Forgiving Snape was FF: Re: Who does Snape really hate?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 144065


> Alla:
> 
> You ARE a very good writer, Pippin 

Pippin:
Thank you!

Alla:
and I understand that you want 
> Harry to let Snape off the hook, just as I hope he won't do it.
> Nevertheless I think that Harry IS kind and forgiving soul and it is 
> possible that you are right and he will forgive Snape for how he 
> persecuted him while being his teacher IMO ( yes, I think 
> mistreating the person for who his parents were is persecution). In 
> fact, if I see genuine remorse on Snape's behalf, I would even be 
> happy with Harry forgiving him, if he is DD!M of course.
> 
> 
> But I do hope that even in your scenario at least Harry won't let 
> Snape off the hook for his parents deaths' because no matter how you 
> look at it, without Snape telling Voldemort the prophecy, Voldemort 
> may not have gone after Potters and they may have been alive.
> 

Pippin:
I re-read HBP cover to cover yesterday (why isn't there a way to skip
the first reading, where you're going Aha, I knew it! or
No Way! or Huh?? and it takes you out of the story) and I came 
across this bit ...
 
Slughorn raised a pudgy hand and pressed his shaking fingers to
his mouth; he looked for a moment like an enormously overgrown
baby. 
"I am not proud..." he whispered through his fingers. "I am ashamed
of what -- of what that memory shows....I think I may have done
great damage that day..."
"You'd cancel out anything you did by giving me the memory," 
said Harry. "It would be a very brave and noble thing to do."
--HBP ch 22

Slughorn contributed to the deaths of six people, all of whom
might be alive if he hadn't told Voldemort about Horcruxes, plus
everyone who's been killed by the renascent Voldemort. Unlike
Snape, Sluggy kept silent about it for, what, fifty years or so?
How many people could have been saved if he'd gone to Dumbledore,
like Snape did? At least Snape tried to make up for what he'd done,
even if he didn't entirely succeed -- even if he didn't manage to
save the Potters, the information he brought back as a spy surely
saved other lives, if you believe DDM!Snape, of course.

And Harry offered redemption, though to be sure he didn't know
yet what Sluggy actually did. All the same, it'd be a pretty smarmy 
hypocrite, IMO, who couldn't forgive Snape after that.

Pippin