Snape as the dark young man (Was: Trelawney's part in HBP)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 137612

> Ceridwen now:
> Can anyone point me to the first reading, where Trelawney is turning 
> over the hand of spades?  <snip> The reason I want to 
> know is, does anyone else think the 'Knave of Spades' might refer to 
> Snape?  He has dark hair and eyes, is young compared to Dumbledore, 
> is possibly troubled, and he dislikes Trelawney.  What else was in 
> that reading? <snip>

Carol responds:

I thought the passage was in chapter 25, "The Seer Overheard," but I
can't find it, either. It must be earlier, probably right before one
of Harry's visits to Dumbledore's office. Anyone?

As for your question about Snape being the young man referred to by
the Tarot card, that was my immediate reaction, too, except that I
thought the qustioner was Dumbledore. Snape is dark (except for his
pale/sallow complexion) and wears black robes, and he's quite young
compared with Trelawney (much less Dumbledore). He is certainly
"troubled," having placed himself (and Dumbledore) in a terrible
predicament by taking the Unbreakable Vow. 

Harry, in contrast, is a boy, not a young man, and only his hair is
dark. And he certainly doesn't dislike his questioner if the
questioner is Dumbledore. He isn't really "questioned" by Snape, only
ordered to bring his schoolbooks after Snape's Legilimency reveals
that Harry has the HBP's potion book. Harry isn't really "troubled" in
HBP, at least no more than he usually is. He's quite happy in
comparison with his angry OoP persona. 

For all these reasons, I think the young man is Snape, not Harry. My
problem with this reading is the suggestion that Snape doesn't like
Dumbledore (assuming that DD is the "questioner"). If this reading is
correct, then Snape is evil, and I don't think he is (as I've already
made clear in numerous posts so I won't repeat myself here). For that
reason, I want to explore the possibility of an alternate reading,
with Snape as the young man but someone other than DD as the questioner.

For one thing, we don't really see DD questioning Snape. It appears
from GoF and OoP that Snape simply reports to him without necessarily
being questioned by him. Even the snippet of an argument in the forest
is Snape objecting to something and DD telling Snape what to do, not
asking him questions. (He does ask *Harry* questions but Harry doesn't
dislike him, so that can't be what the card means.)

Your suggestion that the questioner is Trelawney and that Snape (like
McGonagall) dislikes her would get around that difficulty, but I'm not
sure it's the answer. For one thing, we've never seen Snape reacting
directly to Trelawney, IIRC. Another possibility is that the
questioner is Voldemort, who certainly *has* questioned Snape in the
past (end of GoF). We see Snape's answers to LV's questions (a nice
mixture of truths, half-truths, and lies) in "Spinner's End." Since
Snape is a double agent supposedly loyal to LV, it's quite likely that
LV has questioned him much more recently (and placed Wormtail with him
to spy on him while he's at Spinner's End for the summer). Or
Bellatrix could be the questioner, and it's quite clear that he
doesn't like her.

At any rate, I do think that we're supposed to assume (correctly) that
the young man is Snape but that the card is a red herring of sorts--we
only think that the questioner Snape dislikes is Dumbledore because,
like Harry throughout all the books, we have only appearances to base
our judgment on, and appearances point to Snape as disloyal to
Dumbledore. We are not privy to Snape's thoughts, but we can at least
be more objective than Harry and explore other possibilities.

BTW, everyone keeps talking about how right Harry is in this book.
However, he's wrong about the HBP and wrong (as Hermione points out)
about the cursed necklace being the thing that Draco doesn't want to
carry from Borgin and Burkes). Being (essentially) right about Draco
doesn't necessarily make him right about Snape. And Ron, who also
hates Snape and is seldom right about anything, now owes his life to
Snape, without whom Harry would never have known about bezoars.

Carol