OFH! Snape again. WAS: Straightforward readings?

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 140880

-Jen:
 
> Possibly Snape didn't tell DD the third vow? We've seen loyal 
> Order members attempt to solve their own problems without 
> Dumbledore's knowledge and/or agreement: The Secret Keeper plan for 
> the Potters; Lupin not revealing the animagi in POA; Sirius going
to 
> the DOM, for starters. But if Dumbledore knew everything, then I 
> agree they planned together to put off the moment as long as 
> possible, neither knowing Draco was succeeding with the cabinent.

houyhnhnm:

I am undecided about how much openness existed between Dumbledore and
Snape during the sixth year. They could have been working together or
separately to keep Draco's plot from coming to a head, but it seems
clear that both were doing just that.
  
On the one hand, it seems out of character for Snape to be completely
candid about the UV even if he was DD's Man.   It's hard to imagine
Snape being completely candid with anyone.   Dumbledore's remark to
Harry that "you might consider the possibility that I understood more
than you did" could be construed as meaning, not that Snape had
already confided in him, but that knowing about the UV explained some
aspects of Snape's behavior--why he was reluctant to investigate Draco
as thoroughly as DD would have expected, for instance.

On the other hand, there is so much about the relationship between
these two that we still don't know, not only DD's "iron-clad reason"
for trusting Snape, but why Snape kept Lupin's secret faithfully for
so many years in spite of his extreme resentment over the prank.

In my wild speculation about what might have taken place between them
when Snape was saving Dumbledore from the ring curse, I am not
imagining a tender scene in which Snape cried, "Father!", and
Dumbledore replied, "Son!", and they embraced.  I think a fully
conscious recognition of his emotional dependence on Dumbledore would
terrify Snape.  Rather his need for approval from DD as a father
figure was brought just a little closer to consciousness, close enough
to make it accessible to Voldemort but not close enough to make Snape
wary, and Voldemort pounced on it.