Snape's Patronus

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160919

Sharon wrote:
> How about a spider?  Wish I could take credit for the idea but I
> read a post somewhere that made a very good case for the spider and
> postulated that Snape was another unregistered animagus (so as not
> to be outdone by the Marauders). His home is presumably "Spinner's
> End".  Also there was that spider on DD's hat in the shed when DD
> and Harry were discussing horcruxes.  Could Snape have been
> eavesdropping?  Also, where was brave Professor Snape in COS?  Why
> would he let the obviously incompetent Lockhart accompany Harry and
> Ron?  Spiders flee before the Basilisk.  I think there was more but
> I can't remember but I'd put my money on Snape's Patronus being the
> spider.
>
Carol responds:
I can understand the arguments for Snape as an unregistered spider
Animagus, but the question is what shape his Patronus would take. As I
understand it, your Animagus reflects your own essence--Peter
Pettigrew as a rat (an insult to rats, which make intelligent, loving
pets as I know from experience); Sirius Black as a dog, loyal to its
master, erm, friend, James Potter; Rita Skeeter as an annoying insect
whose presence is always unwanted, etc. A Patronus, according to JKR
hersllf, is a protective spirit. As the etymology suggests, it's a
patron, a protector, a defender. Harry's Patronus symbolizes his
father. Dumbledore's is connected with Fawkes. (If DD is an Animagus,
not necessarily unregistered because Hermione only checked those
registered in the twentieth century, not the nineteenth, he's probably
a bumblebee, as his name suggests--though maybe not, given my comments
above about annoying insects!)

So the question is, what would Snape's Patronus be? What form would
his protective spirit take? Being a DDM!Snaper, I think it would have
some connection with Dumbledore, especially now, when he most needs to
show where his loyalties truly lie.

As for your interesting question about where Snape was when the boys
were with the incompetent Lockhart, I'm not sure Snape knew that
they'd gone there. Yes, his suggestion that Lockhart do his job as
DADA professor and go after the monster prompted Ron to suggest that
he and Harry go to Lockhart for help, but unless Snape's Legilimency
extends to knowing that the boys were hidden in a coat closet, I don't
think he knew they'd gone after the monster. 

OTOH, Snape did know that Harry was a Parseltongue (thanks to the
Serpensortia spell in the Duelling Club meeting) and he may have known
or suspected that only Harry could find and open the Chamber. Since DD
also knew that Harry could speak Parseltongue, Snape must have
reported the Duelling Club incident to him, which, IMO, prompted
Dumbledore to set up the protections of Fawkes and the Sword in the
Sorting Hat, whcih Harry could call to him through his loyalty to
Dumbledore and his need for help (See DD's words in Hagrid's Hut,
which he knows that Harry can hear). It's just possible that
DDM!Snape, who could not tell Harry what he knew or suspected about
Harry and the CoS or help him to find it any more than Dumbledore
could, knew about those protections. If so, his words about Lockhart
being "the very man" may have done more than expose Lockhart as a
fraud and force him to act on his boasts or leave the school. They may
have deliberately rather than accidentally stirred Harry (and Ron) to
action. That being the case, he would have trusted in Dumbledore's
protections to save Harry from the Basilisk and whatever else was in
the Chamber.

Carol, who thinks that Snape trusted Dumbledore as much as Dumbledore
trusted Snape, and rightly so in both cases