Snape and Dumbledore [was Spy novel?]

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118732


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> --- Hannah <hannahmarder at y...> wrote:
> 
> > This theory would back up a lot of what Carol said in her post; 
> > Snape's first chance, him *re*joining the good side, the likelihood
> > that DD had strong influence over him at school, how he managed to 
> > get away with going back to LV after being revealed as a spy, and 
> > why DD was able to decide to trust him.  
> 
> 
> Without coming down on one side or the other of your theory/plot
> (although personally I can buy it and think it's quite likely what
> actually happened), there is an additional piece of evidence for
> Dumbledore having some influence on teen!Snape. 
> 
> In the Shrieking Shack in POA, Lupin relates the story of the Prank
> and then says that Snape "was forbidden to tell anyone by
> Dumbledore".  
> 
> This puzzles me.  Had parents found out that Dumbledore had let a
> werewolf into the school as a student he very likely would have lost
> his position and Lupin would have been expelled at a minimum.  So
> what possible leverage did Dumbledore have over Snape that would have
> prevented him from telling anyone?  If anything Snape was the one who
> was in the driver's seat and in a position to exact some kind of
> payment for his conditional silence.
> 
> "Severus, I forbid you to blackmail me" is pretty much what it
> amounts to.  
> 
> Magda

Carol responds:
"Forbidden" seems strangely strong, doesn't it, not to mention out of
character for Dumbledore. It would have been more in character for
Dumbledore to put Severus on his honor not to tell, a first chance to
show that he was worthy of Dumbledore's trust. I think, too, that
Severus understood that he would buy the disgrace of Remus and Sirius
at the expense of Dumbledore, and that he himself would look like a
weakling who had to be rescued. The only person who would come out of
the fiasco would be the supposedly heroic James. I doubt that Severus
wanted the whole WW to know that he owed his life to his worst enemy,
whether or not it involved the binding magical contract that we've
been calling a life debt.

Dumbledore must have used psychology rather than threats. That's his
standard modus operandi, and I don't think he would have abandoned it
in this case. Maybe there was a bargain involved, too--I'll teach you
Occlumency if you remain silent?

Carol, who thinks it's a near miracle that Severus kept that secret
for some twenty years, especially given that he thought Remus was part
of the plot to kill him