The kappa mistake (was Re: Snape and Lupin's Character Arcs)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 119359


Finwitch wrote:
> 
<snip> 
> I also think that there are several reasons as to why SS is NOT 
> getting the post, though he obviously does know Dark Arts.
> 
> 1) He's an addict to Dark Arts.
> 
> 2) Voldemort got him, so I wouldn't say Snape's all 'that' good in 
> Defence, even if he DID manage to get out somehow. You know, the
true master doesn't get there.
> 
> 3) considering his method in potions: make students drink poison in 
> order to test antidotes, I'd say he might use DA on them to 'test 
> their defences' - and Dumbledore won't allow THAT.

Carol responds, point by point:

1) We have only Sirius Black's word that Snape is addicted to the Dark
Arts. Black may or may not be right, but as he hates Snape, he's not
exactly an objective witness. We need to wait and see on this one.
(Dumbledore no doubt has a variety of reasons for not giving Snape the
DADA post, as he does for everything else, and I don't doubt that
Snape's DE past is one of them. So, however, is Snape's extensive
knowledge of potions.)

2) I don't see how DADA relates to his joining the DEs, which he no
doubt *wanted* to do. He was very young, his older Slytherin friends
were already DEs and may have exerted some influence, and as recent
posts have established or reiterated, he craved recognition, which
seems to have been denied him at Hogwarts. (Despite his intelligence
and probable high scores on his DADA and Potions OWLs, at the least,
his enemy James Potter became Head Boy. That may well have been the
last straw for a young and frustrated Severus.) In any case, its
unlikely that he would have fought the chance to actively support the
pureblood cause and join his old friends, and he may have been bribed
or seduced with promises of fame and fortune for his potions skills.
Whatever the case, he wasn't fighting Unforgiveable Curses or
protecting himself from poisons or dark creatures. He was joining his
(preceived) friends and fellow Slytherins against his natural enemies. 

3) We have no proof or even solid evidence that Snape really intended
to make the students drink potions to test their antidotes. That's
merely Harry's perception, and as he's taken out of class for the wand
weighing ceremony, we don't get to see what really happened in the
class. It is extremely unlikely that Snape, who never uses physical
punishment or magic to punish students (with the exception of a
temporary loss of control when Harry sneaked a look in the Pensieve)
would poison a student to test his antidote. He would be risking not
only his job but a prison sentence in Azkaban. Like his threats of
expulsion for Harry and Ron (which he well knows he has no authority
to carry out as he's not their head of house), this suggestion of
possible poisoning to test an antidote can't, IMO, be taken as a
serious possibility. 

BTW, we *do* have an example of a teacher who used Dark Arts on the
students and got away with it: Crouch!Moody. I'm still not sure
whether Dumbledore authorized that one or whether C!M was lying. I do
agree that DD wouldn't allow *Snape* to use Dark arts on the students,
but he wouldn't allow him to do it, either. Nor, IMO, would Snape
really do it, with or without permission. Snape is too intelligent,
and has too great an interest in his own self-preservation, to use a
teaching method that could result in the death, or even the temporary
poisoning and real physical suffering, of a student. The students
would write home to their parents, and that would be the end of
Snape's career, both as Hogwarts teacher and Order member. And there
would go all chance of doing whatever he's trying to do to defeat
Voldemort.

Carol