Random thoughts was: [HPforGrownups] Re: Hearing from the Great Middle

[sunnylove0 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 140129

 
In a message dated 9/13/2005 11:58:11 AM Mountain Standard Time,  
foxmoth at qnet.com writes:

Um, I  don't think I follow. Are you suggesting that if Snape murdered 
Dumbledore  for purely selfish reasons, rather than to assist Lord 
Voldemort, he  wouldn't be evil? ::boggles:::

Pippin




Well, murder is murder, yes. But if he did it under the UV, to a dying and  
targeted man, he didn't have much choice.(But there's nothing more selfish is 
HP  than self preservation- it's what LV is all about and Lily is not)  Is that 
 evil? It seems like yes and no to me. (And yes, I believe that DD is dead.   
Snape is not dead, therefore DD is.) I don't think Snape would have murdered 
him  without the UV, though. It's upstaging Voldemort, which will paint a 
target on  his back anyway.
 
I'm really starting to think OFH!Snape, with a bit of an honor code,  is the 
true explanation.  I doubt Snape cares for Dumbledore's  passive-aggressive 
manipulation tactics (see DD chewing Harry out for not  getting the memory) ,or 
for his overprotection of Harry, (which Dumbledore  himself admits was the 
wrong decision) or his stolen glory at the end of POA.  Dumbledore has offered 
Snape mercy, but I'm sure he's expected to work for  it.  Every day.  I think he 
has some loyalty to DD (he kept him out of  Azkaban, for heaven's sake), but 
only as long as it doesn't make him risk his  own life or his cover.  And it 
did in HBP. (and very likely, almost in  OOP)
 
And if he was truly on Voldemort's side still after the last war, he's  an 
idiot, pure and simple. (BTW, Do you think if Harry delivered a lethal  blow to 
Voldemort, that any DE other than Bellatrix would lift a finger to help  him?) 
Maybe when he was a bitter, hateful twenty-something with a  grudge.  But he 
knows now that neither he nor Draco are any further use to  Voldemort.  One is 
an upstaging proven traitor whose spying cover is broken  and the other is a 
useless coward.  LV will kill them on sight.
 
Which is why I think Snape doesn't drag Harry to LV.  Because he's not  going 
back.  He and Draco are going on the run.  And he will help  Harry.  Not 
because of loyalty to DD, but because he will die if he  doesn't.  Morally 
ambigious? Yes.  But it might spare him the death  penalty in Book 7.
 
Snape is, as JKR says, "a deeply horrible person".  But unlike her  
unfavorite character, Vernon, and Draco,  Snape at least willing to make  choices.  And 
as many have pointed out, the choice of killing DD and  getting out of 
Hogwarts with a minimum body count, horrible as it was, was the  only way.  Even 
though it was evil. And it was murder. Whether the AK  or the fall or the potion 
did it.
 
JMO.
Amber, 
who apologizes if this doesn't make much sense


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