"the worse in" Snape, his alternate strategy - JKR don't hit me!

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 71922

The worst in SS, AD fears, would be brought out if he were teaching 
DADA.

My suggestion, in a post not taken very seriously, was that Snape 
either uncharacteristically LIED to HP (this would be the first time 
he's lied to HP, isn't it, that we know of, and in fact to anyone in 
any situation other than in the line of duty for OOP?) in the "none 
of which concern you" comment regarding the DoM, OR he was stating 
what he really believed. Why did he chose these words? Why the finger 
on the lips, explaining AD's interpretation? Why the so carefully 
chosen words? Rowling goes to great measures to point this out to us.

Why? Because SS doesn't agree with AD. While it is obvious SS and AD 
disagree about a number of things, this is not some minor school rule 
or policy enforcement issue. It is the core of the whole reason there 
is an OOP at all. What doesn't SS agree with, and why? It's almost as 
if most of the people on the list know this, that Snape disagrees, 
but WHY?

To be clear, here, the statement "none of which concern you" I take, 
not as a lie, but as a statement of belief. Somehow, SS doesn't think 
~here it is~ the prophecy concerns HP, or the defeat of LV - either 
or both, in some combination. He has a different idea.

This explains a lot of SS behaviour that some attribute to mere 
childishness, or rather, to HP looking and acting like SS's 
schoolyard nemesis, JP. This was never entirely adequate an 
explanation for me. A high school grudge determining the actions of 
players in a deadly war? Hmm... And think of AD's reason for not 
appointing SS DADA. It is not his teaching method or his prejudices, 
his favourtism, if you like, because those have pretty much free 
reign wherever SS is appointed. And it's not a statement that 
suggests only that these already apparent tendancies will be 
exacerbated. It's a very clear - "bring out the worse."

That worst, what could it be? Do we seriously think SS would have 
attempted to get HP expelled if he thought HP were "the boy?" That 
never made sense to me. It was a demonstration for AD's benefit of 
the dangers of AD's plan, in light of, in this instance, their aid to 
Black, in PoA. SS has NEVER given any kind of 
acknowledgement to the extraordinary circumstances of HP's existence. 
All he has commented on are his "fame" (which is clearly not 
everything!) and his arrogance, like his father's. SS explains with 
very careful words the connection AD sees between LV and HP, that it 
is a result of the attack and HP's surviving it. SS states this as 
AD's opinion, but clearly, not necessarily his own.

SS left the DE and brought with him a plan for defeating LV, but he 
could not enlist support. (Why was he a DE? Was becoming a DE part of 
that plan?) AD asked him to try AD's plan for a while, to trust him, 
and if it didn't work, or wasn't enough, or whatever, then AD and the 
rest of OOP would surely follow SS's plan. "But you must give us 
time, Severus, to follow our plan for now." The worst? SS's 
intransigence in believeing that his way is the best way to defeat 
LV. (When the time comes, will he hold his hand back and let the OOP 
plan (if there is a big one) come to fuition, or will he grab the 
moment, as it were, to act on his intransigent belief, and is this 
Snape's demise? Maybe his alternate plan and the official OOP plan 
somehow work together, at the end...)

This would explain SS's idea that HP is arrogant, for even if HP 
isn't the prime defender of his own importance, he does these cool 
things that sure make it look like HP thinks HP's the one. It also
explains the finger on the lips. "I completely disagree with what the 
words I'm telling you suggests, but I'm duty bound to say...."

And it explains why most of OOP (not Black) remind HP to call SS 
professor. Why in all that choas at AD's office, does AD remind HP to 
call SS "professor"? HP is busting his office up, and there's that 
line. That means, it isn't just reminding HP of SS position as a 
teacher, when HP has just been allowed to smash up an office. Other 
places in the book, yes. Molly at HQ, yes. But immediately after a 
raging tantrum? It is a reminder to HP that OOP owes SS this. "We 
could have done, don't forget, what SS suggested was the thing to do, 
he may even have been right,but he took our advice, and stuck with 
us, even when our plan didn't work immediately..."  Did James and 
Lily die before or after SS's compromise? Was JP the most adamant 
defender of a plan that cost him his own life, his wife's? Or did it 
happen later? etc. etc.

Lot's of Snape's strange behaviours, which could be seen as dangers 
to the entire script of the book, make sense this way. Any takers on 
my theory can run with this if they wish - Snape as something other 
than a powerful wizard stuck at the mental age of 15. I'll do a few 
later, at any rate.

The main question, though, if this is to take off, regards prophecy 
in Rowling. What is it, how does it happen, and is the writing of 
names of those concerned guarded against error (like kids getting 
letters of acceptance to Hogwarts?). That is, is there any reason for 
SS to oppose interpretation of the prophecy on grounds other than 
what that interpretation is?


dan