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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 149833

Carol earlier:
> 
> Yes. IMO, THAT Snape never killed before.
> 
> And as for the hatred required to power an AK, we don't really know
how the spell works since Harry, our POV character, has yet to cast
it, and self-hatred combined with revulsion at what he's expected, or
forced, to do (a la Harry in the cave) works better than mere
resentment of DD for failing to appreciate him (or whatever) to
explain the expression on Snape's face when he looks at DD but has yet
to raise his wand. It takes a second, pleading speech ("Severus,
please . . .") to make him "do the deed." <huge snip of arguments and
evidence here>
> 
> 
Sherry responded:
> 
> 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. 
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.  The only way redemption for Snape can be emotionally
satisfying--which I doubt it can ever be--is if he really has done
terrible deeds that deserve redemption.  It diminishes all the DDM
Snape arguments, Dumbledore's unflinching trust and everything else,
if Snape never did any evil deed in his death eater days.  It makes
everything about him a kind of cheap dirty trick for me.  He's not a
cuddly bunny rabbit after all.  If he's truly had some kind of life
changing event that brought him back to DD and for which he
experienced genuine remorse, it only works for me, if he's done
something truly terrible.  I don't really buy the deaths of the
Potters as the single shattering event that turned him around. but
then, I don't buy Snape loving Lily.  The mere thought makes me
nauseated.  Sherry
>

Carol responds:
Just to be clear, we actually agree on several points here. I'm not
arguing "innocent Snape," and "warm, fuzzy Snape" exists only in
fanfic, if at all. I never said that Snape never did a "mean bad
thing" (he invented Sectum Sempra, for starters, not to mention that
he's sarcastic to his students and hates MWPP as passionately as
Sirius Black hates him.) And I don't buy Snape loving Lily any more
than you do. I think he was at Hogwarts when LV killed the Potters,
not at GH begging for her life. (As I keep arguing, "Stand aside,
girl" does not require Snape's involvement.) Nor do I buy the deaths
of the Potters as the single event that turned him around, since he
began spying for DD months, perhaps more than a year, before Godric's
Hollow. (I mentioned witnessing the murder of Regulus Black as one
possible trigger.) So we agree on a number of points. The problem is,
these are not the arguments that I made in my post, which you snipped
without answering. (Sorry, Sherry, but you seem to be arguing against
points I didn't make and wouldn't make. If you're assuming that
DDM!Snape requires these arguments, it's somebody else's version of
DDM!Snape, not mine.)

So let's look at what I actually did say (or imply). DE!Snape may have
brewed poisons that killed LV's enemies, perhaps invented some deadly
new spell, and, most likely, worked on potions that would help Voldie
to retain a strong and healthy body, without which his immortality was
useless. (Look what happened to Tithonus when Eos [Aurora] begged Zeus
to make him immortal but forgot to ask for eternal youth. A Voldie
reduced to shriveled helplessness will have a hard time ruling the
WW.) Voldie would have recognized and taken advantage of the young
Snape's unusual talents. (I speculate that Lucius Malfoy introduced
Severus to Voldie as his protege, hence "Lucius Malfoy's lapdog," but
that's neither here nor there.)

IOW, while I don't think young Snape directly killed or tortured
anybody (LV had other DEs who specialized in those jobs, not to
mention the "countless" people that Mulciber Imperio'd), I do think
Severus was doing important work for Voldie that no one else could do,
work that cannot be classified as "innocent" by any defiintion of that
term. If so, he di indeed have more to be remorseful for than merely
revealing the Prophecy to LV and being indirectly responsible for the
Potters' deaths, though that's clearly the most important sin in his
own mind and Dumbledore's. If he had murdered or tortured anyone,
wizard or Muggle, surely neither he nor DD would dismiss that crime as
being less important than the Potters' deaths. Yet it's the Potters,
especially James and Harry, with whom Snape is apparently obsessed,
and the Potters whose peril (thanks to his role as eavesdropper)
triggered Snape's remorse, at least according to Dumbledore.

And, again, there's clear evidence that Voldemort took advantage of
his minions' strengths and talents (even offering Macnair more
challenging work than slaughtering beasts for the MoM) and that young
Snape was a prodigy and a genius. Voldie would have been a fool to
send him out to torture Muggles when he could be figuring out a way to
use snake venom or dragon's blood to help to immunize Voldie's body
against aging and other forms of bodily corruption.

There is, at any rate, no solid evidence to indicate that Snape killed
anyone before the events on the tower, and there *is* solid evidence
that he has many useful skills, from creating a curtain of fire that
can only be crossed by someone who has drunk a particular potion to
healing a terrible Dark curse of his own invention. A Voldie who used
Snape as he used a thug like Crabbe or Goyle (Sr.) would be an utter fool.

And I do think that killing Dumbledore counts as "dirtying his hands"
even though he was trapped into it, and it's certainly one of the sins
for which he needs to be forgiven by Harry is Harry (who is, we agree,
the hero) is to save the WW by setting aside hatred and anger and
using Love to destroy LV. So I disagree about redemption not being
needed for Snape's worst (and, IMO, most deeply regretted) sin.

Carol, pleading innocent to the charge of believing in LOLLIPOPS or
"warm, fuzzy Snape," and noting that the points and evidence I
actually presented can be found upthread