Have Snape ever killed anybody before? WAS: Re: seeds of betrayal

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 149817

> >>Sherry:
> I just can't buy it.  Warm fuzzy innocent Sevvy, who never did a   
> mean bad thing at all in his life. sorry, carol, I know well that 
> you don't think he's an innocent babe, but if contrary to what I   
> hope and believe, there is to be redemption for Snape, it's pretty 
> diluted if he's a poor misunderstood hero who never dirtied his    
> hands.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I agree.  Snape's hands are dirty.  He was a Death Eater after all.  
The question is, are they bloody.  I think *Snape* would say his 
hands are bloody because of the Potters' deaths.  But I'm not sure 
that he's got anyone else's blood on his hands.  (Though there is 
the intriguing idea that he may have helped recruite Regulus into 
the Death Eaters.  No canon of course, but it'd be cool.)

However, that doesn't make him a misunderstood hero.  I think Snape 
was an angry, emotional and foolish boy who joined with Voldemort 
without fully understanding what being a Death Eater really meant.  
And by the time he did realize the extent of his folly there were 
two people marked for death by his information.  For this I believe 
Snape has been working for redemption since returning to 
Dumbledore's side.

> >>Sherry: 
> Dumbledore's murder doesn't count as dirtying his hands, if as so 
> many believe, he was doing it for some ridiculous notion of       
> Dumbledore's that it is somehow for the greater good to have him   
> dead and Snape alive.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I'm betting Snape will consider killing Dumbledore as bloodying his 
hands.  Though I think Sydney gave an excellent analogy as to what 
happened on the Tower (in a post I can't find, sorry).  There's a 
scene in the movie, Master & Commander where the captain has to cut 
the ropes to a fallen mast, even though it condemns one of his 
sailors to die, in order to keep his ship from being dragged under.  
If the captain had been the one in the water he'd have ordered, and 
expected, those ropes to be cut.  Dumbledore was in a position where 
saving his life would have sacrificed his school.  Snape did what he 
had to do.  What I suspect Dumbledore ordered him to do.

As horrifying as Snape's action on the Tower was, I think it goes 
*towards* his redemption.  Though Snape would probably argue against 
me. <g>

> >>Sherry:
> I don't really buy the deaths of the Potters as the single        
> shattering event that turned him around.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I agree.  Snape came back to Dumbledore *before* the Potters died.  
I'm not sure if there was a "single shattering event" or if it was a 
gradual realization of what the Death Eaters and Voldemort were 
really after.  If there was a single event it could well have been 
the death of Regulus.  The timing is certainly suggestive.

Betsy Hp