Deatheater Snape

[mnaper2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 99602

Kneasy wrote:
> Snape's motivation has been the subject of many a post on this
> board with the theories ranging from LOLLIPOPS to permanently ESE.
> It's all very frustrating - there just doesn't seem to be any solid
> canon anywhere.

> The best pointers (IMO) are the four memories recalled in OoP.
> Having a highly suspicious nature I down-right refuse to take these at
> face value. I think they're clues, not exposition. But that's just me.
> Consider, we are carefully informed that memories are not neatly
> files away and caution is needed when interpreting them. A few pages
> later three memories are exposed. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind
> horse, right? So alternative readings are an appropriate response.
> 
> One is so bland it's probably just what it seems - a boy zapping flies.
> It's difficult to come up with anything really devious on that one.
>

Ally:
Yeah, this just seems to mayb iform on Snape as a teen, assuming that 
is him:  he is fast with the wand, alone, bored, in a dark room 
(mopey?) and destructive.  Not totally unheard of for a teenager.


> The scrawny boy on a bucking broomstick?  It's Sevvy's memory, but 
> the boy isn't Snape; it's James, the Quidditch star, hexed by Snape.
> Good joke, no?
> If so, this would give us a taste of the history of animosity between
> James and Sevvy *before* the Grey Underpants episode. Without
> this we only have Sirius's word that there was a history, and Sirius 
> is not exactly unbiased where Snape is concerned.

Ally:
Interesting interpretation.  A good possibility.  But are these kids 
old enough to be at Hogwarts or do we assume this is an even younger 
James and Snape who knew each other before Hogwarts?  If it's Snape 
hexing James in front of Lily while James is trying to show off, that 
would make sense as a precursor to lots of animosity.  James 
certainly wouldn't have liked to be embarassed like that in front of 
someone he was trying to impress.

> 
> The crying child? Son-of-Snape. The adults are Sevvy and possibly
> Florence, the proud parents of this lachrymose tot.
> It's the only sliver of Snape's past I can see that might give a clue
> to motivation. A family. And since they don't seem to be around 
> anymore.....

Ally:

Problem:  surely Harry would have recognized the adult as Snape, no?  
The text has him see a dark haired man with a hooked nose.  If it was 
Snape yelling at his wife, why wouldn't Harry have immediately 
recognized him and the text reflected it?  I think it was probably 
Snape in the corner there as a child and either a father or 
grandfather in the foreground yelling at the mother.  

> The fourth memory presents a problem. "Worst Memory" - really?
> This bloke was a DE; a DE who broke away from Voldy - and
> teenage embarassment is his worst memory? I don't buy it.
> Sure, embarassment can be awful, but worse than death? Worse
> than some of the things he did as a DE? Worse than whatever it
> was that forced the split with Voldy? Never. DEs just don't leave
> the club. Not if they want to collect their pension. It must have 
> been something truly horrendous that forced him away.
> 
> Besides, that memory is a bit strange. The way it recounts words 
> and actions make it seem as if it isn't Snape's memory at all. The
> Pensieve scene in GoF is staged very differently; it's DD's memory
> and DD's is the viewpoint we get. Harry sits beside him and sees
> what he sees. In "Worst Memory" that's not the case. Very odd.
> Kneasy

Ally:
Well, but Harry is viewing DD's pensieve memory as if he were looking 
at a mirror - he only sees the surface of it.  FOr Snape's, he 
plunges his head into the pensieve and actually immerses himself in 
the memory.  That would be my explanation for the difference.

My theory for why this is Snape's worst memory is that this was the 
event that turned him to the Slytherins who became DEs.

Didn't Sirius describe him as a wierd little loner who was into the 
dark arts?  Not sure if he used the phrase "loner," but I got the 
impression he didn't have many friends from Sirius' description.  
Certainly no one comes to his aid other than Lily, and there must 
have been some Slytherins on that crowded quad.  

Maybe Snape was pretty much a loner but either Bella and her gang 
intervened and he was pulled into their group thereafter or he turned 
to them for assistance or, maybe he retaliated in such a "dark" way 
in response, that they became impressed and sought him out.  

We didn't see that entire memory, after all.  Snape pulled Harry out 
before he could finish watching it.  Who knows what happened after 
that - I think its what happened after he was hung upside down that 
makes it his worst memory.

Either that, or really did love Lily, and ruined any chance he ever 
had with her by calling her a mudblood.  ; p

Ally