VA/H=Mx13+RP? Snape's Culpability?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147316

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> Think about how long it takes to run (or be thrown
downstairs) and to Apparate. That's how long young Snape would have
had to think about the Prophecy. Possibly he didn't even think about
the meaning and implication of the words until he was reciting them.
At that point he would have seen Voldemort's reaction and realized
that Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy to mean that an unborn child
was the threat and that he (LV) intended to identify and kill that
unborn child. I still contend that young Snape, intent on getting to
his boss with a potentially important but obscurely worded piece of
information, did not have time to reason it out. Just memorize it,
Apparate, and report to LV.  
> <SNIP>
> 
Alla responded:
> 
> Thanks for the explanation, but I sincerely think that your
explanation is not supported by the canon we have at all. IMO of
course. Yes, you said at the end that you don't think that Snape is
stupid, but from the picture you portrayed I see not just stupid, but
idiotic Snape. He did not realise the meaning of the words? Erm...
does he have sufficient knowledge of English? The Prophecy is 
ambigious, it is not that ambigious that anybody could not decipher 
that the one with the Power to destroy Dark Lord approaches, IMO.
> 
> Do you think Snape thought prophecy had ANY meaning? What meaning do
you think he susbcribed to it? Are you arguing that for him Prophecy
words were just Abracadabra of unknown language and Snape had no clue
what they mean at all? <snip>

Carol responds:
This is the second time in recent weeks that you've misunderstood me,
clearly demonstrating that the ability to understand English words is
not the same as the ability to interpret them in the same way as
another person. (My apologies if my post, like the Prophecy, was
ambiguous.) For that matter, the existence of this list and the
varying interpretations of canon demonstrate the same thing: knowing
the dictionary definition of the words does not guarantee that any two
readers or hearers will interpret them in the same way, especially in
cases where crucial information is omitted. Your interpretation of the
Prophecy, as Steve and I have both pointed out, is based on
Dumbledore's explanation to Harry, information to which young Snape
was not privy, even after he had time to sit down and think about what
the partial Prophecy might mean.

I am emphatically *not* saying that Snape didn't understand plain
English or that he thought the words were some sort of magical jargon
("Abracadabra of unknown language"). The words of the Prophecy are not
plain English, a point I'll deal with later.

As for the meaning young Snape ascribed to the Prophecy, it would only
be (IMO) that the Prophecy (if genuine) revealed a threat to the Dark
Lord from someone born at the end of July, someone whose parents had
at some point and in some way "thrice defied" Voldemort. But Snape
would also know that the Prophecy was incomplete and that prophecies
in general are cloaked in ambiguity. He would, IMO, be cautious in
interpreting it, *not* because he's stupid or doesn't understand
English (I never said that, as I think you must know) but because he's
intelligent and, unlike Voldemort, logically minded. (DD gives us
evidence in HBP that Voldemort is superstitious and paranoid, as Snape
is not.)

As Steve has said elsewhere in the thread, "the one with the power to
vanquish the Dark Lord approaches" sounds as if a full-fledged adult
wizard, already possessing the power to destroy Voldemort, has arrived
on the scene--very different from the impending birth, some months in
the future, of an as yet unidentifiable baby who *will be given* the
power to defeat Voldemort by Voldemort himself--a bit of information
that neither Snape nor Voldemort possesses because Snape didn't hear
that part of the Prophecy.

And as Steve pointed out, "born as the seventh month dies" merely
means "born at the end of July." Yes, Snape could and would have
figured that much out even as he Apparated to report the Prophecy to
Voldemort. But "dies" is present tense, and it isn't the end of July
when he's reporting to Voldemort, so "born as the seventh month dies"
can either mean *will be born* or *was born,* not *is born* in the
present moment. The Prophecy, ambiguous like all prophecies, does not
say which July is meant, and the idea that the One is at the moment a
fetus simply does not fit with the idea that the One "approaches"
(now, at the present moment) and already possesses the power to defeat
the Dark Lord (another bit of misdirection by JKR and the Prophecy
itself, since neither Harry nor Neville is born with this power). 

Basically, young Snape can only tell Voldemort that he was
eavesdropping on Dumbledore, who was interviewing a candidate for the
Divination position, and that the woman slipped into a trance and
spoke what seemed to be a prophecy, of which Snape had only overheard
a part. I think that even at twenty, young Snape would have been
cautious in delivering this information. (Note how carefully he weighs
his words to Harry in the Occlumency lessons. Conveying news to
Voldemort of a possible nemesis would require even greater caution.)
He would in any case have known that prophecies are by their nature
ambiguous and that he had only heard part of the prophecy, which would
make interpreting it based only on partial knowledge dangerous; and he
would probably have known that many prophecies had only come to pass
because those involved in the prophecy had acted to thwart them (e.g.,
the Oedipus story, which is probably known in the WW given the
existence of sphinxes and the use of classical names in certain
families). 

I don't think that Snape would have leaped to the same conclusions
that Voldemort did--that the threat came from an unborn baby who was
most likely the child of Order members who had fought Voldemort three
times ("defy," as Steve points out, does not mean "fought"--it means
"disregard" or "resist"). "The One" could be anybody born at the end
of any July whose parents had at any time defied Voldemort in any way.
(Granted, he's unlikely to be a Muggleborn since Muggles would be
unlikely to defy Voldemort, but it's only by mulling over the words
"thrice defied" that we arrive at that conclusion.) The first few
lines of the Prophecy don't even make clear that the One is male: "He"
is only used in the portion that Snape didn't overhear. 

As for the supposed lack of canon support for my position, I have
already given the evidence, but I'll repeat it in condensed form.   
1) Dumbledore says that Snape could not possibly have known how
Voldemort would *interpret* the Prophecy, which implies that the
meaning of the Prophecy, even the portion that Snape reports, is *not*
self-evident. 2) DD also points out that Snape had no way of knowing
who the unborn infant was even when he understood how LV interpreted
the Prophecy. And 3) even Harry thinks that the logical thing for
Voldemort to do would be to wait and see which boy appeared to present
a threat rather than going after a baby. 

But Voldemort doesn't act logically (or what I consider to be
logically), as Snape at some point realizes. (We don't know how
Voldemort acted when Snape delivered the Prophecy or how long it took
for Snape to realize what LV intended to do. We only know that some
time *after Harry's birth*, months after the Prophecy itself was
delivered, he realized that Voldemort intended to attack Harry and his
parents, and possibly the Longbottoms for good measure. Apparently it
took a planned attack on people Snape knew to make Voldemort's
interpretation and its evil consequences clear to him. 

Once young Snape understood--not the supposedly self-evident meaning
of the partial Prophecy but Voldemort's *interpretation* of it *and*
LV's *intention to thwart the Prophecy* by killing people Snape knew,
Snape went to Dumbledore. Remorse didn't yet play a role, IMO; he was
just trying to prevent his revelation from having terrible
consequences. In DD's words, he "returned to our side" ("returned"
being mysteriously unexplained) *before* Godric's Hollow, spying on LV
before he began teaching, and, if we take his words in PoA at face
value, attempting somehow to warn James Potter of his and his family's
danger. When both the warning and his spying failed to save the
Potters, the remorse kicked in (IMO).

I realize that the part of my post about Apparating is only
speculation, but it's based on the way wizards normally travel and it
certainly seems like what young Snape would have done in those
circumstances. And in the limited time available, he could not have
come to his own tentative understanding of what the partial Prophecy
might mean, much less anticipate how Voldemort would interpret it and
choose to act on it. Canon *does* support that interpretation--unless
you choose to believe that Dumbledore is wrong, in which case my
arguments will continue to fall on deaf ears.

Carol, who has spent way too much time on this post but is tired of
having her words distorted beyond recognition and arguments aimed at
that supposed meaning instead of what she actually said