[HPforGrownups] What Dumbledore trusts Snape to do? WAS: Re: High Noon for OFH!Snape

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 149591

Sydney:
> I'm also curious, of course, about how LD's will play out and what
> 'magic at it's deepest and most mysterious' looks like.  Perhaps the
> Life Debt is related the mercy thing, and possibly involves saving the
> life of someone you can't stand?  Because it's symbolically about the
> brotherhood of man whoever they are, or something?
>
> -- Sydney, who is now fantasizing about Harry owing a life debt to
> Draco, and wonders how well he would handle that!

Magpie:
That's honestly how I see the Life Debt working, absolutely.  People have
tried to go through canon and find all sorts of debts, but I definitely
wasn't surprised when Rowling said Ginny didn't owe one to Harry.  There's
only two: Snape/James and Peter/Harry.

It's the way most of Rowling's magic work--the TWT is a "binding magical
contract," which just means Harry has to be in the Tournament and play to
win,  so nobody tries to just find away around it.  Or like the Pensieve
just being a memory in a dish--don't think too hard about how far you can
roam in the memory or how you're seeing a memory of stuff the person in
question doesn't remember and never heard or saw.

It operates more on a kids' instinctive level--I think the vow does too.
You have to "feel" when it would kick in, and that basically happens when
you've been saved by someone you expect will kill you--maybe you even fear
they might deserve to kill you.  Like James and the kid who's trying to get
him in trouble.  Like Harry and the man he just found out betrayed his
parents and got them killed....

Or Harry and Draco.  Oh yeah, I've considered that.  It would be an elegant
way to cancel out Snape's vow, I think.  Think of a sort of transference,
like in The Jungle Book when Bageera kills a bull to repay the one he bought
Mowgli for.  Snape transfered his vow to James onto Harry.  It would work if 
somehow Harry was saved by the kid Snape is a father figure to, with whom
Harry shares a similar history.  Harry would be horrified, and somehow that 
seems to pay it back more completely than having Snape save Harry (he
already has worked to save his life, so it doesn't seem like that's going to 
release him from the vow ever--it will never work that way, because although 
Harry can't stand Snape, he hasn't sinned against him the right way, if that 
makes sense), even if Snape dies in the attempt.  No, I'm thinking you'd get 
more understanding if the "bad" kid to get a chance to save the "good" kid, 
thus the "bad" kid gets to be not the bad one for once, and the "good" kid 
has to be a little humble.  It sort of points out exactly what was 
disasterous about the Snape/James vow.  Of course, Draco and Harry have 
already deviated from the Snape/James path, but the fact that Harry is 
already carrying around some guilt from the Sectumsempra incident makes a 
potential life debt there all the more juicy.  Ooh, you can just see that 
moral edge slipping out from under Harry so he's all disoriented.:-)

-m