Heroes and Not - What should Snape Have Done?

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 145259

Alla:
> > What Snape should  have done? DD!M Snape I mean. Well, first
> > and foremost he should have NOT under any circumstances enter 
> > Unbreakable Vow.

bboyminn: 
*(snip)*
> To some extent I agree about the Vow. But...

Ceridwen:
I've read everything, or nearly everything, about the UV and what 
people here think.  I'm convinced that it was probably the dumbest 
thing Snape has done since getting into the DEs, at least that we 
have in canon.  Maybe some weird potions mistake to explain the hair, 
but that would be speculation at its finest.

For Snape taking the UV, after sidling through the door behind the 
Black sisters at Spinner's End, I did notice a dusty jar sitting just 
inside the doorway stuffed with ACID POPS.  The whole chapter read, 
to me, as if there had been something between Snape and Narcissa at 
one time, at least on his part (would the geeky nerdy guy ever really 
tell the pretty, popular girl that he likes her?) and that he still 
has fond feelings toward her whether they are still romantic 
feelings, or not.  Does he even suspect that she *could* snooker him 
into the third provision of the UV?  He may not be as critical of 
Cissy and the whole thing blows by him until he's hit by its tail.

But after the UV, I completely fall away from everything anybody else 
says.  I *don't care* that our Ron tells us that to break the UV 
means you die.  Somewhere, I think at Mugglenet, it is said that Ron 
is *never* right (unless he is joking).  Ron isn't joking when he 
tells Harry that the UV kills if it is broken.

And, Ron's proof is pretty slim.  So, Arthur gets red-faced for once 
and yells about Ron and the UV the twins are trying to foist on him.  
And this is part of what he yells.  The UV looks to me like Dark 
Magic, and one of the last people I would expect to really know about 
Dark Magic would be Arthur Weasley.  (On Dark Magic, it's like 
pornography - I don't know much about it, but I know, or think I 
know, it when I see it)

So, Arthur yelling that the UV would kill Ron if he broke it sounds 
more like warnings about going blind or growing hair on one's 
knuckles.  Parents have been telling their kids that sort of thing 
for... centuries?  millenia?  and some parents may even believe it.  
The whole thing is shock value, to get kids to stop an activity and 
hopefully stay away from it, without going into the real reasons 
since kids have a habit of saying 'why?' a lot, and assuring the 
adult that it would 'never happen to me, I'd be careful/too smart'.  
Or just plain deriding the whole thing.  Yell that 'this'll kill 
you!' and you get the kid's attention.

I mentioned this before, without all the preliminaries.  And I was 
bombarded by 'Ron said...' posts.  Well, a few people answered, most 
people let it go by.  But, it's called the 'Unbreakable Vow'.  
UNBREAKABLE.  As in, it's impossible to break it.

>From Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/search?
q=unbreakable :
adj.
1 Impossible to break; able to withstand rough usage: unbreakable 
plates. 
2 Able to withstand an attempt to break. Used of a horse. 
n. 
An article or object that is not easily broken.
***The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth 
Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

adj 1: impossible to break especially under ordinary 
usage; "unbreakable plastic dinnerwear" [ant: breakable] 2: 
impossible to not honor; "an unbreakable promise"
***Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University 

I believe, Ron's explanation notwithstanding, that the UV 
is 'impossible not to honor'.  And once Snape made the UV with 
Narcissa, he *could not* choose not to honor it.  His choice in the 
matter was closed.  There was no way out.

That's why I think it's Dark Magic.  It removes choice once the 
choice to enter into the UV is made.  It's not as serious in the WW 
as the Imperius Curse, which also removes choice, since at least the 
witch or wizard agreed to go along with the UV in the first place 
while the Imperius removes even that little bit of choice.  I would 
also put love spells and love potions under the broad general heading 
of Dark Magic for the same reason - the victim has no choice.

And, HBP has other Dark Magic concerning the removal of choices in 
it.  Rosmerta is under Imperius; Ron is under a Love Potion.  Why not 
another removal of choice?  More sophisticated than the love potion 
in the candies, but not an Unforgivable like Imperius.  A mid-ground, 
the UV.

Which explains the Tower for me just fine, thanks.  The minute Snape 
is informed that Draco cannot/will not kill Dumbledore, then *Snape* 
must.  The UV kicks in.  Hate and revulsion on his face, because he 
has no choice, he cannot stop.  He may (or may not) be thinking he 
was such a fool (kicks self in behind) for taking it, for being 
suckered, for Narcissa playing him like that, for ever going up to 
the tower to hear that news.  He has to do it, he can't stop 
himself.  Why didn't he just stay in his office and pretend Flitwick 
didn't exist?  Etc.

And no, he's not a coward, as he tells Harry.  A fool, a jerk, a 
snookered idiot, but he won't say that.  ACID POPS leave a nasty 
aftertaste.  And even if ACID POPS isn't involved, he was still 
maneuvered into the vow by a mother's concern for her son, and his 
corresponding concern plus some flattery.  The first two provisions 
are nothing.  But they're the only thing Narcissa mentions before the 
vow begins.  It could be a straight-up reading, that he broke down 
and agreed, it could be a spy reading, that he thought it would get 
him into position to learn more.  Doesn't really matter as he's 
hoofing it out of Hogwarts.  To any incarnation of Snape, that was 
the worst thing he could have done, and he had no choice.

If ACID POPS were involved, I'll bet he tosses the lot of them and 
never has another.  Because, by hiding the third provision, which was 
probably the real reason she came, Narcissa effectively betrayed 
him.  She sacrificed him for her son, with unconcern aforethought.  
But any man should know that most mothers would sacrifice the 
Outsider for her child.  A bachelor like Snape, who seems in some 
ways to be stuck back in his adolescence (grudges against Marauders), 
might not realize that until it's too late.  Bachelor Snape certainly 
didn't see it coming.

But, no matter what the trappings, no matter what Ron said that 
Arthur said, no matter what Snape *thought* he was getting into, the 
Unbreakable Vow is called 'Unbreakable' for a reason.  And the 
definition of Unbreakable is, in part, 'Impossible to break; 
impossible not to honor'.

Ceridwen.