Snape's Loyalties

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 73742

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> At some point in order maintain his credibility, he must betray 
both
> masters. He has to give Voldemort information about Dumbledore, 
other
> wise, Voldemort is never going to trust him; he has to prove his 
loyalty. 
> 
There's another danger; to keep Voldemort from knowing that he is a 
double agent, Snape and Dumbledore have to be careful not to act on 
their information in such a way that Voldemort will realize that he 
has been betrayed.  That would endanger Snape, and cut off the 
information flow.  In WWII, the British (with the Poles and the 
French) cracked the German code, named Enigma after the machine that 
produced it, so they were learning in advance all the German plans.  
But they had to hide the fact that they knew this information, to 
keep the Germans from just switching to another code.  Thus, when 
they learned that the city of Coventry was going to be bombed, they 
didn't pre-empt the attack, because they knew that if they did, the 
Germans would realize that their communications were no longer 
secure.  In the case of the Occlumency lessons, I don't know just 
how complicated the deceptions could have gotten.  If Harry just 
suddenly became proficient at Occlumency, V. would know that 
Dumbledore had been alerted to the mental link between them.  So 
maybe Snape was instructed to keep teaching Harry, but also to keep 
telling V. that D. was trying to interfere with his mental control 
of Harry, but that Snape was doing his best to thwart it via the 
lessons.  This gets hard to keep straight, though, and I suspect 
that Rowling never intended to write such a Le Carre-like plot.

Wanda