Snape's punishment a "moral" issue? Was "Two Scenes..."

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 144115

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

> Pippin:
> The thing for me is that Harry tells Slughorn that his shame will be
> cancelled out if he gives Harry the memory, or that's the way I 
> read it. You can certainly argue that Harry had no right at all to 
> say such a thing, but nevertheless he did. And I think that if 
> Dumbledore held out such a pardon to Snape, it is Harry's duty, as 
> Dumbledore's man to honor it.

There's a time differential here, it seems to me.  Why is Slughorn's 
memory so essential?  So that Dumbledore **and Harry** can pursue 
their program of figuring Voldemort out.  Harry is, at this point, an 
active and informed participant in the program, so he does have 
rights regarding this situation.

Snape is a little different, because Harry has not been informed as 
to reasons for why Dumbledore trusts Snape, and is thus not an active 
and equal partner in the enterprise.  But Snape has offended against 
Harry (and Neville) too, thanks to his part in orphaning (or 
practically so) both of them.  It gets even more complicated when you 
factor in the time issue: Snape did something wrong in the past, but 
he's also now done a questionable-at-best action in the present.  And 
as Harry is Dumbledore's heir of sorts, it's now up to him to 
adjudicate in Dumbledore's death.  The outcome depends on the 
circumstances of this death, of course.

Something else comes to mind, although it may be a case of having 
watched too much Law and Order.  I'm thinking of the cases where the 
DA makes a deal with someone odious (often out of a rock-and-hard-
place necessity), but the judge ends up rejecting it, refusing to 
enforce the deal, on moral grounds.  If Dumbledore were mistaken to 
issue the pardon...just one interesting possibility.

<snip>

> To me, there's a trade-off when you make something a social 
> responsibility.  When you enlist the help of your fellow beings to 
> enforce a standard of right and wrong, you are supposed to  
> surrender the privelege, literally the 'private law', of being sole 
> arbiter. That Snape doesn't do that, that he takes House Points for 
> doing things that offend only him, is one of chief ways he abuses 
> his power. 

I wouldn't disagree with that, and it does seem thematic for Snape: I 
read his attempted circumvention of Dumbledore's authority at the end 
of PoA in much the same light.  It's the "Black did something against 
ME that he never got properly punished for so I'm going to take care 
of it now" issue.  I'd connect his treatment of Harry to much the 
same thing, the conviction of one's own right to be judge, especially 
when one is convinced that one sees what no one else has the eyes 
to.  It's played out so far; I wonder what final point it leads us to?

-Nora piles on the clothing to venture outdoors again