The UV (was ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey?)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 162807

> > Carol responds;
> > Hi, Jen. If you're asking whether Snape's vow to protect Draco in
> > itself creates a bond similar to the life debt, I don't think 
so. 
> SNIPPED
> > 
> > So I think that Draco owes Snape a huge debt, whether or not 
that debt creates the same sort of bond between them as a Life Debt. 
(I don't think it does because of the UV; whatever Snape's motives, 
if Draco had died from Sectumsempra, he might have died, too, for 
failing to protect Draco to the best of his ability.) Still, even if 
the UV negates what might otherwise have been a Life Debt, I think 
and hope that Draco will realize how much he owes to Snape and how 
much Snape risked for his sake. 

Jen D:
> Actually this discussion, as simple as it seems, makes me wonder 
(as it often does) exactly how the rules of JKR's world work. The 
debt that was created when Harry spared Wormtail seems to hinge on 
the fact that Wormtail realizes how he has been spared. 

Dungrollin:
I'm not so sure about that. I was thinking about it recently, 
there's an interview in which JKR said that Ginny didn't owe Harry a 
life debt from when he saved her in CoS, though she clearly 
recognises that he saved her. 

I think it's more likely to be something about being in a clear 
position to save the life of someone you have every right to want 
dead, and saving them anyway. You do it and they survive, you don't 
do it and they die. Harry saving Peter thus fits. James saving Snape 
makes me wonder what it was Snape had done to make James want him 
dead. 

I know I've always argued and argued (and made comic vomiting noises 
in a childish manner) against any form of Snape loves Lily, but I 
have to admit that when this question popped into my head, the 
following thought was "Cherchez la femme". P'raps Snape snogged 
Lily. No *love*, just a snog. (I'm still 100% against the idea that 
it was Snape's love of Lily which made him leave Voldemort when he 
found out how he was interpreting the prophecy.)


Jen D:
<snip> I thank you for pointing out we 
> don't know exactly what an unbreakable vow means in this instance 
> although it doesn't seem possible that it couldn't create a life 
> debt, when someone agrees to put his own life on the line to 
protect yours, but we just don't know. 

Dungrollin:
I agree with you that it's not impossible in principle. If it works 
as above, Harry could make an Unbreakable Vow to protect, for 
example, Voldemort. A clear decision to put his own life on the line 
for someone he would far rather see dead. Though I think it would be 
fulfilling the vow - i.e. actually saving Voldemort from death (in a 
Snape-Draco Sectumsempra kind of situation) - that would create the 
actual life debt.

However, in practice, how likely would Harry be to swear such a vow?

Jen D:
I don't think Snape is the sort that would try to prode Draco into 
understanding they have a life-debt relationship. He never seemed to 
like Draco much at all except for the pain he could cause Harry. 

Dungrollin:
I've always thought that Snape likes Draco in the same way that 
Hagrid likes Harry, because he reminds him of himself as a child. 
Two childless (we assume) father-figures who have an instinctive 
fondness for a child in whom they see so much of themselves. But 
that's just my opinion.

However, I'm fairly sure that Harry at least thinks Snape likes 
Draco. He certainly thinks something like that in the first potions 
lesson of PS. I think the narrator mentions something similar again 
when Harry is so astonished at the way that Draco talks back to 
Snape when he overhears them at Slughorn's Christmas Party. Though 
it could be about Draco liking Snape - I don't have my book to hand.

So, no, I don't think that Draco owes Snape a life debt, unless the 
conversation that Hagrid overheard was Snape saying he didn't want 
to protect Draco any more, perhaps because Draco did or said 
something unforgiveable to Snape off-screen. But even then... no, I 
can't imagine Snape actively wanting Draco dead, and so saving him 
from the Sectumsempra (IMO) wouldn't set up a life debt.

Dungrollin