What turned Snape (Was: JKR site update SPOILERS)

[abergoat]

No: HPFGUIDX 158908

Jazmyn wrote:

> Maybe he wanted a real family as much as Harry.  Maybe Snape was 
> forced by Voldemort to kill his parents or his parents were killed by 
> other DEs for being a mixed marrage?

Abergoat offers:

A variant on this is that Snape's mother was killed for 
the Ravenclaw relic (all those "old, leather-bound" 
books at Spinner's End might be the work of generations).

If so, Snape would have grown up believing his mother 
was murdered bysomeome other than Voldemort...but 
perhaps Lily helped him uncover the truth. And perhaps 
Petunia overheard a boy discussing his determination 
to kill Voldemort in revenge by entering the Death Eaters 
to get close to him. This is information Voldemort 
would love to have if he knew Petunia had it...explaining 
Petunia's personal fear of Voldemort and Dumbledore's 
possible subject of prior correspondence.

I can see Dumbledore politely informing Petunia she was 
privy to extremely dangerous information that a psychopathic 
murderer would love to have. Which nicely explains how 
Petunia was convinced to keep Harry after the Dementor 
incident in OotP not to mention why she took him in the 
first place - "grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly,
bitterly" (Dumbledore, OotP).

Abergoat