Draco, the UV, and the First Time (was: re: Trial of Severus Snape - UV)

[jessicabathurst]

No: HPFGUIDX 141553

Julie: 
 
> It makes me wonder if Snape really DID know the plan, if when he 
> said "I am one of the few the Dark Lord has told" he was telling 
the
> truth. After all, if he is making this up, and Bella tells 
Voldemort  that
> Snape claimed to know the plan, what is Voldemort going to think 
> of Snape, lying about how much he knows? It won't do much for  
> Snape's trustworthiness in Voldemort's eyes. 
>  
> *If* Voldemort did tell Snape of the plan, and Snape then told 
> Dumbledore, then Snape would be well aware of what kind of 
> task Draco is expected to complete, before he took the vow. He,
> and Dumbledore, may have expected it, or at least expected 
> Narcissa to come to Snape for help. Whether they forsaw the
> Vow, especially the third provision, is arguable (I suspect they
> didn't expect the third provision, given Snape's hand twitch.)

> This makes culpability more difficult to assign, I think. Snape
> went in expecting to cement his relationship with Narcissa, via
> protection of her son. And Dumbledore was aware of Snape's intent,
> perhaps hoping the final result would be bringing the Malfoys  over
> to the Good side. But it went awry when Narcissa tacked on that
> third provision. 
  
> Snape could have pulled out of it once that third provision was
> spoken, but he didn't. Perhaps Dumbledore told him to do whatever
> he must to protect Draco, or Snape took it on himself to follow 
> through, to avoid jeopardizing his precarious position among the
> DEs, figuring at the time he'd find a way to get of it later. 
Either
> way, if Snape and Dumbledore knew about Draco's task from the
> beginning, it's a different story. 

I think you're right - Snape did know about the assignment, and 
Dumbledore tasked him with protecting Draco, which Snape may well 
have planned to do anwyay.  At Spinner's End, Snape volunteers to 
Narcissa that he'll look out for Draco and thinks he's scored a real 
coup by taking an Unbreakable Vow to that effect...until that last 
bit.  (I am assuming, of course, that Snape does not actually want 
to kill Dumbledore. Because that's what I do. <grin>)  

Bella's comment about Snape "slithering out of action" in HBP may be 
setting us up for the fact that the murder of Dumbledore may, in 
fact, be the first murder that Snape has committed.  (Hence the 
notorious UV twitching.)  While I would not find that scenario 
either realistic or dramatically satisfying, it may add some weight 
to the thought that Snape thought he could get out of the UV in some 
fashion, because he's managed to twist his way out of what must have 
been some hairy situations in the past.

Ironically, if Snape has been tasked to protect Draco (and in the 
Dumbledore way of things, he means Draco's soul as well as his 
body), he would only have to kill Dumbledore if that task succeeded -
 if Draco gave up the idea that he could be a murderer.

Yours, 
Jessica

(who wonders: if Snape is Jewish, does the Kol Nidrei absolve him of 
an Unbreakable Vow?  How would that work, theologically?)