OOP Snape, Sirius, Harry

[Barbara Bowen]

No: HPFGUIDX 63230

New to the list.  Love it. I have two blind cats we
call "the Marmelade boys", so call me the Marmelade
Mom.

I agree with Marianne.  I began to get an awful
feeling about Sirius early in the book and it just got
worse until the end.   JKR showed him to be a
different man here than in GoF:  vulnerable, close to
cracking.  He was petty, he was moody, he drank--he
was trapped and diminished.  It was as if a chant of
"doomed" echoed around him.  I was upset, but not
surprised when he died.  In a writing class I took
years ago, I learned that the writer should avoid the
"infliction of too much suffering" on a character. 
That was my one hope as I read, but I guess Jo didn't
take that class! 

As for Snape:  I think he set Sirius up.  When
voldemort makes contact with Harry's mind, he tries to
possess him--wills him to do things.  He doesn't try
to delve into Harry's feelings or memories.  But Snape
is far more subtle.  He looks into Harry's very being
(and Harry is not allowed the privilege of removing
things he'd rather not share!).  In the scene where
Harry asks "which one (memory) was that"  (I
paraphrase as my ten year old has the book in her
clutches), and Snape replies "softly"  "no"--did
anyone else get a creepy feeling?  As if he had just
realized something...something to his advantage.  

My idea is that Snape was the runaway DE that V would
either kill or the one he would punish(see end of
GoF).  Snape has been sent back to V as a spy, but V
is perhaps dangling Snape in some pretty unbearable
uncertainty: will he be killed as a traitor?  or taken
back into the DE fold? He needs to convince V that he
can be trusted.  What better way than to tell V that
Harry can be manipulated into getting him the prophecy
through his love for his godfather?  He sets it up
with Malfoy, delivers Harry, then tells Dumbledore so
that Harry can be rescued.  (It went wrong?  V is only
too happy to blame his incompetent followers, not his
information.  Something I'm sure Snape has noticed
about V.)  This not only gets Snape out of a very
scarey position but allows him to wreak his personal
revenge on Sirius.  (He knows very well that Sirius
will not stay behind when Harry is in trouble.)  I'm
not sure that Snape is really a double agent--it will
be interesting to find out.  He will show his true
colors soon.  He canot persist in believing Harry is a
"pampered prince" who needs putting down when he has
seen the horrific abuse Harry has suffered.  Will he
begin to treat Harry like a human being?  Or will he
go on trying to use his authority as a teacher to
bully and humiliate?


Okay:  Harry.  I think his outbursts of rage are
dead-on for a fifteen year old with no more troubles
than dating and learning to drive.  For a fifteen year
old who has suffered as badly as Harry has--I think
it's a miracle (a Lily engineered miracle) that he can
still feel love, grief, pity, and only occassionally
anger. 

Marmelade Mom




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