ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey? (WAS: DDM!Snape the definition)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162543

Sydney wrote:
> 
> Is there a OFH!Snape explanation for the fight in the forest?  Is
> Snape actually arguing with Dumbledore about what side he's on?
> Wouldn't he be hiding this?  And why is Dumbledore still saying he
> trusts him completely in that case?  If anyone could come up with an
> OFH! or Grey! storyline that would explain the twitch, the argument,
> and most, most, most importantly Dumbledore's pleading with Snape
the second he comes on the scene, I'd be happy to entertain it.
> 
Sarah responded:
> That's the thing.  I'm sure other posters' mileage will vary, but
I'd explain all of these things almost identically to how a DDM
believer would.  The only real difference is the underlying reason why
Snape even bothers with any of it at all.  I think he has to for
self-preservation because of the Life Debt plot device, and I guess
DDM thinks one of two things: he's just a secretly awesome guy who
deep down loves freedom for all, or else his only reason to get out of
bed in the morning is his deep and abiding love of Dumbledore.

Carol stares in astonishment and responds:
<blink!> No wonder you don't accept DDM!Snape if that's your
impression of the (highly varied) theory. I do think that a few people
see everything Snape says or does as an act, but I've never
encountered a single person who argues that Snape loves freedom for
all or that his raison d'existence is the love of Dumbledore. What I
see, and what I think most DDM!Snapers see, is a deeply passionate,
deeply hurt, deeply resentful man who nevertheless is capable of
remorse and loyalty and courage, who, for his own personal reasons, is
willing to risk his life to help the one man who trusts him completely
bring down Voldemort. The explanations for his remorse and loyalty
vary. But we see no signs of a desire for self-preservation (Snape is
constantly risking his life, and has been doeing so for DD since
*before* Godric's Hollow), nor would self-preservation explain his
actions after he killed Dumbledore, notably getting the DEs out of
Hogwarts and saving Harry from a Crucio. 

The motives I see, and I think most DDM!Snapers see in these scenes,
are a desire to protect Draco (not just because of the UV, which he
took in the first place for the same reason) and to protect Harry,
however much he hates him, because he's the only one who can bring
down Voldemort. I don't think the Life Debt applies to Snape's
self-preservation, which is necessary to preserve Harry, Draco, and
himself as deep-cover saboteur. *If* the Life Debt is important, it's
only so as the reason why Snape tried to protect James and why he
still hates him ("How dare the arrogant b-----d ignore the warnings
and die before I've fulfilled my debt to him?"). Strange as it seems,
Snape has a sense of honor and moral obligation. But having saved
Harry's life once in SS/PS (and both DD and Quirrell regard him as
having done so), why continue to protect him? There must be a reason
other than the Life Debt, which DD could easily have explained to
Harry when he had the chance as the reason he trusts Snape
*completely.* DDM!Snapers believe that this trust is justified and
that it is based on Snape's *choice* to serve Dumbledore rather than
Voldemort, not on some magical compulsion. Dumbledore believes in
second chances, and second chances are meaningless if the person being
given the chance is not free to change his mind. 

Sarah: 
> I'm not sure the forest argument is as straight forward as it seems,
> though.  What's the DDM consensus on this?  Do people reckon that
> Snape wants to just let the UV kill him that Dumbledore may live?  I
> don't think that, because I think that Snape's murder pact with
> Dumbledore predates the UV, and was the reason he felt he had the
> green light to go ahead and make the UV.  Hagrid thinks it's
something to do with the necklace, and it's possible Snape is asking
something about having to do with Draco.  Draco says later that Snape
had been yelling at him about how lame the necklace was.

Carol responds:

I don't know of anyone who thinks that the argument in the forest is
straightforward. It's reported incompletely at secondhand by Hagrid,
who presents his own interpretation (likely to be wrong, as such
interpretations almost always are in the HP books, regardless of the
character making them). We don't even get the benefit of overhearing
all or part of the conversation ourselves (along with the dubious
benefit of Harry's reactions) because Harry doesn't overhear it. So
any interpretation of this offstage scene is based on the incomplete
information offered to us by Hagrid. What, exactly, is Dumbledore
taking for granted? What, exactly, has Snape promised to do that he
wants to get out of and DD won't let him? We don't know, and our
guesses vary. Is there a masterplan involving Snape's carrying out the
UV if necessary? Or does the plan extend only as far as snape's
joining the DEs at the end of the year because of the DADA curse?
DDM!Snapers generally agree that Snape told Dumbledore as much as he
knew of Voldemort's plans for Draco (essentially, that he had assigned
Draco to kill DD), that Snape did not know about the Vanishing Cabinet
plan (though he may have known, as Harry did, about the RoR and the
polyjuiced assistants), that Snape told DD about all three provisions
of the UV, and that DD wanted Snape to protect Draco at all costs. And
that, I think, is as far as any "consensus" goes.

Re Draco saying that Snape had been yelling at him about how lame the
necklace plan was, that's essentially Draco's interpretation of the
confrontation between Draco and Snape that Harry partially overhears
in "The Unbreakable Vow," in which Snape manages to show concern for
Draco without breaching his DE cover. I think that the argument in the
forest occurred after the poisoning incident, not the necklace
incident. It's possible that DD wanted Snape to talk to Draco again
and Snape knew that doing so was futile, but again, we just don't
know. Snape certainly was still following Draco, or he couldn't have
rescued him from Sectumsempra about two months later.

> 
> Which twitch are we talking about?  The hatred and revulsion? <snip>

Carol:
I'm sure that Sydney is talking about the hand twitch that precedes
the third clause of the UV, when Snape anticipates what Narcissa is
going to require of him. It seems crystal clear that he doesn't want
to kill Dumbledore, and it's possible that he sees the wording of that
provision as just vague enough that he may be able to wiggle out of
it. IMO, and I don't know whether a single person agrees with me,
Snape was trying throughout HBP to postpone any confrontation that
would force him to carry out the UV or die. He even speaks to Harry
about continuing the detentions next year, as if he somehow thinks he
can escape the DADA curse and return as DADA teacher or Potions Master
the following year. But once the DEs enter the building, he knows that
the time has come. Maybe he still hopes that he won't have to kill DD,
who, after all, defeated Voldemort in the MoM and escaped from Fudge
and Co. using Fawkes. I do think that, once he's on the tower and has
assessed the situation, knowing that his options are to kill DD (and
get his body off the tower) or die futilely trying to protect the
wandless, dying DD (and Draco and the invisible Harry) from the DEs,
that he would prefer to die. That's what the look of hatred and
revulsion is all about--self-hatred, hatred of the deed he has to do,
momentary hatred of DD for forcing him to make this horrible choice.
But having sacrificed *everything* for DD and the cause, he is not
about to go back now. Nothing, IMO, can make him serve Voldemort for
any reason other than to protect Draco, get as close to LV as
possible, learn his secrets, and ultimately, help the Chosen One to
bring him down. A huge order, especially given the Chosen One's view
of him as a hated murderer and traitor, but DDM!Snape is cunning and
courageous and will once again face torture, Azkaban, or death to do
what must be done. Whether he survives or not, I have no doubt that
he'll ucceed in his objectives.

> Sarah:
> <snip> Even if Snape wanted to break his UV, Draco wasn't working as
fast as the poison was.  I don't know if he knew or how he would have
known about the poison or Harry, but if he didn't, Dumbledore is still
sliding down the wall.  <snip>

Carol responds:
Snape is a potions expert and a Healer. I think he had a pretty good
idea that DD had drunk a slow-acting poison and that under the
circumstances, there was no way to save him. And we see Snape's eyes
sweep the room. If Draco saw the two brooms, and we know he did, Snape
saw them, too. And as he knows about Harry's invisibility cloak, I
think it's a safe bet that he knows Harry is on the tower. DDM!Snape
knows at that point exactly what his choices are and which one DD
wants him to make. But it takes DD speaking his name, an exchanged
look which may simply be mutual understanding but could be two-way
Legilimency, and a "Severus, please" before he finally raises his wand
and casts that curse, with all its terrible consequences. Far from
being the act of a coward, it's IMO the bravest thing Snape has ever
done. And he's not about to back out now.

Sarah:
> But therein lies the beauty of OFH/Life Debt.  (Not Grey.)  If Snape
> does all the stuff that he does because of a relatively simply
> understood plot device, there is hope that Harry could plausibly
find it out without someone taking three chapters to describe the
decades of history of Snape's innermost thoughts.

Carol:
But that relatively simple plot device does not explain Snape's
passionate intensity, nor the look of hatred and revulsion, nor his
saving Harry from the Crucio. OFH!Snape wouldn't care what happened to
Harry; he only wants to save his own skin, Peter Pettigrew-style. And
Life!Debt Snape wouldn't care if the DEs tortured Harry, or if Harry
learned to shut his mouth and close his mind and stop casting
Unforgiveables. He would simply have made sure that Harry wasn't
killed without the trouble of deflecting his curses. And, again, if
the Life Debt were DD's sole reason for trusting Snape *completely*,
which involves more than trusting him not to kill Harry, why not tell
Harry when he had the chance? After all, Harry has known about the
Life Debt since SS/PS. And why be so mysterious about Snape's Boggart
and Patronus?

Carol, who thinks that Snape, whom Harry now hates more than he hates
Voldemort, will appear in more than the crucial confrontation chapter,
if only as the subject of discussion and a few visits to the Pensieve