DD trust in Snape again. WAS: Evil Hermione

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 154814

Amiable Dorsai:

> "Investigated", not convicted, not, necessarily, 
> even run out of Hogwarts (Though I think that a 
> possibility. The Ministry is not always overly 
> scrupulous about guilt or innocence.)

> I am not arguing that Snape is ESE!, OFH!, or 
> even Mostly Good But With A Bug Up His Arse About 
> Anyone Named Potter (MGBWABUHAAANP!), but I do assume 
> that DDM! Snape will try to save Harry as a matter of 
> course, so only the other flavors of Snape need be 
> assumed to be acting to throw off suspicion.

> And none of Snape's 57 varieties will want Dumbledore 
> to even suspect that he might have tried to kill Harry, 
> or that he failed to act when he could have to prevent 
> Harry's death.

houyhnhnm:

I just don't see how Snape would have come under 
suspicion.  If he had *not* been muttering the 
counter-curse, he wouldn't even have come to Hermione's 
attention.  Lucius Malfoy was still on the Hogwarts 
board of govenors at this time, Moody was in retirement 
and considered a paranoid, Rita skeeter was not present 
at Karkaroff's hearing.  Who would accuse him?  Two 
eleven-year-olds who don't like Snape because he is a 
hard teacher and who think he is after the philosopher's stone.  

On the other hand, I agree that arousing DD's suspicion, 
however impossible to prove, would be a deterrent to 
letting Harry be killed.  But if Snape is ESE or OFH 
he's surely had to do that plenty of times already and 
seems to have gotten away with it. In fact, if Snape is 
ESE or OFH, he has been deceiving Dumbledore successfully 
for some ten to twelve years at this point, so why would 
he think he couldn't do it one more time.  All he had to 
do was get up and go to the bathroom as soon as he noticed 
that the broom was being hexed and come back acting shocked 
and appalled when it was all over.

Although I'm a DDMer myself, I can see a number of other 
reasons why Snape would have saved Harry's life, from 
wanting to go back to hating James in peace to feeling he 
needs to keep Harry alive for his own reasons until the 
Dark Lord comes back.  I just don't think fear of putting 
himself under suspicion is one of them.  I can't see that 
he was in any danger of doing so.

wynnleaf:

> If Snape had any particular interest in "allaying suspicion" 
> in the event of someone doing something terrible to Harry, 
> it makes little sense for him to focus on allaying suspicion 
> in one small area, yet spending every day acting in a way 
> that convinces the entire school population that he hates 
> Harry. If Snape wanted to allay suspicion, why wouldn't he 
> at least make some attempt to act a bit nicer to Harry?

houyhnhnm:

I've been wondering about this ever since my first reading 
of "Spinner's End".  Not so much in respect to his treatment 
of Harry, but in the way he interacts with people on the good 
side in general. (Too much is made of his hostility to Harry 
as a reason for adults to distrust him, I think, by readers 
who identify with Harry.  Adults in the WW are going to like 
or dislike Snape based on how he treats *them*, not on whether 
or not he is a harsh teacher.) 

We see, at Spinner's End, that Snape is not congenitally rude 
or completely lacking in social skills.  So if he is a cold 
and calculating Secret Agent who is really on Voldemort's side, 
why doesn't he schmooze?