TBAY: Definitely NOT a Snape Theory (long)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 145030

Jen had been lurking in the Royal George for several days, much of 
the time tucked inside the comforting anonymity of her Invisibility 
Cloak. She found it fun for....er...listening in on the friendly 
chatter in the pub. Yes, that was it. So far the only interesting 
development was the daily appearance of that dream-crusher, Faith, 
who seemed to be keeping an annoyingly close eye on one of the dark 
corridors in the back. 

"There she is again!" Jen thought, rounding the corner to see Faith 
slipping through the same, unmarked door as she had for the last 
several days. "Hah! Little Miss Perfect is up to something. I've 
finally nabbed Faith and she's certainly not polishing her cannons 
in there!" Jen kept her gleeful voice to a whisper, carefully 
gliding over to the door. Pushing cautiously, and then very firmly 
for it seemed stuck, Jen finally bent down to investigate and found 
an object wedged in the crack under the door. It looked familiar. 
Jen pulled and pulled until the object suddenly broke free. "Lumos," 
she whispered, letting the light play on what looked to 
be....."OHO!" 

It was an ACID POP, and that could mean only one thing--Neri was 
skulking around with FAITH, of all things. "Oh, this is too much," 
Jen sniggered with conspiratorial glee.  "Neri and FAITH, that's 
rich. The inventor of the ACID POP and the viral Imperio theory, 
turned traitor and *fraternizing with the enemy*." While musing over 
the fitness of this pairing, Jen found herself unwrapping the ACID 
POP, it was after all her favorite candy. She'd given up on 
LOLLIPOPS long ago, or rather, never liked them to begin with. Kid 
Stuff, too sweeet. Everyone knew Snape of the swooping robes and 
sneering face would NOT find his equal in Lily "Goody-Two Shoes" 
Potter. No, no, Narcissa Malfoy with her multitude of tears, her 
lovely classic features, refined manners and a slight sneer on her 
own face was obviously the unrequited match for Sevvie. When he had 
time for women of course, which seemed highly unlikely and mostly a 
fan invention. There was a reason all his probable matches were 
unrequited. 

Jen opened the door and was surprised to see a staircase she'd never 
noticed in her years of sneaking...er...wandering through the halls 
and admiring the classic architecture. Descending the staircase, she 
heard voices. Neri and FAITH were not alone! Who could that be? She 
heard mention of Snape's debt to James, some boat called LIDS 
("hmmm, do I know that one?") and Neri's voice raised in 
exasperation: "Now just a minute," he said. "This isn't fair! There 
can't be holes in your theory because it has no structure to have 
holes in it. You just took three paragraphs from Dumbledore's end-of-
the-year talk in SS/PS, combined them with two paragraphs from his 
end-of-the-year talk in PoA, and that it! Where are the assumptions? 
Where is the reasoning? This isn't even a theory!" 

Another voice spoke and Jen peered down to the bottom of the 
slippery stairs, trying to get a glimpse of the unknown person; she 
lost her footing, tumbled headlong down the rest of the stairs, and 
landed face-up, staring into a familiar face. 

"George?!" Jen gasped with astonishment. George muttered something 
and offered a half-smile in return, trying to work his way behind 
FAITH and Neri.

"Well" said Neri as if nothing unusual had happened."I suppose since 
you dropped by, we'll fill you in, Jen." He smirked at the 
Invisibility cloak thrown off in the fall, an ACID POP crunched to 
smithereens in Jen's mouth and the look of bewilderment on her 
face. "Relax, it's not what you think. FAITH isn't *speuclating*, 
I'm sure you hoped to catch her in the act. Didn't your mom ever 
tell you not to run with pops in your mouth, by the way? 

Jen, flustered but still in charge of her faculties, got up and 
retrieved her cloak. "Oh, don't worry, I heard enough to know what's 
going on here. FAITH went and dusted off *this* old thing." Jen said 
disparagingly of the half-built ship, obviously constructed of old 
and peeling boards. "Yes, Snape's debt to James. Might as well hope 
to hear more about ancient magic, FAITH, as to find out this is at 
the bottom of Snape's mysterious turn to Dumbledore's side."

FAITH sniffed mightily at the floozy who dared to prance half-baked 
theories, ripe with speculation and worn-to-death characters like 
Florence across the Royal George any old time she pleased. "Well, I 
wouldn't expect the likes of you to understand the beauty of a well-
constructed canon, the glimmer of words taken directly from JKR's 
prose, the perfectly replicated dialogue of--"

"Enough." Neri barked, sounding more and more like Tom Riddle these 
days. "You think this theory, erm, this--"

"This snippet directly taken from canon, you mean?  Everyone knows 
Snape repaid his debt to James by safeguarding Harry in PS. You 
heard Dumbledore, Snape worked to repay his debt so he could go back 
to hating James' memory in peace. It's all in there, p. three-
hundred and ninety.... p. 300, Scholastic. Dumbledore even had a 
*dreamy* expression on his face when he explained everything to 
Harry. Relieved Snape had finally paid off the debt he tried so hard 
to repay before James died, but James of course sneered at him 
and....."

FAITH glared at Jen, expecting no less than rampant speculation from 
the likes of her. Crossing her arms, she practically spit 
out: "Canon?" Jen was surprsied, she'd never seen Saint FAITH in 
such a fury before. But looks alone were not enough to quell Jen 
from spouting off.

"Well of course we know after POA that Snape attempted to save James 
and Lily after he sold them down....after his Big Mistake of telling 
Voldemort the prophecy: 'Like father, like son Potter!I have just 
saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would 
have been well-served if he'd killed you; you'd have died like your 
father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black--" 
(chap. 19, p. 361, Scholastic)

Neri and FAITH exchanged knowing glances before smiling at Jen like 
a child who has uttered something quite funny and doesn't quite 
realize it. "Yes?" Faith said sweetly, "go on my dear, you were 
saying some un-canonish thing about Snape going to the trouble of 
trying to save James *after* he'd switched sides and that discounts 
the reason he switched---how exactly? 

Suddenly, with horror, Jen looked up and saw Neri's bemused 
expression. "Oh....no...could that be IT? Did Snape go to 
Dumbledore's side because of the friggin' life debt? And he tried to 
save James and Lily, I'm sure of it, figured a way to worm the 
information out of the Secret Keeper, then blah blah, and 
blah...then James sneered and laughed in his face. There had to have 
been a sneer...I'm certain of it..."

Jen miraculously regained her composure. "No, but of course. When 
Snape repaid his debt to James by saving Harry that was the end. 
Dumbledore had nothing keeping him there anymore once the debt was 
resolved. If that was it, Snape would no longer have to be loyal to 
him, he could leave or pretend to be loyal or pretty much whatever 
he wanted....OH!" Suddenly the tower scene flashed into Jen's mind, 
and she found herself treading on slippery ground again. She gripped 
her chair and found herself falling back on an old stand-by.

"Innocent until proven guilty!" Jen shouted, lack of canon overcome 
by emotion. "He made a choice, I'm telling you, on the tower! A 
choice to by *loyal*, not that the likes of you would know about 
that....yes, the life-debt ended, yes he could have chosen OFH, but 
he *didn't*. I'm sure of it...!" 

FAITH gave up the interloper as a bad job, irreprarbly tied to dark 
speculation, and went back to work. Neri considered Jen's rather 
paltry attempt at canon analysis resulting in absolutely no canon, 
and sighed. He did so want to be talked out of this one.

Jen