Snape and the DADA job

[junediamanti]

No: HPFGUIDX 85621

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, A Featheringstonehaugh
> <featheringstonehaugh at y...> wrote:
> > Perhaps Snape's desire for the DADA position and Dumbledore's
> refusal of it may all be a charade; the intended implication being
> that Dumbledore harbors some mistrust of Snape. 
> >  
> > AF
> >
> 
> If that's the case, we have to consider Dumbledore untruthful since
> he's said about once every book, "I trust Severus Snape." The most
> obvious illustration of that trust is at the end of GoF, after Snape
> has very courageously revealed the mark on his arm to Idiot!Fudge,
> when Dumbledore sends Snape off on a clearly dangerous secret 
mission
> (my guess is that he has to present Lucius Malfoy with a plausible
> excuse for not attending the meeting of Death Eaters).
> 
> Has anyone listed the number of times Dumbledore has said directly 
and
> openly, without Snape being present, that he trusts him? Surely 
(unles
> we believe in ESE!Dumbledore, which I don't) there's no reason to
> doubt his word.
> 
> Carol

The distrust of Snape is overt - Dumbledore and Snape are playing 
classic misdirection here.  The IMPLIED mistrust is for the benefit 
of just about everyone but especially the like of Malfoy (both), and 
any other DE offspring who might want to go talking to their daddies, 
and LV himself.  Not to mention any ESE!Other suspects who might be 
knocking around.  

Lets consider this from the other direction.  You have a spy/double 
agent/ whatever who you trust implicitly.  Now in order to keep him 
functioning as a spy/double agent, whatever, the last thing wanted is 
for this person to look like your fair-haired, best boy who you trust 
implicitly.  Because if the real baddies believe you trust him 
implicitly, then the jig is up as far as his cover is concerned.  If 
Dumbledore is showing he trusts Snape utterly, then the game is up 
because all of the DE and other hangers on are going to realise that 
there is a problem with Snape's outer image as DE, malcontent if DD 
is so keen on him that he even lets him near the Dark Arts.  
(Incidentally - Snape would be an excellent choice for DADA teacher 
on the set a thief to catch a thief principle).  So there has to be a 
believable element of dislike, mistrust, grudge.  Snape plays "man 
with a grudge" effortlessly well.  So all you need to do to make this 
story sit up and beg is provide a grudge and demonstate that you DONT 
trust him really.  

Two key elements here:

1.  "I trust Severus Snape"  no explanation why, no story, no 
caveats, nothing else at all, just a very bald statement of absolute 
trust - which of itself causes me to believe that Dumbledore DOES 
trust Severus Snape absolutely.  No defence is necessary from 
Dumbledore's point of view.  

2.  I won't let him teach DADA even though it's the job he wants.  
Actually, Snape has never come out and said baldly that it's the job 
he wants.  The canon evidence for him wanting this job is Percy 
Weasley's remark in PS/SS - though correct me if I'm suffering movie 
contamination here - my books are at home and I'm not.  Also in OOP 
Umbridge states that he has applied yearly for the DADA job since his 
original appointment to the Hogwarts staff.  Why has he been refused 
this job- "you must take that up with Professor Dumbledore" or words 
to that effect.  Curt and angry no doubt and that's exactly what we 
might expect.  So Dumbledore trusts him totally but won't let him 
teach the kids how to repel jinxes and hexes, or about vampires (and 
as to that can of worms - let's not go there, right?) and 
werewolves.  

I believe that Snape is not really interested in the DADA job in the 
least.  Sure he could probably teach the arse of everybody else in 
that subject because he's seriously smart and knows his stuff from 
the ground. The yearly application is a ruse between him and 
Dumbledore - he applies for it because it's in character for him to 
do so and harmonises with his rep as a disgruntled ex-Death Eater and 
also because I suspect that it's the sort of thing Voldy and Lucius 
want him to do.  So he goes through the motions every year and Mean 
Old Dumbledore knocks him back - again.  And that's what he tells LV 
and LM every August.  Maybe LV hits him with a quick burst of Crucio 
for being useless, but spies have to take their lumps and given the 
look of Severus's daddy, he's probably taken a good many lumps in his 
time.  

His big scheme of things is the destruction of LV - for some reason 
we don't know.  I don't believe incidentally that this was merely an 
intellectual decision because what we see of Snape's behaviour and 
past does not betoken a coldly intellectual Lenin type here.  There's 
a good deal of emotional engagement in what's going on.  I have my 
theories which I lean towards, but this post is not where they go.  
What I do believe is that when people like that have invested 
emotionally in something they wish to see happen, they are prepared 
to take a good many lumps in its cause.

June