Snape 's story to Bella in Spinner's End WAS:Re: Snape and the blah-blah......

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 141992

Alla wrote:
><snip>
> I am talking about whether Snape was telling the truth in general in
his story to Bella. Now as you probably know I think that the
interpretation that everything that he WAS talking about was the 
truth has at least an equal support to "Snape's lying to Bella"
intepretation.
> 
> So, I am quite sure that one of the arguments which was raised
against Snape being truthful with Bella in the past was that some of 
the pieces of the story told by Snappe contradicts with what we as
readers already know happened. <snip>
> So, after rereading the chapter, it does not seem to me that this is 
> what Snape is saying. Here is what he is saying:
> 
> I am pleased to say, however, that Dumbledore is growing old. The
Duel with the Dark Lord last month shook him. He has since sustained a
serious injury because his reactions are slower than they once were.
But through all these years, he has never stopped  trusting Severus
Snape, and therein lies my great value to the Dark Lord. - p.31
> 
> 
> Am I missing something here? Is there something in this quote that
we know for sure to be a lie?

> I mean, it is a very reasonable assumption that duel with Voldie
shook Dumbledore, no? Snape does not say that Dumbledore was injured
in DoM, which we know did not happened, but we did not know how he
felt, in fact, I think he WAS shooked pretty badly if for nothing
else, but because Harry almost died. After all Snape does not specify
what kind of "shook up" Albus sustained AND then he says that
Dumbledore since sustained a serious injury, which is also true. Snape
does not specify WHERE Dumbledore sustained such injury, but it could
be because he himself has no clue, right? I think Dumbledore could
have asked Snape to heal him without specifying what caused the
injury. <snip>
> 
> I don't see where Snape lies in this quote, he may omit things,
sure, but lying? I don't know about that.

Carol responds:
I can't give this post the full response it deserves right now because
I would need to quote a great deal of canon to support my position,
which is that Snape neatly combines truths, half truths, and lies in
his story to Bellatrix, which is, with a few embellishments, exactly
the same story he had prepared to tell Voldemort when Voldemort
returned to power--as Snape knew he was about to do because of the
Dark Mark. That, IMO, is what Dumbledore meant when he asked Snape in
GoF: "Are you ready? Are you prepared?" IOW, "Have you prepared a
story that Voldemort will believe and are you ready to tell it?"
Snape, though he's clearly facing great danger and is slightly paler
than usual says "I am" and goes off to face Voldie (GoF, quoted from
memory).

A number of elements in Snape's story ring false to me (which is good
if he's DDM!), but I'm only going to touch on them here, as I think
and hope that Potioncat will raise this question in her discussion and
I don't want to step on her toes. For example, I believe that Snape
knew perfectly well that Quirrell was aiding Voldemort and perhaps
even suspected that Voldemort was under the turban. Also, he's clearly
concealing the fact that he was spying for Dumbledore "at great
personal risk" before he taught at Hogwarts. He is also claiming that
he provided information on Sirius Black that we know was supplied or
could have been supplied by either Kreacher or Wormtail. Enough on
this topic now--I do want to come back to it when I have time to
respond in detail and support my points with canon. 

To look specifically at the quote you cited, you ask if you're missing
something here. I would say yes. I disagree that Dumbledore, who has
made it clear throughout the book that he trusts Snape absolutely and
that he relies on Snape's knowledge of Dark Magic, would ask him to
treat the injury without telling him how he sustained it. This is
information Snape would have to know in order to take the "timely
action" that saved DD's life. Snape knows perfectly well what the
injury Dumbledore sustained is--a blackened hand caused by a
particular curse for which he obviously knows the countercurse--but he
withholds this information from Bella and Narcissa. Quite likely he
also knows *how* Dumbledore sustained the injury--by destroying a
Horcrux. And he's not about to pass that information on to the Black
sisters, any more than he's going to tell them that he saved
Dumbledore's life. 

But word is going to get out that DD has a blackened hand, and Snape
has to have a cover story--that DD is getting old and his reflexes
were slowed in the Battle in the MoM. I, for one, didn't see any
evidence of a slowdown. DD is very much himself at the end of OoP. He
is different, though, from the first moment we see him in HBP. What
has slowed him down, or rather, speeded him up (notice that he's in a
hurry throughout HBP) is not slowed reflexes from the MoM but the
injury from the ring Horcrux and the knowledge that there are more of
them out there, which must be found and destroyed quickly. It's
crucial that Snape keep this information from Voldemort, so he tells
the cover story of old age slowing DD down--exactly the story that DD
tells Amycus Carrow (I'm assuming that's his last name) on the tower
when DD is clearly "on his last legs" (Amycus's words quoted from
memory) from the potion. It sounds as if Snape and DD have agreed upon
this story since both of them tell it.

I'm not saying that Snape is lying to Bella in this instance, but he
is choosing his truths very carefully. And a half truth is as good as
a lie if it fools the enemy. Better, in fact, because it can't be
disproved.

Anyway, I don't have time to answer this question as fully as I would
like, going point by point through his responses to Bella, but I'm
altogether certain that Snape does *not* believe that Voldemort is the
world's greatest Legilimens and I think he has indeed pulled the wool
over LV's eyes--as Bella suspects but is afraid to admit for fear of
seeming disloyal to her master.

I have more to say on this chapter (naturally), but I want to wait
till Potioncat posts her discussion questions on Monday.

Carol