
*wanted* him to be much worse than he was. C.S. Lewis once, chillingly, described 
hatred as ". . . to wish that black were a little bit blacker.") But I'd say that Harry does 
hate Snape now. And JKR really hits us over the head with it, doesn't she? "He was 
never going to forgive Snape, never?" I think she's clearly setting that up for 
something Big; and I don't think that a gradual process of coming out of denial is very 
Big. 

Or. . . Bangy.

So I started trying to think of possible reasons JKR really wanted Harry to hate Snape.

1. The books are still to episodic to allow a big change in Harry and Snape's 
relationship until Book Seven, and the end of the series. 

I've seen this general idea expressed, but as I

A: Don't think it's accurate -- Harry and Snape's relationship *has* changed.

and

B: Don't want it to be accurate -- c'mon, JKR, surely you can do better than that!

I am going to discount it for now.

2. JKR wants the reader to retain the ability to distrust Snape.

Eh. She surely could have done that more easily by just giving him a suspicious 
subplot in a future book, wouldn't you think? And anyway, by *flagging* that Harry 
hates Snape, she makes us *less* likely to trust Harry's judgements about Snape, not 
more so. Or she does me, at any rate.

Which brings us to 

3. It's a clever double bluff. The first four books she fooled us by having us trust 
Harry too much; now she's going to try and fool us by having us trust Harry too little. 
In other words, Severus Snape Is Ever So Evil. Harry's going to spend the whole book 
-- Six or Seven, take your pick, but I'd pick Six, if I had to pick one of them -- but 
anyway, Harry's going to spend the whole book being suspicious of Snape, and we 
readers, or,

<Derannimer shoots another nasty look at Darrin.>

or *most* of us anyway, will be spending the whole book yelling at Harry to get over 
it already, Snape's not the bad guy, and Harry just thinks he is because he, Harry, 
hates him, Snape, a fact that JKR will have made very careful to continue hitting us 
over the head with. 

Then it will turn out that Harry was right.

(And Darrin.)

Whoops.

(You think Derannimer is shooting nasty looks at Darrin *now*? Boy. You wait.)

I hate this explanation, needless to say. And it *does* seem a tad convoluted, so 
hopefully it may turn out not to be true.

4. JKR doesn't care so much about the readers retaining the ability to mistrust Snape; 
but she very much wants *Harry* to retain the ability to mistrust Snape. 

This one is fairly self-explanatory, I think. 

5. JKR is setting up Snape as a big moral challenge for Harry at some point in the 
series.

(I am indebted for this one to someone who wrote a post about it. I don't know who 
this person was, and I'm not trying to find it now. But the post contained a line about 
how "Harry is heading down the path to the rocky precipice where he shouts 'The 
Ring is MINE!'" Post-writer, you know who you are, I suppose. Thanks.)

I personally think that [4] and [5] combined are. . . well, not necessarily the best bet, 
but my favorite bet. I love the idea that Harry may face a moral challenge to do with 
Snape at some point in the series -- again, I'm thinking Six. 

I also love the idea that he might fail it. Why, I'm not altogether sure. 

I rather suspect that it has something to do with Hurt-Comfort though.

But see, it becomes a lot more likely that Harry *will* fail it if, in addition to hating 
Snape, he also becomes persuaded at some point that Snape really is Up To No Good. 

What kind of moral challenge, you ask?

<Derannimer shrugs.>

No idea. Preferably something that involves Our Man Snape getting hit with a 
Cruciatus or two, though. 

Oh, and btw -- I fully expect Harry to forgive Snape at some point now. Come on! 
You just *don't* have a character say that they are never going to forgive another 
character never unless they *are* going to forgive that other character at some point!




Derannimer, who hopes, as a Bent Snapefan, that Snape was hitting the flies with 
Avada Kedavra, but who really isn't sure that he was