OoP - Snape STILL could be the turncoat

[Sara_ELL]

No: HPFGUIDX 62066

I'm new here and my List-Elf has only permitted me to carry around a 
small bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans which I'll 
nevertheless, attempt to throw in Darrin's general direction - 


In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "darrin_burnett" 

> > Meta:
> > 1) Snape being evil now WOULD be a twist. After five books of 
> > discovering tidbit after tidbit about Snape, he has become one 
of 
> the 
> > most popular characters in the books. To yank it out now would 
be 
> > shocking.
> > 
> > 2) Who are the ones who always shoot down any of Ron and Harry's 
> > conspiracy theories involving Snape? Hermione and Dumbledore, 
the 
> two 
> > fonts of knowledge. JKR herself said (in the CoS DVD interview) 
> that 
> > Dumbledore and Hermoine are wonderful tools for getting out 
> > information. Wouldn't it be just like JKR to have those guys 
wrong 
> > about this?
 
Me:
Yes it would, however it is reinterated by both characters in the 
books (Hagrid and Hermione), that Dumbledore is infallible. Having 
him subsequently make such an enormously bad judgement of character 
would weaken Dumbledore's role in the series and turn him back into 
what he superficially resembles - an old wizard who has lost it.

> > Ok, onto the canon:
> > 
> > 1) Why exactly did the Occlumency not better? Well, obviously, 
> Harry 
> > didn't appear to be trying too hard, but then Dumbledore says 
that 
> > Snape was the wrong person to teach him because of all the hate 
> for 
> > Harry's father. D-Dore, who trusts Snape implicitly, is blaming 
it 
> on 
> > Snape's emotions. But... could the softening up theory be right?

Me:
Definately could but again, I think that it would be too obvious,

 > 
> > 2) How did the DE's know that Harry had finally broken into the 
> Dept. 
> > of Mysteries? They could have had lookouts posted. But what if 
> they 
> > had been tipped off by the guy who was supposedly deep in the 
> Forest, 
> > looking for Harry after he escaped from Umbridge? 

Me:
Doesn't the curse-scar communication highway work both ways (and if 
Harry could see out of Voldemort's mind without Voldemort being 
aware, at a time of high emotion (ie: Harry being convinced that 
Sirius is in mortal danger), it would be plausible for Voldemort to 
know exactly when Harry had arrived at the MoM. For whatever its 
worth, I think that the Disillusionment charms were mentioned at the 
beginning of the book in order to offer a plausible explanation for 
the DE's to suddenly appear and overcome the gang in the MoM - they 
could have been waiting there Harry to make an appearence once 
Voldemort planted the bait in Harry's mind. No Snape needed here to 
rat on Harry.

> > 
> > 3) Snape took pains to hide certain memories from Harry. What if 
> that 
> > humilation one is just the tip of the iceberg? 

Me: I suspect that other memories and feeling, like loneliness, 
sadness and ... love (awwww) would also have been things that Snape 
would've considered as weaknesses and hidden from Harry. He would 
naturally have been very wise to hide all of the nasty things he'd 
done with the DE's as well (to state the obvious).

> > 
> > 4) We now know that D-Dore is susceptible to mis-steps in 
> judgement. 
> > He has made mistakes before. Crouch/Moody is the most prominent, 
> but 
> > those were cases of being actively fooled by a potion. With his 
> > misreading of how Harry would react and what V-Mort would do to 
> that 
> > reaction, it opens up D-Dore for being wrong about one of his 
> > followers. 
> > 
> > Who is the one follower he's had to make the biggest leap of 
faith 
> > with? Snape.

Me: I wouldn't say that he read Harry *entirely* incorrectly - Harry 
is Dumbledore's weakness and revealing this to Voldemort would have 
been disasterous, more so than Sirius snuffing it. 

Being a DE is not something done lightly and Snape reverential use 
of Voldemort's title (contrasting nicely with Dumbledore's use of 
the  humanising "Tom") is something of a habit of a lifetime. I 
imagine that Snape (being a pure-blood wizard, as all Slytherins 
are) would've been raised by a family not dissimilar to Sirius' 
and "the Dark Lord" would have been a title used since he was a 
kid...


Sara
(who'd REALLY appreciate being spared the ignomanity of having to 
ask a 10 year old kid, about the significance of Tonks continually 
greeting Harry with "Wotcha").