What does Draco owe Snape? (Was: The UV )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162812

Jen D. wrote:
> I guess what I am wondering really, do you think Draco appreciates 
anything Snape has done for him to save him in various situations in
HPB and if that knowledge (again Draco is fully capable of not giving
 a person his due)will somehow create any sort of alliance, however
tenuous. I am sorry I don't catch all JRK's (hardly any, sadly enough)
interviews which seem to shed much light on such minutiae!

Carol reponds:
Okay, let's pretend that we've never heard of the Life Debt, which
probably doesn't come into play here. (JKR has discussed it only in
relation to Wormtail and Harry, and not very helpfully at that, so no
need to worry about missing out on the interviews in this regard.)

Let's look at this from the standpoint of a kid who's saved from
bleeding to death (and other dangers) by a teacher/father figure that
he used to like and respect but against whom he's now rebelling (as we
see in the post-Christmas party confrontation in "The Unbreakable Vow").

I do think that Draco owes Snape, at the least, a debt of gratitude.
I'm not talking about a magical compulsion, just the recognition that
he owes his life to Snape and ought, if he has an iota of decency, to
be grateful for that favor. There's no question that Snape saved his
life at least once in HBP, and, IMO, only Snape could have saved him
from Sectumsempra because only Snape knew the counterspell to his own
curse. The problem is that Draco is not prone to gratitude (when have
we ever seen him express it?), he doesn't know that only Snape could
have saved him from Sectumsempra, and he does know about the portion
of the UV that involved protecting him, so he may think that Snape
saved him only to prevent the UV from killing him. 

To compound matters, he thinks that Snape is a DE, loyal to the Dark
wizard who sent Draco on this dangerous mission, an impression that
could only have been strengthened when he saw Snape killing Dumbledore
(and "stealing his glory" in the process). And it can't have helped
matters that Snape grabbed Draco, who is only a few days from his
seventeenth birthday if he hasn't actually passed it, by the scruff of
the neck like a troublesome kitten and rescued him a second time, not
letting him get in a single curse of his own (as if Draco knew whom to
fight against at this point). Very damaging to Draco's momentarily
fragile self-esteem and his view of himself as a "man," which IMO had
been enhanced by his mission despite the death threats that seem to
have started around April when it seemed clear that he would fail to
fix the cabinet.

So we have rebellious teenager!Draco who has been saved from death by
a teacher he thinks is a faithful DE and who is now a fugitive, on the
run from the Aurors for having done the job that Draco was supposed to
do. If Draco was confused by Dumbledore's behavior toward him, he must
be equally confused by Snape's. What are Snape's motives? Why did he
save Draco's life? Is he serving the Dark Lord or undermining him by
doing so? Could Dumbledore, that stupid old man, be right about
Snape's loyalties after all? And what does Snape want from Draco now?
And, of course, there's the big question of where his own loyalties
lie now that it's clear that the Dark Lord doesn't value the lives of
his own followers.

I think it's a matter of time until Snape convinces Draco to trust him
or Draco arrives at that conclusion himself. If he decides to rebel
against LV, Snape is the only one who can, and will, help him.
(Assuming DDM!Snape, of course.) He just needs to figure that out.

Carol, imagining Snape, Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Draco all in hiding
together in the hidden chamber beneath the Malfoys' drawing room