Snape, Dumbledore, and Madam Rosmerta (Was: Trial of Severus Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 141420

Alla wrote:
> > <snip> I only argued that we don't know the mechanics of how fast
the UV magic kicks in, basically how soon it will recognise that Snape
indeed does not want to finish Dumbledore off while pretending doing
something else.
> To wit - I have no doubt that Snape would eventually drop dead, I am
just not sure when exactly it happens. Say, if he sends Patronus to 
Order members  the second he walks on the Tower, while not doing or
saying anything else,w hich would point out that he wants to protect
DD, does it count as breaking the UV or not? I am not sure that it does.

Carol responds:
I agree that we don't know the mechanics of the UV, only that if you
break it, you die (the only canon we have). But it wouldn't matter in
that case whether the UV acted or not because the Death Eaters would
have killed him. And in any case, as has been pointed out, he couldn't
have summoned the Order members anyway as the passage up the stairs
was blocked.

Alla wrote:
> 
> <snip> Snape should go to Azkaban, because I don't think that taking
the UV in the first place was the action of the responsible adult.
THAT, IMO was lead to events on the Tower and I can see no
circumstances under which taking the UV was the right choice to make.
That is why I CAN see  some mitigating circumstances for the Tower, as
in Snape being trapped by his own idiocy, but I cannot see Snape being
a Heri on the Tower at all. Again, just me.

Carol responds:
I'm a bit confused. The UV can be viewed as mitigating circumstances,
but Snape should be sent to Azkaban for his irrresponsibility in
taking it? 

We actually don't know that Snape was being irresponsible (or idiotic)
since don't know how much he knew about Draco's task when he took the
Unbreakable Vow or why he took it. Clearly he did not anticipate the
last provision, at least. (I happen to think that the DADA curse was
shaping the entire course of events, including even the timing of
Draco's success in repairing the cabinet to coincide with Dumbledore's
trip to the cave, but I won't argue that here.) But surely people
shouldn't go to Azkaban for irresponsible decisions or lapses in
judgment or "idiocy." If that's the case, then Scrimgeour is justified
in arresting Stan Shunpike. 

But I agree with you on the mitigating circumstances. Whatever Snape's
reasons for taking the vow, it clearly restricted his choices on the
tower--making him in some sense his own victim. It certainly did not
operate to his advantage. Almost anything he did to help DD could and
probably would have resulted in his immediate death--and various
posters, including me, have already discussed infinitum what the
consequences of his death might have been, so I won't inflict that on
you yet again.

BTW, arguing that he's trapped by his own error in making the vow (a
point I think you actually agree with) is not the same as arguing that
he's a hero on the tower (or rather, that he chose the lesser of two
evils, which is what we're actually arguing). The vow itself simply
gives him the choice (if it can be called a choice) between breaking
the vow and dying or saving himself and Draco by killing Dumbledore.
Or rather, it limits his choices to those two terrible options. It
would be quite simple if by dying he could save Dumbledore, or better
yet, Dumbledore and Draco. There would be no decision to make. The
choice would be clearcut, whether he was good or evil/OFH!. 

But the situation on the tower is more complex than that. For one
thing, as the UV is set up, he can't save both Dumbledore and Draco.
He must choose one or the other. And if Dumbledore is dying or will be
killed regardless, he can't save Dumbledore at all. So the choice
becomes to die *with* Dumbledore or kill Dumbledore himself. Snape
must choose, but he must base his decision on the consequences of his
choice: What will happen to the others if he allows the vow to kill
him? Will any good come from his death, or will it result in greater
harm than his survival? And if his survival can only be assured by
killing the man who has been his mentor, can that be the right choice?
Only if greater good will come from killing Dumbledore than from dying
himself. He has only a very short time to make his decision, and
surely if he were ESE! or OFH! he would make it immediately, but he
does not make it until *after* he has met Dumbledore's eyes.

What is right and what is easy have never been less clear, and Snape,
though he quickly takes matters in hand and gets both Draco and the
DEs from the tower, seems tortured by his own choice. The pain he
suffers when Harry calls him a coward and tells Snape to kill him is
not physical. It is the anguish of a tortured soul. (No one is arguing
that killing Dumbledore was heroic, but it may well have taken a rare
kind of courage not to be found in any character except Snape.)

You keep saying that Snape had other options, but surely the moment he
cast a spell attacking one of the DEs the UV would have kicked in and
killed him. As for offering DD an antidote, even if he had a bezoar in
his pocket and could shove it down DD's throat without the UV or the
DEs killing him, a bezoar does not protect against all poisons. (Snape
says in SS/PS that it's an antidote against "most poisons," but the
green stuff in the cave is clearly no ordinary poison.) It's unlikely
that he knew what Dumbledore would face in the cave even if DD
informed him in advance that he was going after another Horcrux: DD
didn't know himself. So whatever antidote Snape needed would not have
been at hand, certainly not in his pocket, and to summon an antidote
from his office (in the unlikely event that he had the right one in
stock) would again have brought on the UV.

Anyway, to sum up, I don't think that Snape could have used an
antidote even if he had one available or summoned the Order members
(because of the blocked passage). The Death Eaters would have realized
his "treachery" and killed him even if the UV didn't. (Not even Snape
could fight four Death Eaters and the UV at the same time.) And if
Snape had died and Draco was still unwilling to kill Dumbledore, one
of the four Death Eaters would have done it--and then killed Draco for
failing to do it. Even if DD was not dying from the poison, as I
believe he was, he was too weak to defend himself against Fenrir
Grayback alone, let alone Fenrir and three other DEs. Once he allowed
himself to be disarmed, he was doomed, Snape or no Snape, vow or no
vow. Suppose Snape hadn't arrived. How would DD have rescued himself?

Which brings me to the question of why he didn't summon Fawkes from
his office as he did in the MoM. Either he was too weak and couldn't
do it or he knew he must die and chose not to do it. But the
Dumbledore who had fought Voldemort in the MoM and easily fended off
Fudge, Umbridge, and company earlier in OoP was gone, weakened by the
poison and the extra effort of fending off the protective spells
against brooms as he and Harry flew to the tower. (That, I think, is
what DD means when he says that he's returned "after a fashion.") He
could not even deal with a not-quite-seventeen-year-old boy who
half-wanted to kill him. The Dumbledore of OoP could easily have
frozen *both* Draco and Harry to the wall and dealt with the Death
Eaters in such a way that Snape's vow would not even have kicked in.
What Snape would have done in that situation I can't guess, but he
didn't have the option of dealing with a fully functional Dumbledore.
What he faced was a helpless and very ill Dumbledore who had let
himself fly into a trap he could not escape from. And Snape, entering
that room, walked into the same trap. That it was partly of his own
making because of the UV only makes it the more tragic, IMO.

I don't think Dumbledore's great mistake (relevant here though I don't
think you mentioned it in this post) is trusting Snape or even not
listening when Harry told him that Draco had succeeded in doing
whatever he'd been trying to do in the ROR. (Dumbledore knew he had
limited time to get Harry to that Horcrux and Draco's success made it
all the more urgent to do so immediately--the fact that it was a fake
Horcrux doesn't matter, but I don't want to go into that here.)
Dumbledore's big mistake, in my view, was in flying to the tower,
right into the DE's trap, instead of sending Harry for Snape as he
originally intended. Had he done so, Snape could have saved (or at
least tried to save) Dumbledore a second time with no danger from the
UV because Draco would not have been present (but Harry would have
been, and what better opportunity for Snape to prove his loyalty?).
But by flying to the tower, despite knowing that Death Eaters had set
off the Dark Mark and that Draco must have let them in, Dumbledore put
all the pieces into play that would lead to his death, activating the
Unbreakable Vow by placing himself, Draco, and the Death Eaters in one
place and placing Snape in the untenable position of keeping it or
dying. And he must have known, as well, that the moment for the DADA
curse to strike was at hand. (I'm not blaming Dumbledore, just seeing
him and Snape as victims of fate or the will of Voldemort or ironic
coincidence.)

And here's a new thought: Just as Dumbledore has persuaded Harry to
run to the school to fetch Snape (rather than Madam Pomfrey), who
should show up but Madam Rosmerta, the very person who has been
Imperioed by Draco Malfoy to aid him in killing Dumbledore (HBP Am.
ed. 580)? I don't think Rosmerta was a willing agent of the Dark Side,
but if she hadn't shown up to "help" just at that moment and pointed
out the Dark Mark, Harry would have run for Snape. Instead Dumbledore
decides not to wait in the Three Broomsticks but to fly to the tower.
Once they arrive, he still wants Harry to go for Snape (by this time
he's exhausted himself again and is "clutching at his chest with his
blackened hand" like a man who's having a heart attack, 583, and
reminding Harry that he swore to obey), but it's too late. Draco
bursts in at that moment. *If only* Rosmerta hadn't pointed out the
Dark Mark, DD would have remained at the Three Broomsticks and not
gone to the tower and Harry could have brought Snape to help him
(assuming that he could and would). But fate (or the DADA curse)
stepped in and Dumbledore made his last and greatest mistake. From the
moment Draco disarmed him, there could be (IMO) no outcome but
Dumbledore's death. The only variables were who would kill him and how
many others would die with him.

Carol, whose posts grow in the telling