[HPforGrownups] In Defense of Snape (Against Snape in JKR's words)

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 122305

Carol wrote:
>Note "he will have *seen*," not he will have done. So while we're free
>to speculate about what he may have done as a Death Eater, we merely
>know from this passage that he *witnessed* a death or deaths. We still
>don't know what he did. Given LV's penchant for putting his DEs to
>their best use (Dolohov to murder cruelly, Bellatrix and her sidekicks
>to Crucio people, Mulciber as an Imperius specialist), it makes sense
>to me that Snape's chief use would be as a potion maker, especially
>given that LV was still seeking immortality and didn't know, even
>after Godric's Hollow, exactly which experiments had worked. Any
>speculation as to what Snape did as a Death Eater is, at this point,
>exactly that: speculation. I for one don't think that Dumbledore would
>have hired him if he had actually killed anyone. But even if he did do

Even witnessing a death of course wouldn't necessarily have had to have been
as a DE.

The two things that I wonder about are

- did _all_ of Voldemort's followers have the Dark Mark or was it something
reserved for his inner circle, the ones he gathered in the graveyard to mark
his return? If so, what did they have to do to get it?

and

- what exactly was it that made Regulus Black try to back out of being a DE?

If (speculation as you rightly say) Voldemort required his closest acolytes
to kill as part of whatever ritual gave them the dark mark, then Snape has
killed (and perhaps killing was the step too far that Regulus wouldn't
take).

But it doesn't seem to be in character for Snape to enjoy doing it. Some of
the DEs certainly did (MacNair, Bella being two examples) but it all seems a
bit too Grand Guignol for Sevvy. He was disciplined enough to do it, but not
I think with any particular pleasure (possibly not with any particular shame
afterwards, either, mind you).

If Dumbledore had felt that Snape had been someone who took pleasure in
killing, possibly then he wouldn't have been so keen to hold him close. But
I don't see him as being so prissy that he would have expected Snape to have
clean hands when he came over.

But JKR alone knows all

Cheers

Ffred

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