What has Snape seen (Was Re: bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 118721


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

<snip--remember, kids, proper snippage is your *friend>

> Carol responds:
> The only problem I have with Hannah's interpretation is that if 
> young Snape had actually performed a Cruciatus or other illegal 
> curse, it would have showed up in a Priori Incantatem on his wand 
> (if one was done, and I don't see why it wouldn't) and Crouch Sr. 
> would have sent him to Azkaban rather than believing Dumbledore 
> that Snape had reformed and was now a spy.

We have no evidence that Snape himself ever went in front of a 
tribunal--all we see is Dumbledore intervening on his behalf.  
Perhaps DD had enough pull with the authorities at that point in time 
to pull such a thing off?  

> As cunning as Snape is, I think he could have managed to please, 
> and fool, Voldemort without actually performing any Unforgiveables 
> himself. But he may well have concocted undetectable poisons 
> (bottled Death?) as well as immortality potions. He might even
> have learned to concot Veritaserum and the Wolfbane Potion in LV's
> service, the latter as part of LV's attempt to recruit werewolves to
> his side. 

Is there any evidence for this model?  I seem to recall the main 
testifying figure to Snape's cunning being Sirius--and per some of 
your other arguments, Carol, that disqualifies his evidence 
immediately, as being after the fact and from a biased observer.  
Unless we're believing Sirius when he says something nice about 
Snape, and not when he doesn't?

I find it very, very hard to swallow 19-year-old Snape cunning enough 
to fool Voldemort into, essentially, letting Snape do what he wants.  
It makes Voldemort out into an easily manipulated idiot, and for 
Snape-the-spy, begging off draws attention to himself.  Any good spy 
has lots of times he'd have to get along to go along.  Snape is 
cunning, yes, but cunning is always going to bend in the face of pure 
force.

I note your argument that Voldemort's DEs had specialties, although 
this only comes to us through Karkaroff (who doesn't say, you might 
note, "Snape!  Voldemort's Potions Master!"--while he does peg 
Mulciber as an Imperius caster).  Again, per such incidents as the 
MoM, Lucius Malfoy isn't important enough, despite his essential 
contacts within government, to get out of doing it--why are we 
postulating a young but talented Snape able to talk his way out of 
the s***work?  I can see Voldemort requiring DEs to do distasteful 
things as loyalty tests, and nuking the ones who refused (Regulus, 
perhaps).  When Voldemort says "Hop!", the operative answer is "How 
high?", for a minion.

> Snape, IMO, would have insinuated his way to the top, making sure 
> that LV knew his talents and put them to their best use. And the 
> best use for him would have been what only he could do, not what 
> many other supporters could do equally well.

We're assuming an awful lot if we postulate that Voldemort had no one 
better at Potions than a fairly young man, or that Snape's skills are 
unique enough to keep him busy at home.  It may well turn out to be 
true, but there're a ton of holes in it as it stands.

> Above all, good as Dumbledore is at forgiving, would he have hired
> Snape if he had actually Crucio'd or AK'd innocent people? Snape's
> fascination with the Dark Arts does not necessarily translate into a
> fascination with illegal and Unforgiveable Curses.

He hired an ex-Death Eater, which Sirius was surprised at in and of 
itself.  He keeps said person out of the DADA job because it 
would "bring out the worst in him".  Dumbledore has an ideology of 
forgiveness where many others do not.  Of course, one interview 
answer raised the possibility that Dumbledore doesn't *know* 
everything that Snape did, but I won't be so churlish as to speculate 
there.

-Nora reminds everyone to be a good citizen: read downthread before 
posting, and snip your quoted material!