TBAY: BlackWidower!Snape retuned (long)

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 160748

> > SSSusan:
> > Hmmmm.  Is it in Snape's character to side with Regulus over 
> > Voldy? 
 
Dungrollin:
> He's terrified of Voldy. Anyone in their right mind is terrified of 
> Voldy, particularly those who work for him. Do I need to refer you 
> to the kid-glove bowing-and-scraping I'm-not-worthy treatment they 
> put on for him in the graveyard in GoF? That's fear. 

SSSusan:
Indeed, I recall the bowing & scraping in the graveyard.  I actually 
was thinking specifically *of* that terror when I asked the question, 
though. <g>  I wondered if being terrified of him might cause a DE to 
*fear* making alliances with others behind Voldy's back, out of fear 
of discovery.

But perhaps, what you're saying here...

> Snape was naive in the same way that Regulus and Draco were. If 
> Draco was unable to kill DD, and Draco didn't even *like* DD, and 
> fully knew that Voldy would kill him for his failure, it's not 
> impossible that Snape found he couldn't betray Regulus, if he were 
> a good friend. 

...is the other real possibility.  That being both naive and 
increasingly aware of Voldemort's "psycho-ness," making friends with 
other DEs seemed necessary.


> > SSSusan:
> > What will have had this effect on Snape? The prophecy? his wife's 
> > pregnancy?
 
Dung:
> His wife and child's death, and the death of Regulus. That's my 
> premise. 

SSSusan:
Sorry -- I wasn't understanding the timing here.  I thought his 
siding with Regulus occurred *before* the deaths of his wife & child. 

 
> > SSSusan:
> > Hmmm again.  Is it in Lucius' character to go out on such a limb 
> > for Snape, even if he did provide the tip-off about July?  I 
> > can't *quite* imagine it.  
 
Dung:
> You seem to be forgetting that bad people (in this case DEs) have 
> friends too. Being a bad person doesn't automatically make you a 
> bad or disloyal friend. 

SSSusan:
Well, in my defense, I don't think I was making the assumption 
that "bad guy = bad friend."  I was considering what we know of 
Lucius himself and thinking of *him* as a bad friend.  In all 
his "slipperiness," he seems to be one who is pretty determinedly out 
for himself.  


Dung:
> And frankly, with someone like Voldy at the tiller, you need all 
> the chums you can get amongst the other DEs. You don't want one of 
> the ones who doesn't like you to stab you in the back and push you 
> in the poo, and have no-one around to help you out. 

SSSusan:
Yes, now this I can reconcile with my image of Lucius.  It would be 
about alliances for the sake of self-preservation.  I can see that he 
might see that as quite beneficial.  But still, I would ask whether 
he would actually RISK anything for the sake of one of 
those "friends" (better read as allies, in my view)?  Perhaps he 
would, and I'm not being fair to Lucius.


Dung:
> And I gave two bits of canon that Lucius and Snape are *old* 
> friends, going back to before they joined Voldy, and I didn't even 
> *mention* the twitch in GoF. 

SSSusan:
That you did.  And you may be correct, then.  I just don't quite 
TRUST Lucius's side of that "friendship," I guess.

 
> > SSSusan:
> > But perhaps the thought of having an heir is 
> > enough for Lucius to risk it, to actually consider someone else's 
> > life?  ...Eh, I think I need more convincing.
 
Dung:
> Having an heir has nothing to do with anything. Lucius is a nasty 
> piece of work, sure enough, one of Voldy's followers who was in it 
> for the "more refined forms of torture" IMO, but he's not a rat 
> like Peter. He doesn't spit on his chums. He didn't leg it from the 
> MoM to safety like Bella did, he stayed with the DEs who were under 
> his command, and was captured with them (though it's obviously 
> debateable whether it was just incompetence that got him caught).

SSSusan:
Wow.  Am I movie contaminated?  I don't see Lucius as being non-
ratlike.  Again, I see him as calculating.  HOW can he get out of 
this mess [the time of Voldy's downfall] while still retaining as 
much positive as possible? Without ticking off the DEs so much that 
he'd be a target of the most loyal, like Bella?  Without giving away 
to Voldy that he had no interest in going off looking for him?  
Without going to Azkaban?  I see him as the supreme role-player 
and "I take care of myself first but without losing position with 
anyone by virtue of my slipperiness."


> > SSSusan:
> > One question here.  If Voldy Legilimenses (did I spell that 
> > right??) Lucius enough to discover the existence of EarlyArrival!
> > Draco, would he not also have discovered the existence of 
> > Pregnant!Mrs.Snape?  It seems unlikely that those two things, 
> > surely so intertwined in Lucius' mind, would not *both* come to 
> > the surface for Voldy to discover.
 
Dung:
> Yes, that's what I said (or at least, what I meant). Voldy 
> discovers that Snape told Lucius the prophecy, and that baby Snape 
> is due around the end of July.

SSSusan:
Sorry.  I botched the reading and didn't get that you were saying 
that.


> > SSSusan:
> > I can definitely agree with this possibility of a loyalty test of 
> > Snape.  And wouldn't it be fascinating if, in the end for Snape, 
> > that loyalty test of Voldy's turned into a loyalty test of DD's 
> > as well!  That is, if you & I are right about Snape being DDM and 
> > about DD "commanding" Snape to do the deed, then killing DD was 
> > DD's "loyalty test."  How convenient (but how very painful for 
> > Snape) that killing DD will satisfy *both* loyalty tests in one 
> > deed.

Dung:
> You reckon DD didn't trust Snape?!?

SSSusan:
No, I think he *did* trust Snape but that the loyalty test was 
whether Snape could follow DD's ultimate order -- to kill him.  I 
think DD wasn't positive that Snape could/would bring himself to do 
that.  So loyalty test in the sense of following this horrible order, 
but not a lack of trust in him.


> > SSSusan:
> > It's fun, Dung! 
 
Dung:
> I rather like it. If the outline is right, I'd bet anything almost 
> all the details are wrong, but having Snape's kid a suspect for the 
> prophecy is a way of keeping RevengeDriven!Snape while accepting 
> DD's "I believe it [discovering how Voldy was interpreting the 
> prophecy] was the greatest regret of his life and the reason he 
> returned -" at the same time.

SSSusan:
Indeed!  It fits very nicely there, and I'd love the twist that would 
come with this revelation in Book 7.


Dung: 
> It would give Harry a good example of how it's not only his life 
> that was ruined by the prophecy, and that there were others in the 
> same situation as he and Neville who didn't make it.

SSSusan:
Yep.  And it would give Harry a LOT to think about re: Snape... 
presumably while he looks down upon his DEAD body, with yet one more 
thing to feel guilty about. ;-)

Siriusly Snapey Susan