Snape: the Riddle...(and Spinner's End)

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 136477

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
> Betsy Hp:
> But Snape *does* take the Vow.  I can't think that he did it on 
> Voldemort's orders.   I also doubt Snape did it because he was 
> moved by Narcissa's tears.  And he certainly wasn't trying to 
> impress Bellatrix.  

Not "impress" so much as "convince". And it isn't just Bellatrix 
that's to be considered here.  He tells her "You can carry my words 
back to the others who whisper behind my back..."  If it were just 
Bellatrix to be considered, I don't think he would care.  But he's 
smart enough to realize that Bellatrix, by virtue of her sacrifice and 
loyalty to Voldemort, has a cachet within the Death Eaters that he 
does not. 

You see by the end of the novel that Snape has indeed become the 
acknowledged leader of the Death Eaters.  In the absence of Voldemort 
they do what he says without question.  So that much has been 
accomplished by the Unbreakable Vow, among other things.       

> There has to be a reason Snape put himself into that 
> position and what I'm currently coming up with is that by taking 
> the vow Snape is putting himself into a position where he can 
> protect Draco.  What other reasons are there for Snape taking the > 
> Vow?  (I ask that with genuine curiosity.) 

I personally think he wasn't aware of the construct of the task for 
Draco when Bellatrix and Narcissa arrived.  And when he offers to help 
it's his way of getting an "in" on the situation with Draco at 
Hogwarts, to better have an excuse for keeping an eye on him.

Narcissa brings up the Unbreakable Vow, which truthfully I don't think 
Snape was thinking of at that point.  But when she mentions it his 
face is "blank, unreadable."  He's thinking.  

And he agrees, because I think he knows it's the only way to 
accomplish what he needs to accomplish--to secure the trust of the 
Death Eaters, through Bellatrix, and to allow him to pry with Draco.

He understands at that moment that he might have to kill Dumbledore.  
But I think he also understands that Dumbledore himself would have--at 
that moment--agreed and encouraged him to take the vow to accomplish 
just what the vow accomplishes.  If Snape still is working for the 
Order (I think he is), his ascent in HPB, the total trust he attains, 
makes him more valuable to the Order than he ever has been in the past.

More valuable, even, than Dumbledore, who is even at the beginning of 
the book not long for this world.

Leslie41