Understanding Snape

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 153751

> > Neri:
> > "Must" seems to be too strong a word here, but it certainly appears
> > so. I quite agree that the ESE!Snape theory has a problem explaining
> > his actions that night, as much problem as the DDM!Snape theory has in
> > explaining these same actions, in fact. Which strongly suggests to me
> > that he's neither.
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> In a war of good versus evil there is no room for 'neither'. To seek
> power for its own sake is to seek evil, as Quirrell proved.
> 

Neri:
I meant ESE as in Voldemort's Man. Snape's actions suggest he's
neither Voldemort's man nor Dumbledore's man. Are you saying this
isn't a possibility? I'd say it's the most straightforward possibility. 


> Pippin:
> It would be helpful if we knew what Snape's orders from Dumbledore 
> actually were. HBP illustrates the difficulty of drawing correct
conclusions 
> about them.  If we had observed HBP!Harry's  actions from 
> 'outside' as it were, and had no information about his one on ones with 
> Dumbledore, we could easily suppose that Dumbledore had asked Harry
> to keep an eye on Draco. Harry's apparent failure to alert DD to
> Draco's plans on the night of the Tower would thus raise suspicions 
> of gross negligence or even treachery. 
> 

Neri:
Well, suppose we would have seen all the Order members throughout HBP
tracking Draco in shifts, trying to discover what is he up to and stop
him, and then we would have seen them taken away from Hogwarts one by
one (including Dumbledore himself) until only Harry (now an
experienced agent and official Order member) remained, and then Harry
would have failed in stopping Draco, and then Dumbledore would have
explained that indeed, stopping Draco was the Order's main objective
throughout HBP, then yes, we would have probably concluded that Harry
was expected to stop Draco, and his incompetence in doing so would
have appeared very suspicious from the outside. Especially if we were
also told that Harry was a DE and a double agent that both Voldemort
and Dumbledore believed to be on their side. 


> Gerry:
> DDM!Snape does not have a problem at all. Snape waits a certain amount
> of time, gets worried and alerts the Order. 

Neri:
The only problem with this is the sheer irresponsibility and stupidity
of this non-action. He obviously shouldn't have waited any amount of
time at all, and certainly not several hours. Now, after OotP we could
have (as I did) just ascribed this to Snape still being offended by
the pensieve memory incident and letting his emotions get the better
of him (unprofessional, but Snape was known to act unprofessionally
where Harry was involved). However, after HBP the accumulating record
of Snape's "unprofessional" actions (making the UV, failing to stop
Draco, killing Dumbledore) makes him a very viable contender for the
title of The Worst Secret Agent Ever, assuming he's DDM. I'd say this
constitutes a problem with the DDM!Snape theory. 


> Gerry:
> Searching the forest is of
> course not a viable option because a truly extensive search of the
> forest will take days.

Neri:
All the more reason to start immediately. And Snape "intending to
search" shows that this at least was a viable option.


> Gerry:
> Anything coul have happened to Harry in the
> forest. He could have been taken by centaurs, eaten by spiders, and a
> lot more. Snape as a teacher and long time resident of Hogwarts almost
> certainly knows a lot more of the dangers of the forest than the
> children. 

Neri:
Do you mean that because of the great dangers in the forest they
*shouldn't* have searched for Harry? The obvious thing for Snape to do
was to call the Order for help. There were at least two Order members
in 12GP (Sirius and Lupin) who knew the Forbidden Forest very well,
and also the secret passages into the grounds.


> Gerry:
> They went in with a teacher, there is a reasanble amount of
> time in which he can expect them back. Yet they did not come. 
> 

Neri:
That `teacher" was not very capable of handling the dangers in the
forest. OTOH she constituted one of the great dangers herself. Just
the day before she had led Aurors to attack both Hagrid and
McGonagall, and Snape knew she was trying to get sensitive Order
information out of Harry using dubious means. And all this while Snape
knew that Harry is under a mind attack from Voldemort. No amount of
time waiting was "reasonable" in that situation, certainly not several
hours. 


> Eggplant:
> I concede Snape knew he was working against Voldemort and I concede
> that at that point the last thing in the world Snape wanted was for
> Harry to die

Neri:
Actually, a pretty good case *can* be made that Snape warning the
Order (too late, of course) was part of Voldemort's plan all along.
>From Voldemort's point of view there would be two obvious advantages
for that:

1. Snape would not be revealed as Voldemort's man, but only as an
Order member who took too long to respond. He would have been able to
continue as Voldemort's agent in Hogwarts and in the Order. This very
argument is used by Snape himself in Spinner's End to explain why
Voldemort gave the mission of assassinating Dumbledore to Draco first
rather than to Snape. This shows that JKR is well aware of this
consideration.

2. Dumbledore and the Order rushing to the Ministry and arriving too
late would have been the ideal scenario from Voldemort's point of
view. It would have taken just an anonymous call to the Aurors and
Dumbledore would be caught breaking into a secret Ministry department
together with an escaped murderer, and with a little luck framed for
kidnapping Harry and stealing the prophecy while the Ministry can
continue denying Voldemort's return to power. For Voldemort that would
have been taking down all the birds with a single shot.

So a case can be made that Snape did exactly what Voldemort's original
plan had called for him to do, and the blame was mainly with Lucius,
who was delayed too long in taking the prophecy from Harry's hands. I
won't be surprised at all if something like this indeed had happened,
but it would still require a very unprofessional act from Snape (not
verifying that Lucius had cleared the place before warning the Order).
The only scenario I see in which Snape *wasn't* acting
unprofessionally here would be if he was torn between two of his own
prime objectives: Maintaining his double agent game as long as
possible and not being responsible for Harry's death.

Neri