How will Snape come back?

[chrusotoxos]

No: HPFGUIDX 162621


Hi Carol,

I'm flattered that you answered my mail, since I always read your posts and I think that 
what you have to say is really interesting. I'll jump on the occasion to ask you if you've 
studied Literature, or if you have just a natural flair in book theories?

As for our bat friend,

> Carol responds:
> I think you've covered all the bases here. ;-) Or maybe you haven't.
> Maybe an Order member or a student witnesses Snape doing something
> that can only be explained by his being on their side--healing Luna,
> for example. Surely, Snape's healing skills will resurface in Book 7.

I agree that we'll se more of this light side he has, because we were intrigued by it, as 
Harry was, in the previous books and we don't really know much about it: where has Snape 
learned it all, for a start? If DD took him as a teacher so early (around the time Harry was 
born, right?) he couldn't have done much study after Hogwarts. And Healing is not 
something he would have learned from LV. 
Anyway, the reason I insisted in him contacting someone is that I don't think that at this 
point of the story a gesure may be enough for Harry to believe that he's innocent. In killing 
DD, Snape has gone too far. And Harry has by now learned, though he remembers it only 
when it's convenient to him, that a gesture left unexplained may have been done for 
several reasons.


About the Order's members, I did hesitate between McGongall and Lupin - I certainly don't 
see him heading to the Burrow, for various reasons. I still think that Snape won't be the 
one going towards Lupin, but you're right saying that

Carol:
>IMO, Lupin
> (assuming that Pippin is wrong about his being ESE!) is the very
> person most likely to figure out that the AK that sent DD over the
> wall wasn't a normal AK and start asking questions. He also knows
> Snape better than any of the others, having gone to school with him
> and been dependent on him for perfectly made Wolfbane Potions when
> they were colleagues. He, too, wants Dumbledore's approval. More
> important, he, too, has been a victim of the DADA curse. If anyone can
> understand the predicament Snape finds himself in at the end of HBP,
> it's Lupin, (snip) And
> Lupin is closer to Harry than any member of the Order besides the
> Weasleys and tends to be more rational than most. 

I mistrust the idea of Snape going to Lupin because this is one thing I'd do, and when I 
analyse my reasons I find that Snape couldn't have the same ones.
Snape doesn't trust Lupin, never has, and Lupin has never given him a reason to trust him. 
He didn't protect him as a Prefect, he made a fool of him as a colleague. Lupin is, as Snape 
sees him, a weak creature; a creature, I say: not even human, with no ambition to free 
himself from his status, from his poverty, the contrary of Snape (I'm not judging here). 
Also, Snape has learned to fear him, and therefore to hate him more: he ran after him in 
PoA, but not to help him (he didn't carry him the potion), but to destroy him. He was also 
not his usual rational self that night, as we see from his reaction after Sirius' flight. He 
went after Lupin with the Cloak, ready to perform Unforgivables both on him and on Black. 
So if Lupin understands that Snape is somehow innocent and wants to claer him, imo he 
must be the one to find Snape, and not the other way round.


> Carol:
>I imagine him engineering a prison break with
> Bellatrix, all the while planning to subvert Lucius Malfoy, at least,
> and get him to join the fight against the Dark Lord who sent his son
> on a suicide mission. 

Mmmh. If Barty Crouch could say 'I have no son' while Dementros dragged his son away, 
Lucius is likely going to do exactly the same. Any hope Draco has to survive reside in 
Narcissa, In Snape and possibly in the Order.


Carol again:
>As for Snape reaching Hermione, I suppose
> there's some hope. She alone of the Trio believed Dumbledore that he
> was trustworthy, and (very oddly, given her year-long antagonism to
> the HBP) she tells Harry after learning his identity that "evil is a
> strong word" to describe the teenage inventor of Sectumsempra who grew
> up to kill Dumbledore. 

I think that this is a very important point. Hermione has grasped what Harry has not: there 
is always the possibility to redemption, there is always a cause for one's cruelty. This, of 
course, doesn't stretch very far, as we see from her treatment of Marietta.

> Carol:
> Or in LOTR? I think a Boromir-style repentance scene is what many fans
> are expecting. I very much doubt that JKR will give us one.
> Personally, I hope she finds a way to save Snape. But I don't doubt
> for a moment that he'll be instrumental in the Horcrux hunt, as well
> as in betraying Voldemrot to Harry at the last moment.
 
Why do you doubt it? Please please please convince me, as this is exactly the kind of 
scenario I fear, a character left to die without explanation, some guessing and it's finished.  
And yet everything, imo, points to this: Snape is in hiding, and trust no one of the Order 
enough to contact them; excellent plot diversion a character switching sides at the last 
moment; powerful scene of a dying Potions master, surprise at Harry wishing Lv's death 
even more because LV killed Snape. I see only a small light at the end of the tunnel: Snape 
may be, as others have said, a 'training' for Harry before his duel with LV; in this case, 
Harry must learn to use his powerful weapon, his capacity to love and forgive, on Snape - 
in this case, we only have to worry about LV... 

> Carol, who hopes that either Lupin or Hermione will be the person who
> works with Snape and hopes that Snape will be the narrator of the
> obligatory expository scene near the end of Book 7
>

This is something else that will earn you a golden star if you can convince me of it...Snape 
has not uttered more than a two sentences one after the other since his memorable 
speech in PS.


chrus