Why DADA for Snape? (WAS Re: Do any list members think...)

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 147014

quick_silver:
> Good points and I mostly agree with them. However doesn't the 
> scenario that you present really eliminate the possibility of 
> Dumbledore and Snape having any long term goals with regards to 
> Dumbledore's sacrifice? 

zgirnius:
Well, I have a theory about that. I think they might have had long 
term plans without planning, necessarily, to kill Dumbledore.

I have been thinking again about why Dumbledore gave the DADA post to 
Snape. Suggestions I remember reading include:
1) Dumbledore knew he was dying and it was a kind of 'thank you' for 
Snape;
2) Dumbledore needed to get Slughorn, (for his memory, and/or so 
Harry could take NEWT Potions) and Slughorn has to teach Potions;
3) Dumbledore could find noone else;
4) There was a plan to kill Dumbledore, Snape would be leaving by the 
end of the year anyway;
5) It wouldn't really cause a problem, DD would just move him back to 
Potions the following year.

I don't really like any of these, alone or in combination, anymore. 
1) What kind of 'thank you' is a cursed position?
2) There are two Divination Profs. Why not Potions?
3) Why not ask the Ministry?
4) Steve and quick_silver said it well.
5) I don't think so. Voldemort made the curse, and it has had some 
bad effects...

So anyway, I thought to myself, what could they hope to accomplish by 
putting Snape in DADA? And it came to me...the one outcome they can 
be *sure* of from this move is that Snape will be leaving Hogwarts by 
the end of the year. So I decided that must be what DD intended all 
along. 

The advantage of having Snape leave is that it takes him back to 
Voldemort. Yes, he's Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters, but how 
much can he do in that role in he is at Hogwarts all year? But Snape 
can't just quit Hogwarts-he's supposedly also Voldemort's spy in the 
Order, and he is right where Voldemort would want him. On the other 
hand, if he is *forced out* by the curse, Voldemort may be angry, but 
he will also know why it happened, and can hardly suspect Snape, whom 
he has probably never told about the curse.

If I'm right, I think that this plan, for Snape to 'go out into the 
cold', may be what was under discussion in the Forest when Hagrid 
overheard them. 
 
> quick_silver:
> The other thing that's bothered me is the fact that Snape shouts 
out 
> dueling tips to Harry as he and Harry. The more that I think about 
> that scene the more
uncontrolled
it seems. I don't want to say that 
> Snape was panicking but playing it by ear maybe? I wonder if maybe 
> Snape was so emotional at the end of HBP because he really doesn't 
> know what to do next? 

zgirnius:
Yes, I think so. Understandably, especially if there was no plan to 
kill Dumbledore. If my theory, outlined above, is true, then Snape 
has an interesting problem. On one hand, he is much better positioned 
to carry out DD's plan than either of them could have possibly 
anticipated. On the other hand, if the decision to kill Dumbledore 
was as Steve outlined made at the spur of the moment, it will be 
quite difficult to get anyone in the Order to listen.

--zgirnius, hoping she is not boring the list with a repeat of this 
theory, which may have been lost in the shuffle as she posted it 
originally in response to Sherry's excellent Chap. 8 discussion