Why Won't Snape Eat At OotP HQ? (WAS: Snape at Grimmauld Place)

[h2so3f]

No: HPFGUIDX 157043

Robert wrote:
"For the comment to have an impact on the story from here on out, 
you have to consider the current situation. If anything was intended 
by JKR with this comment made by Ron, it was just to call Snape's 
character into question. This is something she has done throughout 
the books. What result can we gather if this was a direct clue to 
something? That Snape is bad." <snip>


CH3ed:
I'm a bit slow so I'm not getting how we can conclusively say that 
that comment Ron made about Snape never eating at the HQ is JUST 
made to imply that Snape is bad/untrustworthy. It just means he 
eats 'elsewhere'. And not eating with a group that is hardly 
friendly to you doesn't necessarily make you a bad guy, IMO.

If that 'elsewhere' happened to be with the DEs, that still doesn't 
present a conclusive evidence that he is bad because we don't know 
exactly what he told the other side during those dinners, do we? I 
think it makes just as much sense for her to put that comment there 
to remind us the OotP members weren't the only people Snape hung 
with and to drop us a hint of when Snape hung with the other people.


Robert wrote:
"Well we're supposed to believe he is (bad), aren't we? So the 
result is one of two things. 1) He is really a DE and that is why he 
didn't want to eat there or 2) He isn't a DE and he is just a jerk 
and doesn't like Sirius and Lupin and a lot of the people hanging 
out there so he'd rather eat somewhere else. In case you haven't 
noticed, Snape isn't much for conversation and fellowship." 

CH3ed:
I've noticed that Snape isn't much for conversation and fellowship 
(except when he wants to squeeze something out of you like he did 
Narcissa at Spinner's End). But have you considered the possibility 
that Snape eating... say... with the DEs may have been pre-arranged 
and pre-approved by Dumbledore as the setting where he spied on the 
DEs for the OotP while passing them false or incomplete info? In 
which case Snape wouldn't be a bad guy at all.

As a side note, you haven't seen me posted for a long time now 
precisely because I'm not into making big deal out of things (and if 
that's what you think that's being done here, it's probably 
understandable considering the way this forum has been going with 
all the abuse/not-abuse, ESE-everybody-in-sight, etc, that move us 
nowhere in the story). 

I'd say tho, IMHO, this quiet little clue sounds more like she is 
hinting something at us a lot more than many other 'clues' that have 
been brought up the past few months. If JKR wanted to have Ron make 
a remark casting Snape in a bad light, she could have done it better 
by having Ron comment that Snape made some disparaging remarks about 
the cooking or the state of the HQ, etc.... instead of noting his 
absence at dinner time. That was leading somewhere. Snape wasn't at 
HQ when they ate, where was he?

CH3ed  :O)