Harry's arrogance /Evil Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154388

Carol earlier <snipped>:
> > Or, assuming that DD really is dead, was it wrong to kill
Dumbledore if that was the only way to get Harry off the tower? 
> 
Pippin responded: 
> I agree Snape could not have expected to get Harry and Draco off the
tower in one piece by fighting. Harry nearly got his throat ripped out
by one DE and was crucio'd by another. Snape was able to save him from
the latter only because the DE's were still taking his orders.
> 
> But assuming that DDM!Snape thought he could do a convincing fake
AK, wouldn't he use that rather than a real one regardless?
> 
Pippin, noting that if Dumbledore hadn't trusted Snape, he'd have died
of the Ring curse, and if Harry hadn't trusted the Prince, he'd have
lost Ron.
>
Carol again:
I agree completely and argued in post 134812 that the supposed AK
could have been a silent Impedimenta (who better than Snape to cast a
nonverbal curse that sends DD over the wall, away from the teeth and
claws of Fenrir Greyback?). 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/134812

I've also pointed out DD's and Ron's debts to Snape (and note that the
HBP's note causes Harry to remember Snape's first Potions lesson about
the bezoar!--a double debt to Snape on that one). Snape saves at least
four lives, directly or indirectly, in HBP, the others being Draco's
and Katie Bell's.

But my concern is for a DDM!Snape who may have had no choice but to
kill Dumbledore, forced to do so by a combination of the UV (which
might have killed him on the spot if the AK were fake despite all the
holes you find in it), the DADA curse (which seems responsible for
forcing Snape into this terrible dilemma), and DD's last wish as
expressed through mutual Legilimency on the tower (if that's what
happened) or through Snape's correct interpretation of "Severus,
please." (The UV itself is perfectly reconcilable with DDM!Snape, but
that's a topic for another post.)

I would love to have you be right--much better for Snape not to be his
mentor's unwilling murderer and face the guilt and mental anguish that
such a crime entails even though he had no choice but to perform it.
But if JKR has not tricked us by faking DD's death (and I wouldn't put
it past her to do so), if DD is really dead, I think that Snape's
actions can still be justified, and his mental anguish when Harry
calls him a coward is much easier to explain if "what is right" is
exceedingly difficult and painful, condemning Snape not to temporary
ostracism but to infamy and not only to a probable sentence in Azkaban
(or death) but to a soul split through the act of murder (or perhaps
manslaughter, if it's unpremeditated and unavoidable). To do *that*
for your mentor and for the cause of defeating Voldemort is surely a
greater sacrifice than to die fighting for the same cause and be
regarded as a hero. No wonder Snape argued with Dumbledore in the
forest and said that he didn't want to do it!)

Carol, certain that Healer!Snape is Dumbledore's Man and that DD's
trust in him is (was) wholly justified, but not yet persuaded that
Dumbledore is alive and Snape is off the hook