Number of Years Teaching at Hogwarts -- ?Significance

[magicroxx]

No: HPFGUIDX 72525

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" <Zarleycat at a...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ellejir" <eberte at v...> wrote:
> > I was listening again to the audiotape today and was struck by 
how 
> > much detail there is in the passages in which Umbridge interviews 
> the 
> > teachers about their positions at Hogwarts.  She makes a point of 
> > asking each teacher how long they have been at Hogwarts. 
> 
> 
> > Snape said 14 years--so he apparently came to Hogwarts around the 
> > time or immediately after Lord V's attack on Harry and his 
family.  
> > This timing seems very significant.  Do you think that he was on 
> the 
> > side of the DEs or acting as a spy already for the Order at the 
> time 
> > of Harry's attack?  Do you think that he might have had anything 
to 
> > do with Voldemort's choice of Harry and the Potters (vs. Neville 
> and 
> > the Longbottoms) as the ones to attack???  That could explain 
some 
> of 
> > his conflicted feelings about Harry.  
> 
> And it was only a year or so after the death of Regulus Black. 
Could 
> Snape have been involved in the murder of Regulus, and that was the 
> incident that pushed him away from the DEs and into Dumbledore's 
camp?
> 
> Marianne

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and I think that 
Regulus' death is not the significant event that made Snape want out 
of Voldemort's circle. I think rather it made him realize that spying 
was the only option he had because he couldn't just resign and expect 
to live. The only real alternative was to help bring Voldemort down, 
because then he could be free.

The real question is what made Snape, a slytherin who in the end 
would choose to save his own neck, decide to switch sides and act as 
double agent. What on earth would be worth risking death for Snape? 
What did Voldemort do to him?