Snape never turned? WAS: Re: Snape's mom-domestic abuse

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 159964

marionros:
> But joining a club like the DE's and then crawling back to DD to beg 
forgiveness and DD grandiosely granting a 'second chance' and Snape 
living on charity... No chance! He's always struck me as too 
purposeful, too *focused*. 

zgirnius:
I find Dumbledore's statement about Snape to Harry in HBP is difficult 
to reconcile with the version of events where Snape became a Death 
Eater as Dumbldore's spy. I do not believe Dumbledore lies to Harry, 
for reasons of security or anything else, at this point in the series. 
If there is something he feels Harry cannot know, he just doesn't say 
it (such as his decision not to more fully explain why he trusts Snape.)

 "I believe it was the greatest regret of his life, and the reason that 
he returned-"

It could be the greatest regret of his life, etc. even if he did it for 
Dumbledore, but not the reason that he returned, if he never left.

I also think that you have described the 'remorseful Snape' story in 
language that, as you say, does not suit Snape all that well. But it 
did not necessarily happen in the way you describe.

The way I see it, when Snape learned of the Potters' danger, he did not 
go crawling to Dumbledore to beg for a second chance. I think he 
approached Dumbledore for a simple practical reason: He hed decided he 
was not going to watch Voldemort kill the Potters because of Snape's 
own actions, and he realized that there was nothing he could do about 
it with the resources at his disposal. He didn't go to Dumbledroe 
begging for forgiveness, but to give him the information that would 
give the Potters a chance.

And likewise Dumbledore's giving of a second chance to Snape was not 
some sort of charitable pittance. I think Dumbledore took a chance on 
him, in part because he saw the usefulness Snape could have to the war 
effort as a spy (and of course, in part because his understanding of 
people led him to believe that Snape would value that trust and live up 
to it). It was no small thing. Dumbledore had no hold on Snape, no way 
to ensure he would not be misled and betrayed by him. Since I think 
this all happened about a year before Voldemort's fall, Dumbledore had 
plenty of time working with Snape to determine that he had gambled and 
won.

That's how I see it, anyway.