Snape as Scorpio (Was: Phoenix fire?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154182

houyhnhnm wrote:
<snip>
> Water:
> Positive--prudent, compassionate, understanding, artistic,
>  protective, sensitive, reserved, seeking to help others.
> Negative--suspicious, self-repressed, hysterical,
> self-indulgent, seeking to gain control over others,
> exaggerating feelings all out of proportion.
> *****
>
> You see the problem.  The first three sets of descriptors
> accord pretty well with what we have seen of Gryffindor,
> Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff.
>
> The last set makes you go, "Huh?" Compassionate?  Protective?  
> Sensitive?  Seeking to help others? Slytherins? That's
> what made me think that maybe we are supposed to see something
> of the most evolved Slytherin characteristics in Fawkes.  
> That and the fact that the phoenix is asscociated with the
> water sign Scorpio.
>
Carol responds:
It may be relevant that both Tom Riddle (born December 31 or possibly
January 1) and Severus Snape (born January 9, according to JKR's
website) are Scorpios. (Please note that I don't have any actual
interest in astrology and am only following up this idea to see where
it leads.)

We don't even need to ask where Tom Riddle/Voldemort fits in this
picture, but Snape is a perennial enigma, at least till we read Book 7.

The ESE!Snape faction will point out that, with the exception of
self-indulgence, he fits the negative traits pretty well--not
hysteria, perhaps, but certainly self-repression most of the time,
exaggerated displays of a particular emotion (anger) on three or four
memorable occasions, and a desire to exercise power over his students.

But Snape also shows some of the positive traits that you listed. He
is prudent--indeed, he has to be to survive as a double agent. We
often see him exercising great caution in the words he uses,
especially with Harry in the Occlumency lessons and Bella in
"Spinner's End." Sirius-style recklessness would have killed Snape
long ago. 

Compassionate? Perhaps not, at first glance, yet surely he showed
compassion for Narcissa and for Draco in HBP--and perhaps, off-page,
for the critically injured Dumbledore whose life he saved from the
ring Horcrux curse. (Surprising Healing skills perhaps fit under
compassion as well.) And yet this trait is certainly not always
evident, as his biting remarks to his students frequently demonstrate.
Understanding likewise--though he may understand more than we give him
credit for (he certainly understands Harry's desperate message that
Sirius is being tortured by Voldemort, and it's likely that his
understanding extends to the feelings as well as the contents of that
message). 

Sensitivity? I suppose it depends how we define the term. Sensivity to
others' feelings, perhaps not ordinarily, though he certainly tries to
understand Draco's in HBP. But he displays a rather remarkable
sensitivity to the beauty of the subjects he teaches. (Harry even
claims that he speaks of the Dark Arts with a caress in his voice.)
And artistic? I would say that he displays artistry in his words (when
he's in poetic mode or being witty), in the very elegant obstacle he
sets up in SS/PS (compare a troll or a three-headed dog), in his
inventive and imaginative spells and Potions improvements as the HBP.
He even refers to potion-making as an art and a science in Book 1.

Protective? He's been protecting Harry (and his friends) since SS/PS,
perhaps protecting the WW as a whole by working with Dumbledore. He
makes the Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco in HBP, and if we believe
in DDM!Snape, gets Draco and Harry off the tower and the Death Eaters
out of the school in HBP. *Protective*? He's a Horntail protecting
her, erm, his eggs. 

Reserved? A little too reserved, perhaps, at least when he isn't
losing his temper. I'd say that he's as aloof and distant as you can
get most of the time. Even his anger is usually cold, and his fear is
only a slight pallor and glittering eyes. But he's also repressed (a
negative Scorpio tendency), and he's a superb Occlumens who may be
wary of displaying any show of emotion, so it's hardly surprising that
he'd be reserved. 

Seeking to help others? Well, maybe not *seeking* to help, but he is
certainly helping Dumbledore throughout the books, and sometimes
taking it upon himself to help or save people (the countercurse in
SS/PS, rushing into the Shrieking Shack in PoA, informing the Order in
OoP, trying to save Draco in HBP). He's an Order member, he spied for
DD "at great personal risk," he tries to get Harry to learn Occlumency
and nonverbal spells and to stay away from the Dark Arts. (That his
personality flaws get in the way of his desire to help doesn't negate
that desire if it indeed exists.)

If you want a Slytherin embodying both the best and the worst of the
Scorpio/water sign traits, I'd say that Snape (or at least DDM!Snape)
is your man. Just remember Healer!Snape crooning a songlike
counterspell over the wounded and erring Draco. Compassionate,
protective, seeking to help others--even artistic, if he invented that
countercurse himself, as he must have done since he invented the spell.

Carol, wondering if there's a connection between Healer!Snape and
Fawkes, who, like the portraits, will have overheard most of Snape's
conversations with Dumbledore