Snape: the Riddle... (LONG)

[severelysigune]

No: HPFGUIDX 135892

Is Snape evil? 
I don't think so. Apart from it being an awful letdown, it would also 
mean that JKR is a sloppy writer (- why doesn't Snape kill/harm more 
people than Dumbledore, for starters? Why doesn't he tie a bow around 
Harry and carry him as a special present to his Dark Master, for 
seconds? Why didn't he kill Dumbledore before?...)

Is Snape good?
Well, he has just cast an Unforgivable Curse, and we all know what 
that does to your soul, so far from me to go and claim he's all sweet 
and nice and so misunderstood.

But maybe he needn't be either of those. Here is my theory for 
Snape's behaviour in HBP, in a long (but hopefully not dry) essay 
with plenty of canon corroboration :-).


A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hogwarts
______________________________________________

I was amazed at the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince: they 
must have a very special meaning if JKR felt it necessary to include 
no less than TWO chapters that are not from Harry's point of
view. 
She has done this only once before, in Goblet of Fire, where her 
integrity as a storyteller required her to reveal to her readers that 
Voldemort, whose present-day self we had last seen in his vaporous 
form in Philosopher's Stone, was no longer a vapour. She could
not 
spring the graveyard scene on us without warning and have Foetus!Mort 
appear out of the blue with Wormtail. There was vital information she 
had to impart to us, but to which Harry was not privy. It is 
therefore worth taking an extra close look at what is to my mind one 
of the most fascinating parts of the whole book: the beginning.

"The Other Minister" feels, to me at least, like the
introduction to 
the entirety of books Six and Seven (– two books which, as JKR
has 
announced, are really the halves of one mammoth-sized tome). The 
situation with Voldemort has now become so serious that even the 
Muggles cannot ignore it, and the end of a period of relative 
innocence is symbolised by the replacement of the slightly ridiculous 
figure of Cornelius Fudge, the man in the lime-green bowler hat, by 
the hard-liner Rufus Scrimgeour, whom Harry significantly compares 
with Barty Crouch Sr. The second chapter, then, is the real beginning 
of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and includes revelations of 
the kind we had in GoF's Frank Bryce chapter. It is here that the 
clues to the book's plot will be found.

"Spinner's End" shows us Snape in his natural
surroundings, in an 
ancestral home far removed from the one fandom has often liked to 
allot to him. But it fits perfectly. It is also, in my opinion, the 
clue to much of what is to come.

***

Part the First: Sevvie and Cissy
_________________________________

Severus Snape, Death Eater and Order member, Slytherin and half-
blood, receives a visit from Narcissa Malfoy, wife of one and mother 
of another Death Eater. She is accompanied by her sister Bellatrix, 
who considers herself the Dark Lord's most faithful minion.
Narcissa –
 so beautiful, so blonde and so alone – is desperate. Her husband 
Lucius is in prison and her sixteen-year-old son Draco, the apple of 
her eye, has been assigned a most dangerous task which she does not 
think he can possibly carry out: killing Albus Dumbledore, the only 
wizard whose magical power equals Lord Voldemort's. The Dark
Lord, 
she guesses, doesn't believe in Draco's success either but
has given 
him the job with the almost sole purpose of killing the boy when he 
fails to deliver. What is Narcissa to do? Lucius is in prison and out 
of favour; he cannot protect their son with his own hands and his 
name does not mean much anymore. But another Death Eater has taken 
his place in the Dark Lord's good graces – another Death
Eater with 
whom Narcissa is also on first name terms: the slippery Severus 
Snape. Snape is a member of Dumbledore's staff and a wizard of
some 
talent; he would be perfect both to watch over Draco and, if 
necessary, carry out the dirty deed himself. In order to save her 
son, Narcissa will have to plead with Snape – he really is the
only 
one who can help her.

Severus Snape is a very cautious man. He has to be, if he values his 
own life. Both Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort believe to have 
him on their side as a spy so that, in order to keep his balance 
between the two of them and maintain credibility, Snape has to watch 
his words and actions at all times and keep both satisfied. When 
Narcissa arrives in Spinner's End, Snape's position as a
servant of 
two masters is the following: he has Albus Dumbledore's complete 
trust; and the Dark Lord has welcomed him back into the fold. 
Voldemort, however, had referred to him in GoF's Graveyard Scene 
as "the one who has left me forever; he will be killed, of
course" 
(confirmed by JKR in an interview as referring to Snape) – which 
makes you wonder just how welcoming the Dark Lord really was when 
Snape turned up on his doorstep; it was probably not nearly as cosy 
as Snape makes it out to be in front of Bellatrix. Voldemort, we 
know, isn't quite as nice to his employees as Dumbledore, and it
is 
highly likely that Snape is still skating on thin ice with him. He 
has, after all, only risen in rank because Lucius Malfoy's last 
enterprise was a complete and utter fiasco and several of his trusted 
men have been rounded up as a result as well. If Voldemort really 
feels he can rely on Snape, would he send Peter Pettigrew, the Rat 
Who Listens At Doors, to Spinner's End? Snape may well say
Wormtail 
is there to assist him; the truth is that he is being watched in his 
own house.  

Snape, Bellatrix is eager to point out, has a reputation for public 
non-committal. We have seen that in the Order; apparently he does the 
same among the Death Eaters. It is, frankly, the sensible way to act 
for a spy; but it does mean that others find it difficult to trust 
him. When Narcissa comes to appeal to him for her son's
protection, 
Snape tries to slither out of the deep by his stock answer: "I
will 
try." It is, as Bellatrix says, an empty promise, and Narcissa
wants 
more. If Snape really means to help, will he not consent to making an 
Unbreakable Vow?

The Unbreakable Vow is the kind of narrative device that alerts the 
reader of fairy tales to impending doom. Remember Beauty and the 
Beast, Rumpelstiltkin and many other stories, in which a man or woman 
is saved from a disaster in return for an indefinite reward along the 
lines of, "Give me the first thing you see when you come
home." Those 
people always expect the `first thing' to be their dog or
something 
they are prepared to part with, but it invariably turns out to be 
their own child or someone/something so precious that they would 
gladly have forsaken the offered help in the first place rather than 
giving this precious thing or person up as payment. (King Arthur, to 
name another example, has the uncanny habit of promising 
helpers "anything you ask", expecting everybody to ask for
*money*. 
Duh.)

The Unbreakable Vow Narcissa asks Snape to make is a spell that kills 
the `bondee' when they break their promise. A clever and
cautious man 
like Snape should (and, one expects, *does*) realise the finality and 
great danger of such a move. The sensible answer to Narcissa's 
request would be "no". 
But Snape says yes.

To agree to anything like an Unbreakable Vow seems incredibly
naïve – 
there is bound to be a Nagini-sized snake in the grass. And hey 
presto, there certainly is. Narcissa cleverly forces a third clause 
on Snape: to carry out the mission in case Draco fails. And let's
be 
honest: if she hadn't included that, what would have been the 
ultimate good of the protection Snape promised? Failure of the 
mission means death for Draco in any case.

I have to admit that it is perhaps a bit unfair calling Snape
naïve. 
I don't think he is. It is just that he has allowed himself to be 
seduced by the admittedly formidable combined forces of the Black 
sisters, which wouldn't have worked with *me* - I'm
impervious to 
female charm :o).

Snape and Bellatrix obviously dislike each other, and yet there is a 
seduction going on: she coaxes him into making a mistake. Bella 
doesn't trust Snape, and they both know that his claims on the
Dark 
Lord's trust are in part poker-faced bluff. Bellatrix may have
lost 
some of her former standing after the Department of Mysteries 
debacle, but one imagines that her (fanatically loyal) voice still 
counts for something with Voldemort, and as an adversary she is not 
to be underestimated. Convincing her of his loyalty is not a simple 
luxury for Snape. Making a solemn magical vow to help bring
Draco's 
murder mission to a successful end will certainly do much to quell 
her doubts and is a serious argument in favour of the ritual.

However, the most compelling pressure issues not from Bella, but from 
her sister, whose tears flow freely, who clutches at Snape's
robes, 
holds his hands and throws herself at his feet. She strokes his 
ego: "you could do it," she says, "you are the Dark
Lord's 
favourite", "you are Draco's favourite teacher",
"/you/ would 
succeed". All pretty transparent to this sceptical observer –
but 
Narcissa has touched a nerve. Consider who she is, where she is and 
with whom she is pleading. Narcissa Black Malfoy, an elegant, 
beautiful and upper-class pure-blood has alighted on a "Muggle 
dunghill" to humbly beg the help of the ugly, frustrated and 
unpopular son of a spinner – a half-blood wizard who craves 
recognition, whose only pathetic claim to nobility lies in the sound 
of his mother's name, who has painstakingly eradicated any sign
of 
his origins in his diction and dress but somehow never found the 
acceptance and admiration he considers his due. If Narcissa is used 
to calling him Severus, it is probably because she has never needed 
to accord him the privilege of being addressed as /Mr Snape/. No 
doubt a portion of his brain tells him that he finds himself in a 
danger zone (mark his unease at the sight of her tears); but his 
vanity and pride send signals that are too strong for so weak a man 
to resist. Snape is deeply enjoying his power over Pretty Cissy. He 
says yes, not out of the goodness of his heart, but because it is his 
moment of triumph over all he has wanted to be but has not been able 
to reach. He has finally come to the point where he can bow down to 
pick up a pure-blooded aristocratic beauty from where she is 
grovelling in the dust. 
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The trap closes, and Narcissa has him where 
she wants him: on his knees and firmly bound by a powerful spell. 
When she slips in her third clause it is too late for Snape to do 
anything else than twitch and endure. He is forced to condemn himself 
three times.

Here endeth the story's setup. 

***

Part the Second: Black Wizard, White Wizard – or,
Dumbledore's Fatal 
Mistake
____________________________________________________________________

As soon as Narcissa has removed herself, her tears, her perfume and 
her breeding from Snape's hovel, there probably ensues a scene
which 
we have not had the doubtful pleasure of witnessing – one in
which 
Snape might or might not have displayed his old knack for stringing 
together those remarkable obscenities which JKR's editors had
already 
deleted from the Worst Memory. He has been tricked and he knows it. 
Although he had not originally agreed to it, he has magically pledged 
himself to kill Albus Dumbledore. Dear dear, he is in deep – you
know.

There is no way he can extricate himself from this mess. From now on, 
it is either his life or Dumbledore's. This is the point at which
my 
conjectures differ from those I have read so far. The Snape 
apologists whose theories I have read assume that after the 
catastrophic Vow he hastens to Dumbledore in order to inform him of 
what happened. I don't. I think Snape did not tell Dumbledore the 
whole truth of what happened that night – because he doesn't
dare to. 
He is ashamed of having been tricked like a novice. He has made an 
elementary mistake; and where in canon have we ever caught Snape 
admitting a mistake? Dumbledore, yes. Sirius, yes. Remus, yes. Snape? 
No way. He makes errors and he is aware of them, but he does not 
admit them. He tries to solve his problems on his own, in silence. So 
he does what he is good at: the telling of partial truths. He informs 
Dumbledore of the assassination plot and of the fact that he has made 
a Vow to protect Draco, but he never mentions the full pledge. Only 
he, Narcissa and Bellatrix (and Peter?) know of that.

What Harry overhears is Snape telling Draco he took an Unbreakable 
Vow to *protect* him (Bb ed. 302). This is what Harry repeats to 
Dumbledore, who has already heard it from Snape and is thus not 
concerned. When he says he understands better than Harry, he is 
referring to the fact that he is aware of Draco's purpose as well
as 
of Snape's collaboration (Bb ed. 336-7); but he does not, and
neither 
does Harry, know of Snape's real predicament.

The argument overheard by Hagrid (Bb ed. 379-80) is, in my opinion, 
the result of the incredible pressure Snape is under and which he, in 
his vanity, cannot relieve through owning up. The reluctance he is 
heard to display is not what Harry interprets it to be, namely, a 
sign of allegiance to Voldemort, because that would be too stupid 
when coming from a man on the point of defection; but neither, I am 
sorry to say, do I believe it to be caused by any request of 
Dumbledore's to kill him if necessary. Snape has been driven into
a 
corner by his own frailty and is as a result beginning to behave in 
an unruly manner. Hagrid reports him as saying that Dumbledore is 
taking too much for granted – and indeed Dumbledore is. It is not 
Snape's loyalty that should be questioned, but his strength. 

The argument takes place after Ron has been poisoned. Snape is called 
to task: Draco's desperate murder attempts are not only
endangering 
random students; they may well result in Hogwarts being closed. 
Hagrid hears Dumbledore order Snape to keep Slytherin House – 
actually meaning Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle – under closer
surveillance 
and as such to put a stop to these loose canons. But Snape cannot 
stop Draco's attempts. Rather, he is sworn to support them. The
best 
he has been able to do, without endangering his own life, is to put 
Crabbe and Goyle in detention. If Dumbledore knew the full terms of 
the Vow, would he ask the impossible of Snape? I don't think he
has 
any idea about the extent to which Snape is bound.

Dumbledore, as JKR has pointed out in her last interview, has no 
equals, no confidantes. No one is up to his standard. But 
Dumbledore's greatest mistake is that he does not realise so.
Because 
he can forgive and forget, he assumes that Snape and Harry can, too. 
Because he is not afraid to die, he thinks other people shouldn't
be 
either. Because he sees the good in others, he thinks it is a natural 
thing and evident to everyone. Because he is willing to sacrifice 
himself, he thinks that Snape must be, too. But Snape is, unlike 
Dumbledore, not "a great man". He is not hero material. He is
brainy, 
yes; but in terms of personality he is small and petty and weak. 
Snape is all too human, and I suspect he knows it; but he cannot 
explain this to Dumbledore because the grand old man simply would not 
understand, and Snape hates to disappoint. This is the tragedy of 
Snape and Dumbledore's relationship. Snape's mind is destined
for 
greatness, but the rest of him isn't, and Dumbledore is
constantly 
demanding everything, kindly for starters, and firmly if kindness 
does not yield the desired result. Look at how he – admittedly
very 
politely and without raising his voice – pesters Harry about his 
failure to retrieve Slughorn's memory in "Lord
Voldemort's Request". 
It is Harry's first experience of what it is like to work under 
Dumbledore's orders; Snape has been under this kind of pressure
ever 
since Voldemort's resurrection.

There are things Snape can do really well, such as analysing, working 
and battling Dark Arts. He is also a good healer – if he knows 
poisons, he also masters their antidotes. He can be relied on to lend 
an expert's help in things he is good at. When Dumbledore returns 
from his first Horcrux hunt, suffering under the curse of
Marvolo's 
ring and too weak to heal himself, Snape saves his life (Bb ed. 470-
1). Dumbledore trusts Snape to repeat this action as often as may 
prove necessary. I do not believe in some pre-arranged plan to stage, 
or otherwise effect, Dumbledore's death, if only because I cannot
see 
what the use of that would be. Of course it may turn out in Book 7 to 
trigger an enchantment of some kind, but I find it hard to believe 
that Dumbledore should *order* anyone at all to cast an Unforgivable 
Curse, seeing how he knows it damages the caster's soul.

The implications of my assumptions suggest this scenario for the 
fateful night:

Dumbledore goes Horcrux-hunting with Harry, fully expecting to incur 
damage just like the first time with the ring; but he counts on being 
healed in time by his Dark Arts expert, who also saved him the first 
time. He will send Harry for Snape when he arrives back at Hogwarts.

However: when he gets back to Hogwarts, poisoned, weakened and 
unwell, a few unexpected things have happened. Draco Malfoy, 
suspecting that his teacher (now rival) wants to steal his glory, has 
on his own initiative and unbeknownst to Snape smuggled Death Eaters 
into the school and a battle is raging. Dumbledore freezes Harry to 
keep him from harm at the hands of Malfoy and the adult Death Eaters; 
but this also means that precious time is lost for himself, because 
who will be alarming Snape now? McGonagall sends Flitwick, who 
doesn't know about Dumbledore's return and only mentions the
Death 
Eaters, leaving Snape to figure out where Dumbledore is – because
he 
isn't there to fight with the others; his task is to assist the 
Headmaster. By the time Snape reaches Dumbledore, the old man is one 
inch away from death and surrounded by Death Eaters to boot. To make 
things worse, Draco Malfoy is there too, so the scene is fully set 
for the accomplishment of Dumbledore's murder. Snape is trapped.

What is Snape to do? He didn't know about the Death Eaters, who now 
make four very unwanted witnesses. There is neither the time nor the 
occasion to heal Dumbledore, and there is that infernal nuisance, the 
Unbreakable Vow. Snape does some quick thinking and sees that there 
are two options. 

1) He openly declares his allegiance to Dumbledore. This means that 
he has to put up a fight against four skilled Death Eaters plus 
Draco. Assuming that he can defeat them, 
- Draco's mission fails and the brat is killed by the Dark Lord in 
punishment.
- Snape himself dies too, because he has failed to honour his 
Unbreakable Vow.
- There is no chance of saving Dumbledore, who is too far gone to 
begin with, and who is going to heal him if Snape is dead?

Result: the Order is one leader and one spy short and a young life is 
destroyed in a pointless battle. But at least Harry will be convinced 
that Snape, God rest his soul, was on the side of the angels after 
all.

2) He kills Dumbledore. This means that
- He saves Draco's life, because the mission has been successful even 
if not carried out by Draco and the Dark Lord cannot be all that 
displeased. On top of that, Draco isn't a murderer at sixteen.
- He saves his own life because he honours his Vow.
- He extremely convincingly maintains his cover as a spy.

Result: By sacrificing the already lost life of a dying 150-year-old 
wizard, he saves a sixteen-year-old (buying him time to think things 
over), himself, and safeguards one of the Order's most significant 
pawns in the coming confrontation with the Dark Lord. Drawback is 
that nobody trusts him anymore; but judging by people's reactions, 
nobody except Dumbledore and Hagrid did trust him to begin with.

Snape is a Slytherin who'll save his own neck first. His predicament 
is so bad that he cannot escape from it without a loss of some kind. 
Snape, who is calculating and rational rather than heroic, chooses 
the way which, though hardly a win-win situation, is in his opinion 
the least of two evils. It is an amoral decision which, however 
terrible, had to be taken and, I daresay, may prove of best advantage 
to Harry and the Order in Book 7.

The look Snape and Dumbledore exchange on the battlement is to me the 
most chilling moment of Half-Blood Prince. If my assumption is 
correct and Snape has kept the third clause of the Unbreakable Vow 
from Dumbledore, then those few seconds are even more heart-breaking 
than I found them at first sight. When Dumbledore whispers
"Severus 
 
please 
" he is not pleading for his life, because he is not
afraid 
to die; neither is he asking Snape to kill him as arranged, because 
there was no such arrangement. What he means is, "please
don't tell 
me I was wrong about you all the time – that I have confided in
you 
when you were not worthy of my faith – that I have defended you 
against others when they were right in their suspicions."
Snape's 
revulsion is the result of his hurt pride, as he realises even 
Dumbledore doubts his allegiance at that moment. No doubt it helped 
him perform a convincing Killing Curse.

Dumbledore's death is the lamentable outcome of a number of 
circumstances – Draco's efforts certainly helped cause it,
but 
Snape's foolishly accepted Unbreakable Vow is at least equally 
important. There was, for once, no malicious intent on Snape's
side, 
and yet he has, one could say, committed what is possibly his worst 
crime. Both he and Dumbledore have become victims of his human 
weakness, of character flaws combined with the vulnerabilities 
connected to his social and intellectual background, childhood events 
and poor choices made in the past. Dumbledore's trust has been 
justified, but he has overestimated Snape's capacities.

Severus Snape will not be on the side of the Dark forces in Book 7. 
He has not killed Dumbledore because he wanted to, but out of what he 
felt as necessity. He is not proud of it and it gives him no 
pleasure – quite the contrary. He has personally destroyed his
only 
ally. Voldemort cannot replace Dumbledore in Snape's life: for
that, 
he has too little sympathy and too little inclination to share, 
whether it be knowledge or power. He is too fickle to offer any sense 
of security, and too tyrannical to give freedom. Snape will help 
destroy him, if only because he clings passionately to his own life. 
But, I fear, despite his essential allegiance to Dumbledore he is 
highly unlikely to survive Book 7 – the story's logic may
well demand 
his demise for killing the thing he loves.

Yours severely,
Sigune