Nightingale!Snape

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 154278

Alla:
> If you are comparing Nightingale to Snape based only on the song, 
> well, I guess if you can say that Nightingale brought the misery 
> upon the emperor himself by leaving and then came to treat him ( 
> still don't see Nightingale deliberately doing it), and Snape does 
> not just heals dark curse, he heals the Dark curse invented by him. 
> Oh, the irony.

Ceridwen:
Just this part made me think of one of the speculations about Snape - 
that he was Dumbledore's golden boy until Harry arrived (Nightingale, 
mechanical nightingale).  And Nightingale flew away when the 
mechanical bird became the new favorite of the emperor, but returned 
once the emperor was ill.  I can see a possible parallel, but I can't 
quite see Harry in the role of the mechanical bird who broke.

*IF*, just playing for speculation here, Snape is the Nightingale, 
then could James Potter be the mechanical bird?  Or, Remus Lupin?  Or 
(Powers That Be forfend!) Peter Pettigrew?  Or Sirius Black?  In one 
way or another, they all broke down - James made the fatal mistake of 
asking Wormtail to be his Secret Keeper, denying Dumbledore that 
position; Lupin didn't tell Dumbledore that Sirius and Pettigrew were 
Animagi; Pettigrew betrayed his friends and 'broke' spectacularly; 
Sirius was flawed, like a firework that burns out too quickly.  
Personally, I'd go for the Marauders, with James at the forefront, as 
the mechanical bird if we're going to try and draw parallels to the 
story.  And it wasn't just Dumbledore ailing, and certainly not 
physically, but the entire WW at that time.

The reason I say the Marauders as a group is that they seem to have 
broken down as friends.  Some people have noted that Lupin was not 
included in all of the bustle of the Order and the Secret Keeping.  
This sounds like the group breaking up and at least one member going 
his own way after school (common occurrence, Lupin was not of the 
same social or financial standing as his friends, he had other 
priorities).  And one betrayed another to his and his wife's death 
while yet another decided to go after the killer without waiting for 
the police and ended up in Azkaban wrongfully named as their killer.

And somewhere between the prophecy and the months before the Potters 
were killed, Snape 'returned', Dumbledore's words at Karkarov's 
evidence hearing (or whatever it's called!) in the Penseive, to 
assist by spying.

Just some thoughts.

Ceridwen.