[HPforGrownups] Re: Will the Real Severus Snape please step forward?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 167770

> Goddlefrood:
>
> Quite right, however they can not be entirely written off either.
> Biassed they may be, but we should also ask ourselves why? What
> had Snape done to make Moody suspect he had not turned? What had
> Severus done to Barty Jnr to inspire the latter to scorn him?

Magpie:
These things we do know. The motivation that Barty Junior is giving to Moody 
and that Snape believes is what he says--a leopard doesn't change its spots. 
As a paranoid person, of course Moody doesn't trust an ex-DE would ever 
really become good.

As to what Severus did to Barty, we know that too. He abandoned Voldemort. 
Barty is speaking his own opinion when he says he hates DEs who walked free. 
He puts it in Moody's mouth knowing that as an Auror who captures them he, 
too, would hate them because they escaped justice. There doesn't have to be 
anything personal between Snape and Barty. There doesn't seem to be, except 
that they both know the other was a DE.

> Goddlefrood:

> Here and now, I present a further expansion on the "Severus,
> please" business. Basically Dumbeldore realised at the time
> Snape appeared that Severus was, in Dumbledore's own mind,
> bewtraying Dumbeldore.

Magpie:
But Dumbledore isn't reacting to anything. He's got no reason to think Snape 
has betrayed him. Snape's only just walked in when Dumbledore starts 
pleading, and the "Severus, please," is a continuation of that. I think all 
the impressions of the characters we get in this scene are carefully chosen 
to tell us what's going on, even if we don't get it yet. Since Dumbdore is 
said to be pleading and then says words that are pleading, I think we have 
to go with the pleading, pleading that can't, as far as I see, be in 
response to Dumbledore realizing that Snape has betrayed him because there's 
no moment for him to have that realization.

> Goddlefrood:
>
> As many have before you. Unfortunately there is little descriptive
> material relative to Irma to confirm this either way. Shye could
> be older or she may be nearer Severus's age, it is not easy to
> discern. Anyone who wants to convince me otherwise is welcome to
> try, but I would need descriptors from canon :), and not the
> booming kind ;)

Magpie:
Has Snape ever had a scene with Madam Pince? I can't believe JKR wouldn't 
have stuck in clues of connection by having at least throwaway scenes where 
Harry sees them reacting to each other that we can go back and revisit. 
Otherwise it seems like a kind of pointless revelation. Why would it matter 
one way or the other if Irma Pince (who does seem older than Snape to me) 
laughed at him as a kid? (Or was his mother, imo.)

-m