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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162593

Carol earlier:
> <snip> 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.
> 
> Sarah:
> OK, I think more and more all the time that I am DDM.  In a *way.*  ;)

Carol: 

Hooray! S'mores, s'merrier. (Groan.)

Sarah:
>  I don't think much of this really negates anything about OFH.  (I'd
> personally assign a bit less emo to Snape, but that's really just
> personal preference which doesn't affect the story all that much.)
> I'm sure you have your own interpretation of "for his own personal
> reasons," and so do I.  I think there are plot devices that
basically make Snape be DDM whether he likes it or not.  He has other
choices of course, but they don't include being as comfortable and/or
alive and/or non-imprisoned as he has hanging out with Dumbledore.

Carol responds:
The main thing about OFH!Snape that I just can't see is how a man who
cares only, or even primarily, for himself would constantly risk his
life for a cause or bind himself with a UV that could cost him his
life--or send him to Azkaban if he's caught after carrying it out. As
for the comfortable job, that's a line he gives Bella. She probably
thinks that he weaseled his way out of Azkaban the same way Lucius
Malfoy did, with the Imperius plea. She certainly doesn't know that he
was cleared of all charges because he was spying for Dumbledore. Until
the end of HBP, Snape is not in any danger of being sent to prison. I
don't think anyone except the Wizengamot even knows he was a Death
Eater. If Rita Skeeter did, she'd certainly have listed him among the
controversial hiring decisions made by Dumbledore. Instead, she lists
Hagrid, Lupin, and Mad-eye Moody.
> 
Sarah:
> If he's really Dumbledore's man, how could he let himself be put in
a position to be making a pact with bad guys to help kill Dumbledore?
 I see three possibilities.  1.  He's clueless and just made a mistake
by letting the girls put him on the spot. I don't believe this for a
> second. 2.  He believes that Dumbledore would rather he protect
> Draco over Dumbledore himself.  I think that's a bit of a stretch. 
3. As I have already proposed and personally believe, he knows what
> Narcissa is asking, and it doesn't conflict (much, maybe) with what
> Dumbledore has already asked of Snape.
> 
Carol:
I've already talked about the UV in another post, so I'll just say
that I think he agreed to take the UV in the first place to protect
Draco. If he had a choice in the third provision, and I'm not sure he
did, I think he agreed to it at least in part to keep Narcissa and
Bellatrix believing that he's still faithful to the Dark Lord but
willing to take the responsibility for DD's death on his own
shoulders. If he's going to go under cover with the DEs at the end of
the year, which will surely happen if he's given the DADA post, he
can't give the game away by refusing to "do the deed." But the wording
of the vow, "should it prove necessary, if it seems Draco will fail,"
may have led him to believe that there were loopholes in the Vow. DD
was too powerful and clever to be trapped by a sixteen-year-old boy
(so he and DD both thought). All they had to do was keep Draco away
from DD and make sure that no DEs could get into Hogwarts to help him
and the vow would not be triggered. And in the unlikely event that
either Draco or Snape had to try to kill Dumbledore, surely an attempt
doomed to failure, better Snape than Draco, whom DD would not want to
become a murderer or a murder victim, as he would be if he failed in
his mission. 

> Sarah:
> If Dumbledore had a plausible, non-emotional, fact-based reason for
why he trusts Snape, the one thing he could *never* do is reveal it to
Harry Potter, failure at all things Occlumentic.  (If that is a word.)
<snip>

Carol:
It's now an official neologism. You coined it. ;-) I'm not sure that
Harry's failure to learn Occlumency is the only reason, though. I
think DD is protecting Snape's privacy: "That is a matter between
Professor Snape and myself, Harry," as DD says in GoF. And, of course,
JKR doesn't want to spoil the surprise for Harry or for us.

Sarah:
> Passionate intensity?  Like when he didn't get the Order of Merlin?

Carol:
No. It wasn't the Order of Merlin that he was furious about. He wanted
Sirius Black, the murdering traitor (his as-yet-uncorrected view), to
get his just deserts. I mean things like his reaction to Harry's
failure to block the dream about the MoM. I mean his white-faced,
glittering-eyed determination to go back to Voldemort ("If you are
ready, if you are prepared" "I am"). And his speech at the end of HBP,
albeit melodramatic, is also filled with passionate intensity.


Sarah: 
> I think that if LDS is true, Dumbledore probably saved Snape by
> transferring his debt onto Harry.  Plenty of reason to care what
> happens to Harry.  Hatred and revulsion could even be caused in part
> due to the knowledge that Snape no longer will have proximity to
watch Harry, of all things.  No reason not to accept Harry's torture
though, except that it tends to incapacitate one, leaving him open to
other spells from the DEs still on premises.
> 
Carol:
But if that were the reason, why would DD hesitate to tell him? Harry
already knows that James saved Severus's life when they were kids and
that he already saved Harry's life for that very reason. Nothing for
Harry to hide from Legilimens Voldemort there. (And Occlumens Snape
has already provided his own explanation.) Also, we get the idea in
SS/PS that Snape considers that debt to be discharged, and yet he
continues to protect Harry and attempt to or succeed in saving his
life. I think that's better explained by his understanding that, like
it or not, Harry Potter is the Chosen One and he has to be kept alive
to fight LV. And even that doesn't explain why he saved Harry from the
Crucio. He didn't have to do that, any more than he had to save Draco
from Voldemort. Maybe he did it because Dumbledore would have wanted
him to?

Sarah:
> And again, because Harry fails Occlumency.  Voldemort can presumably
> shuffle Harry's brain whenever he likes.  And that's one thing that
> Dumbledore cannot have Voldemort finding out.
>
Carol:
I don't think that's the way Legilimency works. snape says that it's
not like reading a book that the Legilimens can examine at leisure.
Evidently both Snape and Voldemort use it primarily to determine
whether someone is lying, by making the thought or memory that
contradicts the lie rise to the surface--Harry's Potions book, for
example.

Sarah:
><snip> I know I said before that he didn't have "choice one," but
> in fact he does.  It's just that none of them will probably have
very good results.  Snape has several choices here.  He can wait for
Draco to kill Dumbledore.  If Draco manages to do that before
Dumbledore dies of other causes, that might be OK for Snape. <snip>

Carol:
How would that be okay for Snape? The whole reason he took the UV was
to protect Draco, not only from death but from murder. If Draco killed
DD, he'd split his soul and be the second-most wanted wizard in the
WW. Snape would be betraying Draco and Narcissa as well as Dumbledore.
He doesn't consider that possibility for a moment. The first thing he
does after sweeping the room with his eyes is push Draco roughly out
of the way. And later he grabs him by the scruff of the neck and makes
sure he gets safely out of Hogwarts. I don't think that was a choice
at all, at least not in his own mind. 

Sarah:
Snape can also wait for the poison to kill Dumbledore.  This wouldn't
be very good for DDM or LDS since it may allow Harry to become 
Dumbledore's murderer, though I'm not sure about that.

Carol:
I don't think the other DEs would have allowed that. They expect Snape
to take immediate action, and if he doesn't kill DD himself, they'll
expect him to force Draco to do it. Also, Fenrir is slavering to have
Dumbledore for "afters," and he'll attack the body the moment DD falls
dead from the potion. Snape eliminates that problem by sending the
body over the battlements and then getting the DEs off the tower
before they can touch Draco or realize that Harry is hiding under the
Invisibility Cloak, as Snape surely knows. 

Sarah:
  Another thing Snape can do is attempt to revive or cure Dumbledore.

Carol:
With four DEs right there on the tower? They'd kill him if the UV
didn't. And besides, I doubt that he would know the antidote to a
complex poison without carefully examining Dumbledore, adn he
certainly didn't have it in his pocket. A bezoar won't cure all
poisons, and some--probably including this one, compounded by
Voldemort himself--have no antidotes. Not an option. Besides, he has
to keep his cover.

Sarah:
  If Dumbledore
> has been working to establish Snape's DE status better than ever
> before, as I believe, then doing this in front of the witnesses
> present would not be good for just about anyone involved.

Carol:
Exactly. It isn't an option, for that reason among others. Now if the
DEs hadn't cast the Dark Mark, giving away the fact that they were in
the castle, and Harry had gone for Snape as requested--but then, we'd
have a different novel and Snape wouldn't have faced his terrible dilemma.

> Magpie:
> I don't know if this is the classified part, but I just don't get
what the Life Debt could possibly do that makes Snape need to fulfill
it so badly.
> 
> Sarah:
> Judging by the introduction of the UV, I would say it's possible
that it is death at the least.  Not written in stone, just possible.

Carol:
But why place Snape under *two* magical obligations involving death?
That seems like overkill to me (two bad puns in one post! Sorry!).
Besides, we already have a Life Debt-bound character, Peter Pettigrew,
who certainly didn't die when he injured and kidnapped Harry so that
LV could use his blood and then kill him. Possibly, he might have
dropped dead if Harry had died, but he doesn't seem to have considered
that possibility. 

Carol, who thinks that both the Life Debt and OFH! fit Pettigrew much
better than they fit Snape