Will Snape betray Dumbledore? Re: my greatest fear....

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121253


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

> Pippin:

<snip>

> One more thing, Dumbledore doesn't answer Snape's  question 
> as to whether he believes Sirius's story. He only insists 
> he wishes to speak to Harry and Hermione alone and sends 
> Snape away after Fudge. To what  is Snape being disloyal when 
> he says he hopes Dumbledore will not make difficulties? 
> Dumbledore hasn't given his opinion yet; surely Snape is entitled 
> to his?

No, he doesn't.  But it does seem implicit in Snape's response, and 
in Dumbledore's actions.  If we postulate Snape-as-second-in-
command, we might be expecting Snape to pick up on the signals 
of "Cool your heels, I have something to do here".
 
> Snape is the banner bearer for second chances; if he blows it, or 
> if he must die a martyr's death to redeem himself, it's not going 
> to be very encouraging is it? To paraphrase a bumper sticker, 
> Snape needn't be perfect, just forgiven.

Goodness, Pippin, are you arguing from necessity here?  You weren't 
too supportive of the logic that says "Lupin isn't evil because he's 
the posterboy for good werewolves"; substitute "Snape isn't evil 
because he's the posterboy for second chances", and it's the same 
argument.

Now, mind you, I'm not arguing that Snape is evil, although it's 
been amusingly and carefully set up so that the arguments that he is 
trustworthy are counterbalanced by those that he isn't, to the point 
that either outcome can be looked back and said "Aha!  There's the 
setup!".  Hermione says he is (as she trusts in DD), and she's often 
right.  However, we just got DD messing up bigtime, and wouldn't it 
be nicely BANG-y if Ron the skeptic were right?

Snape is not perfect--no one in the books is.  This is not news, nor 
is it truly damning for him.  But I think it's worth a careful 
examination of what mistakes he makes, and why he makes them.  
Again, as a nice counterbalance to the insistence that Harry is 
going to muck things up.

-Nora wishes she had her longcoat, which is at the cleaners...