Do the math Re: Medieval attitudes was Saving Harry

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 137807

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> You aren't the only one to make this mistake, but I must point out
> that the math is off. Evil Snape would have had to fool Dumbledore
> for 16+ years. But Good Snape only has to have fooled Voldemort 
> for some period between the prophecy and  the downfall, and 
> then for some two years since the end of GoF. In between Voldemort
> was indeed convinced that Snape had left him forever.

Good!Snape would also have been keeping up something of a front 
towards those of Voldemort's supporters who were free, no?  That's 
always been one postulated reason for his showy nasty behavior to a 
young Harry Potter, being as Voldemort was not back and active when 
Harry arrived at school.  If we have a Self-Interested!Snape, playing 
both sides as best he can, he's not under the same kind of strain as 
your committed Evil!Snape.

<snip>

> If Snape indeed changed sides when Voldemort was winning,
> then like the Cambridge Four, his reasons must have been  
> ideological as much as opportunistic, the more so if he then took 
> on the role of spy rather than the safety of Dumbledore's witness 
> protection program. 

This is, of course, assuming that Dumbledore is correct in his 
assertion that Snape switched sides *at great risk to Snape*.  If 
Snape had been sent by Voldemort initially (as he asserts to 
Bellatrix in ch. 2; is he lying or not?), then there is no such great 
danger, and quite possibly no initial ideological motivation.  [An 
open and interesting possibility is a Snape who was sent to spy, but 
converted once there; unprovable at present, natch.]   

<snip>

> His version of Snape's defection does not accord with what Harry 
> himself heard Dumbledore say in the pensieve, that Snape had 
> returned to the good side before the Potters died. 

I can't quite find all the canon to match, but I'm under the 
impression that everyone else is having trouble making the timeline 
for Snape's teaching at Hogwarts, defection, and everything else 
match up exactly.  This could be 'ooh, maths', it could be a case 
where it works if you tweak it one way (but without cold hard 
evidence), or it could be deliberate.

> But I think this is like the Shipping Wars of yore. People fix on 
> their notion of the One True Snape and if canon doesn't bear them
> out, well then, canon must be faulty. Could be, certainly.
> And maybe Aesop's fox was right and the grapes were sour after all,
> at least for that particular fox. De gustibus...

I'll still be waiting to read your thematic revaluation of Lupin when 
he's not one of the prime factors for active evil, Pippin. :)

-Nora wishes JKR would answer some of the timeline questions straight 
up