Evil Hermione Was:Re: Evil Snape

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 154626

> Alla:
> <snip> 
> > Pippin also argued ( as I understood) that Ron and Hermione let 
> > Harry down just as badly as Snape did ( sorry if I misunderstood) 
> > and this I don't buy at all.
> > 
> > Are you also arguing that Hermione handling DA the way she did 
> > equals what Snape did to Harry?
> 
> SSSusan:
> In a word, nope.  I don't think what Hermione did re: the DA equals 
> what Snape has done to Harry. 
> <snip>  
> 
> I mean, wasn't Pippin saying that maybe DD trusts Snape just because 
> he values his friendship, same as maybe Harry trusts R/H just
> because he values their friendship, even though each of those people 
> may have let down their *respective* friends?  So DD may trust Snape 
> because of their friendship, even if Snape has let him down, just as 
> Harry trusts Hermione because of their friendship, even though she 
> has let him down.  (And I was agreeing that Hermione *has* let Harry 
> down.)

Pippin:
Yes! Thank you, SSSusan.  IMO, Dumbledore trusted Snape the way 
Harry trusts his friends, in spite of their mistakes, because he values
them. I think that Dumbledore was willing to chance that Snape joined 
Voldemort because he made a mistake, not because Snape was eeevil. 
But Dumbledore valued Snape for some deeper reason -- deep
but not necessarily spectacular.

I think we may veer off track looking for a spectacular reason why 
Dumbledore trusted Snape, just as we went off track looking for a 
spectacular reason why Voldemort wanted to kill Harry. 

At bottom, Voldemort wanted to kill Harry because Voldemort
is a paranoid psychopath who places no value on human life and 
whose fantasies have become fixed on Harry Potter -- the prophecy 
was instrumental in that but only because LV is mad as a March hare. 
After all, there must be hundreds of other prophecies in the DoM 
concerning Dark Lords. 

Snape can only have known that Voldemort would want to hear of
the prophecy. He had no way of knowing that Voldemort would fix on 
this prophecy as important beyond all others, or that he would decide 
that he needed to kill three specific people because of it. 

Nonetheless Snape accepted responsibility for his error, or so 
Dumbledore believed. Harry has no concept of what that means,
because he has yet to accept responsibility for an error of that
magnitude. He is still dodging his guilt over Sirius's death. That
Snape was able to do so when he was little older than Harry 
speaks well for him.

 I think, as I said, that Dumbledore intended to tell Harry more
of the story the night he died, but he was reluctant to do so
because a) He had promised Snape that he wouldn't b) He didn't
think Harry was going to be able to understand c) He thought
Harry's misunderstanding was going to make things worse.

There may be some spectacular unrevealed reason that Dumbledore 
valued Snape's friendship, but it might well have happened before
Snape joined the DE's. (That would explain the "rejoined our side" in
GoF).  In that case it would do little to convince Harry of Snape's worth, 
and yet by HBP Snape had already saved  Dumbledore at least once and 
Harry at least twice. If that wasn't good enough for Harry as a reason to 
value Snape, what would be? 

Pippin 
thinking that third time's the charm