Life debts (Was: A simple-minded question)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95024

> Neri wrote:
> A bit of canon:
> 
> SS/PS, Ch. 17:
> Harry couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.
> "But Snape tried to kill me!"
> "No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger 
> accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at 
> that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few 
> seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it 
> before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a counter-curse, trying to 
> save you."
> 
> So Harry would have fallen if not for Snape. However, we have also:
> 
> SS/PS, Ch. 17:
>  "Yes 
" said Dumbledore dreamily. "Funny, the way people's minds 
> work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's 
> debt 
 I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year 
> because he felt that would make him and your father quits. Then he 
> could go back to hating your father's memory in peace 
"
> 
> So it seems that Snape considers saving Harry from the fall as 
> settling his debt to James, not as Harry owing him a debt. <snip>

Carol:
Excellent quotations and I agree that Harry would have fallen (and
possibly died) if it weren't for Snape, but I don't think that DD's
words imply that Snape *succeeded* in paying his life debt, only that
it's the reason (or one of the reasons) that he *tried* to save Harry,
so he and James would be "quits" (or "even," as the American edition
expresses it).

I don't think they're "quits"/"even" yet because Hermione interfered
and didn't let Snape--and only Snape--save Harry's life (a reason for
resenting Hermione, anyone?). Also Snape is still trying to save
Harry's life in later books (PoA and OoP). Granted, he has other
reasons for wanting Harry alive that are barely hinted at in SS/PS.
But I think we're victims here of yet another inadequate Dumbledorean
explanation--DD telling the eleven-year-old Harry only as much as he
needs to know, if that.

Note DD's wording in PoA, when Harry is more capable of understanding
the concept: "When one wizard saves another's life, it creates a
certain bond between them . . . . This is magic at its deepest, its
most impenetrable" (PoA Am. ed. 427). I know that the words are spoken
in relation to PP, but they also apply to Snape, or to any wizard who
owes a life debt. 

So I don't think Snape is off the hook yet. He's still in debt to a
dead man. They won't be "quits" until he truly saves Harry. And that,
I'm sure, will happen in Book 7, when Snape will supposedly do
something surprising and important. Given the life debt, along with
his other motives for keeping Harry alive to defeat LV, I'll be very
surprised if that something important is not a spectacular rescue.

Carol