Apologizing to Snape?

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 139182

"Cathy Drolet" <cldrolet at s...> wrote: 

> Imagine, being reminded every day,
> for six years, of the mistake you
> made years before. His response to Harry,
> the snarkiness, the nastiness, is the
> only way Snape knows how to deal 
> with what he is feeling

Eggplant:
>It's entirely possible that you're right and that is the source of
Snape's dreadful behavior toward Harry, but I don't understand why you
couldn't rephrase your statement above by simply saying Snape is evil.

CathyD:
Because I already *have* said it, Eggplant, so many times I've lost count.  Here, just for you, is my opinion (capsulized) of Snape.
a) Snape is a slimy, nasty, oily, greasy, evil, Evil, EVIL git. 
b) If Snape should choose to do so, I think he could easily outstrip Lord Voldemort on the evil-meter by at least 1000 points (depending on the gauge of the meter, of course).
c) IMO, Snape has turned his back on that part of his life, in that he has chosen to serve Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix and work to bring down Voldemort from the inside where he is working, for the Order of the Phoenix, as a spy.  That does not mean that he is not now a slimy, nasty, oily, greasy, evil, Evil, EVIL git.
d) In order to accomplish the above, he must be able to convince Voldemort that he is still a Death Eater, still working for him, and still spying on Dumbledore and the Order.  

>>Any halfway decent human being would have gone out of his way to be
kind to a boy you had done such a great wrong, but Snape chose to do
the opposite.  

I don't agree, however, I don't think Snape *chose* his behaviour at all but acted in the only way his evil nature allows him to in this situation.  And just how would it look in front of the Slytherin kids whose fathers are Death Eaters if Snape was being kind to Harry Potter?  What stories they would have taken home to their fathers...or one father in particular, Lucius Malfoy.  We know Snape is using Malfoy to get information about Voldemort/DEs.  How would it look to Lucius if Draco had drug home tales of Snape giving special attention to the brat that brought down the Dark Lord?  Yes, Draco has brought home tales of special attention but not any that was given by Snape (who Lucius, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, etc., believe to be a Death Eater still).  

Lucius told Draco: "and I would remind you that it is not -- prudent -- to appear less than fond of Harry Potter, not when most of our kind regard him as the hero who made the Dark Lord disappear."  No, not prudent at all to someone like Malfoy who, a supporter of Voldemort during the first war, lied to get out going to Azkaban, and now has to present a respectable face to the world despite his allegiance.  That's not true of Snape, the WW world knows he was a DE and that he switched sides before Voldemort fell (even if one believes that to be untrue, that is what is on record at the MoM).  Snape can freely go about being as nasty as he pleases and it often works to his advantage in situations like terrorizing and intimidating Quirrell.  Dumbledore knows there are all kinds of lessons to be learned and having a nasty-ass for a teacher is one of them.  

Upthread, Pippin made, what I thought was a very good point about Snape:
"Unfortunately, that means Snape has had to treat Harry the way 'Severus Snape, secretly unrepentant Death Eater' would treat a little, er, powerless person of no regard or importance, who was the son of a man he undoubtedly hated, a favorite of Albus Dumbledore's, and who had taken a dislike to Snape from the start, <snip>"  
Snape can't go against his nature if he is to keep his cover.  He can't or he will blow his cover with the DEs and neither he nor Dumbledore can afford that. 



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