VA/H=Mx13+RP? (was: Was the eavesdropper unimportant to Harry?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147106

Magpie wrote:
> I could be wrong but I assume when people talk about Snape "not
knowing" they mean that when the prophecy became "real" to him he saw
that it was something he didn't want to do.
> 
> I mean, from his pov think of it this way.  He's on Voldemort's
side.  His goal is to support him.  (Sometimes, as weird as it sounds,
people do have trouble not thinking that villains underneath it all
really see everything the same way the heroes do and so view their own
actions the same way as the heroes do.)  So think of if Snape was
working for DD and he heard a prophecy that said that someone who
would destroy him could be found in such and such a place.  He'd
naturally pass that information on as a supporter of DD. 
> Somebody's going to kill you--here he is.
> 
> Naturally Snape knew that this meant this "one" whoever he was would
then become the enemy and be taken care of, but his goal is to take
away obstacles to Voldemort's power.  It's not like when he finds out
it's, "Oh  my!  This means Voldemort might do something to the baby I
just said was going to be born and his family!  How could I have known
that?"  It was more that yeah, he saw this as an obstacle that would
be taken care of in a potentially violent way, but when the reality of
what this meant sunk in in human terms, for whatever reason Snape
(maybe) thought this was something he 
> thought was wrong.  Sure it would have been better if he'd thought
that before he told Voldemort about the prophecy, but it's possibly
also a lot better than the alternative, which is that he never thought
it was a bad idea.

Carol responds:
If I understand correctly what you're saying, I agree with you. The
Prophecy incident occurred some months before Harry was born. Snape
was a twenty-year-old DE who happened to overhear a Prophecy
concerning apparent danger to his master. (He couldn't have been there
on purpose to overhear a Prophecy. He probably didn't even know there
would be a job interview since it was not the end of summer.) He
follows Dumbledore, overhears part of the interview and part of the
Prophecy and is kicked out of the bar. Almost certainly he Apparated
to LV and reported what he had heard without thinking about what it
said. (More likely, given who he was reporting to, he was thinking
about rewards and punishments. Would he be rewarded for his
information or punished because it was incomplete.) I don't think he
thought at all about what the Prophecy meant. Even those of us who
have gone over it and over it can't agree on what it means. I very
much doubt that he thought, "Oh. The Dark Lord is going to kill some
baby." He, young Snape, had simply overheard a Prophecy about someone
who might have the power to defeat his master, and he quite reasonably
thought that his master should know.

Quite possibly Voldemort's reaction took him by surprise. Instead of
regarding the Prophecy as a vague future threat that might come to
pass when some kid born in July became old enough to threaten him,
Voldemort was worried about as yet unborn babies. Maybe young Snape
started worrying then, too, even watching the birth announcements. At
some point--it could not have been immediately--he realized that the
child (assuming that the Prophecy meant *this* particular July) cpild
only be Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom. He may have gone to
Dumbledore immediately, or he may have waited till Voldemort chose
Harry over Neville. But the point is, he did go to Dumbledore, when it
became clear to him who the child was and what Voldemort intended to
do. And he could not have known that when he heard the Prophecy or
when he reported it.

So I agree with Steve (and Magpie?): Snape's crime in reporting the
Prophecy is nowhere near as significant as Wormtail's betrayal of his
friends. Wormtail knew the consequences of his actions, and a large
share of the Potters' blood is on his hands. Snape did not know what
would happen or when or to whom. He only saw a threat to his master
that he dutifully reported. When he realized what LV intended to do,
he repented, went to Dumbledore, and spied for him at "great personal
risk." Pettigrew, in contrast, actively betrayed his friends, then
killed twelve Muggles, framed another Marauder who spent twelve years
in Azkaban because of him, hid for those same twelve years as a rat. I
won't even count resurrecting Voldemort, killing Cedric, and all the
other crimes PP was involved in relating to the Harry kidnap plot.

There is no comparison. Snape didn't know the consequences. He
repented. PP did know the consequences; he went into hiding after
committing yet more crimes.

Carol, who thinks that the Sirius fans should be up in arms against
Wormtail rather than Snape