High Noon for OFH!Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 149496

PJ wrote:
> Until the 3rd provision there was no risk!  He was promising to do
exactly what he'd planned to do, what he *had* been doing, all along.
 story. <snip> 
> Without the UV Snape would not have been able to convince Bellatrix
of his loyalty to LV and she would continue to talk about him, maybe
convincing Voldemort that he should take another look at his spy
Snape... He had no choice and what Cissy had *asked* him to take a vow
for was no risk!  It was that dratted 3rd provision that she snuck in
at the last minute which was the problem!
> 
> He didn't have to convince LV that he was loyal because if he wasn't
 fairly well convinced of his loyalty, Snape would already be dead. 
It was *Bellatrix* he really had to convince at that moment.
<snip>
> Sorry but what Cissy *asked* him to vow *before* they began would
not have limited his choices at all!  He's been "there to look after
him, seeing he came to no harm and protecting him" without the vow
since Draco started school... <snip>

> Betsy Hp:
> >Snape was Vowing to help Draco while he tried to kill one of the
> >main players in the little war Snape (according to OFH rules) was
> >trying to avoid taking part in.  How could Snape *not* recognize
> >that Draco was about to put his life in some serious danger.
> 
> PJ:
> That is the 3rd provision, not what Cissy originally asked Snape to
take a vow to do.

Carol responds:
Oddly, since I'm a DDM!Snaper, I've been looking at the same evidence
and arriving at almost the same conclusions as PJ, an OFH!Snaper. (On
a side note, it seems that there are almost as many variations on
OFH!Snape as on DDM!Snape and we're not all defining these terms in
the same way. I'm not even sure that everyone agrees on ESE!Snape,
which used to mean "secretly loyal to Voldemort" but would now have to
mean something like "outed as loyal to Voldemort." ???)

At any rate, as I argued in another post, I agree that Snape was
working hard to convince Bella of his loyalty to LV because she, in
turn, would convince the doubting DEs and cement his position as LV's
most trusted lieutenant, and that the third provision was necessary to
convince *Bella*, not LV, of his loyalty. (That the loyalty was in
itself a lie, IMO, is beside the point.)

I also agree, as I think the text shows indisputably, that the third
provision caught Snape by surprise and that it was not what Narcissa
asked him to agree to when she proposed the UV. She asked him to do
what he would have done in any case, protect and "help" his favorite
student and the son of his friends (personal loyalty), which also
happened to be his duty as Draco's HOH (duty and loyalty to DD). That
his definition of "help" is rather more flexible than Narcissa's is
beside the point. We see him agreeing, with an inscrutable expression,
to take a UV with those provisions.

I disagree, however, that there was no risk in doing so. Any UV,
regardless of its provisions and the desire of the person taking the
vow to do exactly as he is promising to do, entails the risk of death.
He cannot always keep an eye on Draco, especially if he's also
watching Harry. He has to spend some time marking essays and preparing
lessons. Circumstances change. If he had not been on hand to discover
Draco bleeding in the bathroom, Draco would have died. No one but
Snape knew the countercurse to the spell he himself had invented. No
one else, not Madam Pomfrey or even Dumbledore, could have saved him.
And if Draco had died, Snape would have died, too, for failing to
protect him and thereby breaking his oath. Moreover, his definition of
"help" (which includes using Occlumency on Draco and putting Crabbe
and Goyle in detention) involves manipulating the vow beyond
Narcissa's intentions (and Bellatrix's expectations). So even agreeing
to these two provisions of the UV (behind LV's back) is a risk, but
it's a calculated risk. He thinks for a moment, giving Bellatrix time
to accuse him of "slithering out of action" again, and agrees to the
vow. As you say, it involves doing what he intended to do anyway, but
there is still the risk of failure and death. He's been walking this
tightrope for many years, relying on his intelligence and his many
talents to survive with his true loyalty undiscovered. He is probably
under orders from DD to do whatever is required to *appear* loyal to
LV in the Death Eater's eyes. He doesn't want to undo his carefully
argued defense of his supposed loyalty. He doesn't want to betray the
tearful and beautiful Narcissa, who is depending on him to help her
and her son. So he agrees--at some risk of discovery and death, but no
more than usual.

As you say, it's the unexpected third provision that really puts him
at risk of death. But to agree to that when he could have "slithered
out of action--on the Dark Lord's orders, of course," marks him, IMO,
as anything but OFH! A man who was out for himself would have used his
powers of persuasion and "the Dark Lord's orders" to prevent the two
angry women from AKing them. I agree that he needed to keep the
skeptical Bellatrix convinced of his loyalty to LV, but that in itself
would not have been sufficient motivation to place his own life in
such jeopardy, not to mention the consequences of saving his own life
(and Draco's) at the expense of murdering Dumbledore. Neither OFH! nor
ESE!Snape adequately explains that decision. Only DDM!Snape, acting on
Dumbledore's orders, provides anything like the incentive needed to
take such a terrible risk.

Carol, who absolutely agrees that Snape is a complex character with
complex motivations but does not see OFH!Snape as either a logical or
a canonical explanation for his actions in HBP or elsewhere