SNAPE the coward?

[chrusotoxos]

No: HPFGUIDX 118046


Hi...thinking again and again about whose side is Snape on, and what the 
hell he's doing now...so here is my guess...

Premise: Snape's the one for whom I keep reading, but I don't like him, I 
think he's a horrible person, even if he's on the good side (I'm convinced 
of that).

I was highly intrigued about that sentence in the graveyard...giving away 
so much, and giving away nothing at the same time...

At first, I took it as it is, i.e. Karkaroff=coward, Snape=traitor, Crouch jr=faithful.  But then it seemed too simple, and when I saw Snape acting as 
a spy again in OotP I re-read that passage - I mean, how could Snape get 
back to Voldemort without being killed?

My guess is that JKR voluntarily misled us into considering Karkaroff as a coward, and therefore 'the coward'. She described him as a coward so many 
times only to be sure that when we'd see the word 'coward' again we'd have 
a Pavlovian thing and bark: 'Karkaroff'! But what if Voldemort sees SNAPE as 
the coward, and Karkaroff as the traitor?  After all, Karkaroff has betrayed 
to get his freedom, whereas we don't have any evidence about Snape doing an overt betrayal. Dumbledore was witness for him, and that implies that Snape 
gave away nothing and that Dumbledore trusted him basing himself on something that nobody else knew...and couldn't the other DE see him as a coward? Hiding 
in a school, doing nothing useful, when the Lestranges are risking their 
lives and Malfoy is keeping his reputation as strong as ever, a weapon for 
the second war...if Snape is the coward, it all fits: he must know that he 
will be heavily punished, and that's why he's pale at the end of GoF, why Dumbledore is concerned about him. He must have been violently tortured, 
either that night or during the summer, while Harry was sulking on park benches...

And a coward, someone submitted to others, is also as grownups people see 
him, as strange as it may seem to Harry: Sirius accuses him to be Lucius' 
dog, Moody orders him around, Dumbledore assumed that he will be right where 
he wants him...
Our poor potions master has not so much authority as we're imagining...

Let me know what you think about all that!

bye,

chrusotoxos