Will the Real Severus Snape please step forward?

Thu Apr 19 10:42:54 UTC 2007

No: HPFGUIDX 167735

Part 3 (c) - Incorporating the actual theory :)

Goddlefrood:

A few little further observations and opinions and then the 
theory itself in this post. I have mentioned the acronym of 
the theory before. It is S.L.A.N.O.B.A.N.T.I.T.S. - Snape 
Looking After Number One, But Also Number Two In There 
Somewhere.

On Lily first, one thing that I find interesting about Snape 
and Lily is that they were most probably in the same NEWT 
level Potions class. I have a prediction relative to this, 
which is that Lily was responsible for the Potions tips 
contained in Snape's copy of Advanced Potions. Snape copied 
from her, thus becoming more proficient at Potions himself 
to the extent that he is often described in canon as the 
Potions Master. Some of the spells, such as Levicorpus and 
Sectumsempra were Snape's inventions, but IMO, the Potions 
tips were not. That Lily was a widely respected and talented 
witch would also lead to my conclusion that Snape revered 
Lily without necessarily being in love with her.

Even though there is a very good likelihood that Severus and 
Lily were in the same NEWT level Potions class, it is unlikely 
that their nexus to each other existed at any level other than 
in the classroom. This would be supported by the fact that 
Severus and Lily were in different houses and from what we have 
been shown there is little interaction between houses except in 
class or at Quidditch matches.

It is noted that Severus was saddened by Lily's death, however 
the reason for this is more likely to have been because he did 
not realise the consequence of what his reporting the partial 
prophesy to Voldemort would be than that he was in love with 
her, which view I do not favour.

-------------------------

To some observations on Dumbledore's trust of Severus now. 
Dumbledore offers an explanation for trusting Snape, which has 
been analysed by numerous contributors to this list and found 
less than convincing. All I would say on this is that while the 
stated reason may not seem enough it may well be truly the 
reason Dumbledore trusted Severus. Whether that trust was merited 
is another issue. It would also not lead to a firm conclusion 
that he was Dumbledore's man; my theory below takes account of 
this and offers a viable explanation :)

It is also rather unlikely, but admittedly not quite impossible, 
for Snape to have gained Dumbledore's complete trust in a period 
of only about two months. This is calculated from 1st September 
1981 (first day of school) until 31st October 1981 (Voldemort's 
downfall). If he did gain Dumbledore's complete trust in that 
short time the reason must have been more than just his remorse 
over effectively sending Voldemort after the Potters.

Barty Crouch Jnr has something to say on this matter, this from 
GoF (Bloomsbury Hardback Edition p. 410:

"Course Dumbledore trusts you," growled Moody. "He's a trusting 
man, isn't he? Believes in second chances. But me - I say there 
are spots that don't come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, 
d'you know what I mean?"

The real Mad-Eye Moody was less than convinced of Snape's 
goodness too, witness his expression in Karkaroff's Pensieve 
proceedings in the same book (p. 513).

If Snape was invaluable to Dumbledore, then, as I have said 
before, surely he would have been *more* useful away from 
Hogwarts than at it, that is after the rebirth of Voldemort. 
He would have been able to spy more effectually, I propose, 
by getting in more with Voldemort and his plans over the course 
of OotP, which, other than the Prophecy issue, we are not so 
far privy to. I can not envisage that Voldemort planned nothing 
other than the Prophecy snatch for an entire year, he simply 
does not come across as someone who concentrates only on one 
evil plan at a time, at least not when he is in a corporeal 
form.

----------------------------

A further matter that has been of interest to me, and for which 
I have yet to see an explanation is how come Snape seemingly 
never figured out that Scabbers was Wormtail and that may bear 
further examination.  Not by me here and now, but perhaps one 
day in the not too distant future I will look into it more 
closely again, unless someone wants to offer an explanation, 
which would be welcome.

----------------------------

I now have a few snippets from canon to insert here; they go to 
give some expansion on Snape's look upon killing Dumbledore. I 
have stated before that the decision to kill Dumbledore was a 
snap one on Severus's part; IOW I do not believe it was part of 
any plan between he and Dumbledore. My reasoning?

During the course of PS Harry sees Snape's leg shortly after the 
latter's efforts to stop Quirrell from plunging into the depths 
of Hogwarts to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. As soon as 
Severus realises Harry is looking at the cut thereon we find
(Bloomsbury paperback edition, p. 135):

'Snape's face was twisted with fury as he dropped his robes 
quickly to hide his leg'

I offer the view that this is because the hated son of an enemy 
has seen his discomfort, but the snarl observed by Harry has 
something to do with Snape's hatred of James rather than with 
any other reason that I can buy do with his dislike of Harry. 
Unless of course Severus has a particular aversion to anyone at 
all seeing him injured, but this I find unlikely.

One Marauder link there. Another is in PoA just after Remus has 
been welcomed as the new DADA professor. This from Chapter Five 
- The Dementor (Bloomsbury Paperback p. 72:

'It was common knowledge that Snape wanted the DADA job, but 
even Harry, who hated Snape, was startled at the expression 
twisting his thin, sallow face.'

A second marauder causing Snape's faced to twist in hatred :-?. 
The marauder whom Snape hated the most is the next to cause such 
an expression, this from Chapter Twenty-Two - Owl Post Again 
(Ibid. p. 306):

'His face was twisted, spit flying from his mouth'

That is just shortly after Severus has found out that Sirius 
had escaped. He's certainly not fond of the marauders ;). Once 
Severus and Sirius come face to face again in the hospital wing 
near then end of GoF we find (Bloomsbury Hardback Edition, 
p.618):

'Snape had not yelled or jumped backwards, but the look on his 
face was one of mingled fury and horror.'

Of course we know that Sirius and Snape are not bosom friends, 
but as you can see the reaction to each of three marauders who 
were not Death Eaters is one of fury, hatred and twisted features. 
I apprehend that it gives us a key to his look on the tower, and 
this is of course notwithstanding what I said in part 2 (Tobias 
& the Angel), in that Snape ultimately blamed Dumbledore for the 
prank incident, whether this was a rational belief I will not 
say. What I will say is that any time Snape is reminded of the 
prank his fury is terrible to behold. Therefore, Severus finally 
snapped atop the tower and killed the man he blamed for years of 
misery. Put that one in your pipe and smoke it ;).

-------------------------

Enough though, I'll now present my theory. Severus Snape, as I 
said in an earlier post in this series was loved by someone. I 
believe that someone to be a strong influence on his actions. I 
do not believe Snape is LV's man for several reasons that will 
become clear. Neither do I believe that he was working towards 
becoming the next Dark Lord, it's not a title btw, in case any 
one may be confused about that ;). Dark wizards are not the Sith, 
there should be little doubt of that.

Who, though could this someone be? Is it be Dumbledore the 
Headmaster? No. How about Lily the mild mannered potions genius? 
No. Don't say it's Crookshanks the cat? No. Could it be Irma 
Pince? (Many apologies to Hong Kong Phooey fans :)). It is a 
possibility I do not exclude. The interpretations of her I have 
seen elsewhere are that she may be his mother because her name 
is an anagram of I'm a Prince. It is indeed, but my own view of 
this is that the reason it is an anagram as stated is because it 
is a clue to Severus's loyalties. His loyalties are to her. She 
is the scheming librarian behind him. For her he would do 
anything at all.

This is somewhat reinforced by my belief that we have been 
misled regarding Irma. I put it to you all that she was the 
sniggering little girl in one of the memories Harry had a 
glimpse of when breaking into Severus's thoughts in an 
Occlumency lesson.

All else flows from there. It may be far fetched, but it would 
certainly fit the pattern of Snape seen throughout the series 
and it would not exclude the possibility that Snape will end up 
being of assistance to Harry in many ways in DH. I believe he 
will be of assistance rather than hindrance. A further expansion 
on this portion will be in part 4, which also will contain one 
of the silliest Snape is LV's theories you will have 
encountered.

JK Rowling has warned us time and again not to believe in 
Snape's goodness, I leave you, for now, with a few choice 
morsels.

>From J.K. Rowling interview transcript, The Connection (WBUR 
Radio), 12th October 1999:

"Lydon: But you'd get an important kind of redemptive pattern 
to Snape

JKR: It is, isn't it ... I got ... There's so much I wish I 
could say to you, and I can't because it'd ruin ... I promise 
you ... whoever asked that question, can I just say to you that 
I'm - I'm slightly stunned that you've said that - erm - and 
you'll find out why I'm so stunned if you read book 7. And 
that's all I'm going to say."

Available in full here:

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/1099-connectiontransc2.htm

>From Harry Potter and the Magic of the Internet, JK Rowling 
Webcast on MSN featuring your questions on text and video from 
around the world June 26th 2003:

"Stephen Fry: Yes, and even in the books there is a certain 
flair. Most characters like Snape are hard to love but there 
is a sort of ambiguity - you can't quite decide - something 
sad about him - lonely and it's fascinating when you think 
he's going to be the evil one apart from Voldemort obviously 
in the first book then slowly you get this idea he's not so 
bad after all.

JK Rowling: Yes but you shouldn't think him too nice."

Link to full version:

http://www.msn.co.uk/liveevents/harrypotter/transcript/Default.asp?Ath=f

>From J K Rowling at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Sunday, 15th 
August, 2004:

"But you must not forget that Snape was a Death Eater. He will 
have seen things that... Why do you love him? Why do people 
love Snape? I do not understand this. Again, it's bad boy 
syndrome, isn't it? It's very depressing."

Full text available here:

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80

And finally a little one for those who appreciate amusing 
translations:

>From "Harry Potter's creator denies her villains are anti-
French," The Independent 28th November 2000

"In an internet question and answer session with her French 
readers, Ms Rowling denied any anti-French intentions, and 
said she chose the names for their sinister sound, without 
considering their origin. Keen British fans will find some 
things have changed in translation. Harry and his best
friends, Ron and Hermione, remain the same, and Harry still 
lives reluctantly with the Dursleys. But Hogwarts School is 
transformed into "Poudlard", Harry's hated potions master is 
"le Professeur Rogue," not Snape, and non-magical humans are 
known as "Moldus" instead of Muggles."

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1128-independent-sheppard.htm

I give you le Professeur Rogue, possibly the best description 
for Severus. This vision of Snape is the one I would most prefer 
to turn out somewhere near to being the truth. I am, as always, 
interested in the thoughts of others on this theory :).

Goddlefrood, with a date for you after a short break from those.
This time 1875, the year of the institution of the Underage 
Statute of Sorcery, which was also the same year that Aristides 
won the first Kentucky Derby and that Andrew Johnson, 17th 
President of the USA died (curiously enough on 31st July) :-B