I HAD A DREAM OR HOW I REALIZED THAT I MAY HAVE BEEN WRONG./ PART 2 sort of

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167065

Jen wrote:  

> I agree as well.  It's beyond Harry's characterization to understand
Snape is loyal if he really AK'd Dumbledore (orders or no orders).
Harry's learned that an Avada Kedavra is the Killing Curse, it was
used to murder his parents, that it is considered Unforgiveable and
that murder is the 'supreme act of evil'.  I could follow a gray area
reading of Snape's AK, but I don't believe Harry is set up to do that.
> 
> The Potterverse moral view on murder was made even more explicit in
the same book as an AK was cast.  I would expect if JKR wanted to
examine the gray area of mercy killings or killing on the order of a
commander in a time of war, she would have set up this premise by
diluting the significance of using an AK for Harry rather than
strengthening it.  Reversing her position now will say that
Unforgivables are not Wrong with a capital W but only wrong in certain
circumstances.  Once again I can't see Harry getting to the point of
understanding that after everything he's learned and what he believes.  
> 
> I don't view the potion in the cave as parallel to Snape using an AK
> on the tower.  An AK holds a different moral weight in Potterverse than
> an unknown potion which is said not to kill immediately and has an
> unknown effect in Harry's eyes.  Had Snape used anything besides an
> AK on the tower, Harry might come to understand it was a mercy
> killing or a killing on orders in a time of war and understand
Snape's loyalty is like his own. 

Carol responds:
I don't agree, naturally. Harry is starting to view himself as a
soldier (or rather a gladiator) who will have to kill, and his motive
at the moment is revenge. The only means of killing in the WW that he
knows of (short of an attack from Fenrir Greyback, a potentially fatal
curse like the one on the necklace, or a poison without an antidote)
is Avada Kedavra. (He's not going to kill Voldemort with a handgun.)

I don't think that Harry will end up killing Voldemort in that way
(Dumbledore thinks that the purity of his soul has kept him from being
attracted to the Dark Arts, and surely his temptation to use the
Cruciatus Curse is intended to be a *bad thing*, as is his desire for
revenge on Snape. (I won't get into Dumbledore's mixed messages here
or whether he knows that Harry tried to Crucio Bellatrix.)

If Snape really killed Dumbledore (rather than faking an AK or
whatever) then he had no choice but to use Avada Kedavra, the Killing
Curse, the curse that the DEs would expect him to use. Anything else
would be suspect. And dead is dead; if Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill
him to prevent Snape from dying himself (with terrible consequences
for Draco, Harry, and the WW), it doesn't matter whether Snape used an
AK or sent him off the tower to die from the fall. The AK would
actually be kinder.

There are different kinds of murder. If Snape was intending all year
to kill Dumbledore, if he wanted him dead and was plotting his death,
then he's ESE! and has committed "the supreme act of evil." But the
story doesn't read that way, at least not to me. I see no indication
of loyalty to Voldemort, no indication that Snape wants Dumbledore
dead. The anger and hatred that Harry sees on his face are
inconsistent with any feelings we've seen Snape demonstrate toward DD
so far. The closest he's come to anger is his resentment that
Dumbledore won't listen to him with regard to Lupin in PoA. That's not
a motive for murder, and Snape comes through time and again, either on
his own or in conjunction with Dumbledore, to help or protect Harry
(who, of course, fails to see it every time).

And yet, there are glimmers of understanding. There's the Pensieve
scene in which he feels compassion for the young Snape. There's the
gratitude and empathy, even friendship, that he feels for the HBP,
whose comment on Bezoars saved Ron's life. (Hermione comments that
Harry would have known about Bezoars if he'd paid attention in Snape's
first lesson.) Harry knows, but conveniently ignores, that Snape saved
Katie's and Dumbledore's lives with his anti-Dark Arts Healing skills.
He *saw*--and can't forget--that Snape saved Draco's life. In the
cave, after he knows that Snape is the eavesdropper, and in the
hospital wing, after he has seen Snape kill Dumbledore, he remembers
Snape healing Draco's gaping wounds.

I think Harry will come to understand that the last thing Snape wanted
was to kill Dumbledore, that Snape believed he could put off or evade
the Unbreakable Vow indefinitely (or, if worse came to worst, die
himself), that Dumbledore knew, and silently persuaded Snape, that
Snape *must* kill him because if Snape broke his vow and died, the DEs
would kill DD and Harry would come rushing out to fight them.

Given Dumbledore's attitude toward death, "Severus, please . . ."
cannot mean that he's begging Snape to spare him. He appears to be
dying, in any case. And since *Snape does not raise his wand*, even
after Amycus tells him that the boy can't do it and Dumbledore says
"Severus" in a pleading tone, even after Snape meets DD's eyes and his
face takes on that expression of revulsion (surely at the deed, not at
Dumbledore) and (self?) hatred, until Dumbledore says, "Severus,
please . . . ." 

I don't think there was any prearranged plan for Snape to kill or
pretend to kill Dumbledore, but Dumbledore made Snape promise
something (the argument in the forest) that Snape didn't want to do. I
think that promise was that, if there was no other way to save Draco
(or Harry, if he got involved despite all there efforts to keep him
from doing so) that he must keep his vow. And that, in my view, is
exactly what happened on the tower.

If Snape did indeed split his soul, than he has made a great sacrifice
for the common good. His action not only saved Draco and got the DEs
off the grounds, but saved Harry, who is released from his freezing
spell only as the last DE is leaving the tower. And he saves him again
as the DEs are leaving Hogwarts, stopping the Crucio and ordering the
DEs off the grounds.

I don't think we underestimate Harry if we assume that understanding
such circumstances and such motives is beyond his comprehension. I
think that he will and must learn to understand, forgive, and even
trust Severus Snape. I don't, however, expect Harry or Snape ever to
like one another.

Carol, who thinks that the consequences if Snape had not sent DD over
the battlements are too horrible to contemplate