Excusing Snape of any responsibility ( was Re: Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 168148

> >>Dana:
> <snip>
> And as canon stands now Snape omitted telling DD about the vow      
> because DD is still telling Draco that he doesn't believe Snape     
> actually took one but just would tell Draco this to win his trust.

Betsy Hp:
Not canon actually, Dana.  As she's done many time before, JKR leaves 
things rather murky when it comes to our Professor Snape.  Which is 
why he's still so much fun to talk about. <g>

> >>Dana:
> So DD was counting on Snape to deal with the situation while Snape 
> actually couldn't do anything.

Betsy Hp:
This statement confuses me.  Are you saying Snape was the main player 
in HBP, and Dumbledore was sort of stumbling along in his wake?  That 
Dumbledore knew something big was going down and just assumed Snape 
would take care of it all?  That doesn't really jell with the 
charater of Dumbledore up until now.  IMO, anyway.

> >>Dana:
> <snip>
> You can bend it anyway you like by questioning everything the book 
> actually says but for now that is canon and unless JKR turns it 
> around in DH, this is what we have.  

Betsy Hp:
One of the reasons I'm "smugly sure" (tm) that Snape is DDM is 
because JKR *loves* to turn things around in the end.  Honestly, if 
Snape was supposed to be evil in the end, I'd have expected HBP to 
end with Snape saving the day and everyone singing his praises.

> >>Dana:
> We do not see Snape's healing skills we see him use his skills of   
> the Dark Arts and his knowledge of Dark Curses.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I'm going to differ with you on this one.  For one, I think healing 
magical maladies *requires* a certain knowledge of the dark arts and 
dark curses (a well known healer from St. Mungo's is famous for 
inventing a disemboweling spell, IIRC).  Sort of like a good surgeon 
is an expert at tearing up the human body.

For another, Snape does *heal* Draco's ripped open body, and he does 
so by singing the healing spell.  Which, given the presence of a 
phoenix with his own song of healing, sounds fairly good to me.

> >>Dana:
> You might want to believe that saving Draco is worth more then the 
> lives of other people (including DD) but I do not and him taking   
> the vow does precisely that. 

Betsy Hp:
What I find interesting is that *Dumbledore* sees Draco's life as 
worth more than his own.  (And possibly Katie's and Ron's, which is a 
problem, I agree, but more with Dumbledore than Snape, since 
Dumbledore is purportedly running this particular show.)

> >>Dana:
> <snip>
> I said that I would understand that if Snape indeed had gotten      
> bitten then he brought it on to himself. And maybe he indeed would 
> have deserved the consequences of his own actions because he went  
> there to take revenge on fellow students (who did not deserve to    
> get expelled either just because Snape hated them).

Betsy Hp:
While I do wonder what the Marauders did to cause Snape to hate them 
(and vice verse, for that matter) I do agree that canon is fairly 
quiet about the origins of the enmity.  JKR drops plenty of delicious 
hints that we're free to run with.  But she's never giving a crystal 
clear "and so it began" kind of reason.  I'm not sure that she ever 
will, quite frankly.  I don't know that we need one.

However, Snape trying to catch the Marauders in wrong doing doesn't 
seem equal to him deserving death, IMO.  Nor does it seem equal to 
Lupin becoming both a murderer and a cannibal.  Which is what bothers 
me most about the "Snape would have gotten what was coming to him" 
argument.  I mean, even if one agrees that Snape deserved to be 
attacked and ravaged by a werewolf for sneaking about after the 
Marauders (as Harry sneaks about after Draco in a few different 
books), Lupin is still going to get hurt.  Best case scenario he's a 
bit hungry and eats enough of Snape that the remains are easy to hide 
the morning after.  (And wouldn't *that* make a wonderful wake up 
call for Lupin.)  Worst case, Lupin is "put down" (read executed) for 
killing a wizard, Dumbledore is thrown into Azkaban for putting his 
students into so much danger, and anti-werewolf laws are made even 
more stringent.

> >>Dana:
> To me Snape had every reason to know that there was something very 
> dangerous about Lupin and why he was being hidden away from the    
> rest of the school, behind a murderous tree no less and if Snape    
> still found it more important to get these students expelled then   
> to accept the reasons for these precautions, then there is no       
> reason for Sirius to feel responsible for it. Every action has its 
> consequences and James prevented Snape meeting his. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
The problem I have with this sort of argument (and it's a very 
popular one for the Prank, unfortunately) is that it suggests that 
the only person with any sort of personal responsibility in this 
scenario is Snape.  Now, I'm a Snape fan, but even I have trouble 
giving him a stronger moral or ethical sense and a greater 
intelligence than Sirius.

Because honestly, I doubt James was motivated totally by the urge to 
protect Snape (though I do suspect James realized that Snape's actual 
*life* was in danger, while that never seemed to occur to Sirius).  I 
suspect James was also motivated to protect Sirius from the 
consequences of Sirius's actions.  Actions that would have probably 
landed Sirius in Azkaban.  (Oh, and Lupin too, of course.)

I do think Snape was responsible for his own lack of caution.  But 
shouldn't Sirius have some responsibility here too?  And if the 
feeling is that Snape dying would have been just desserts (sneaking 
around to find out what fellow students are up to is something only 
*Gryffindors* are allowed to do <eg>), then a sixteen year old Sirius 
spending the rest of his life in Azkaban for a crime he was actually 
guilty for is also Sirius's just desserts.

Personally, I think both boys were in over their heads, and more than 
one innocent life was saved that night.  Yay Prongs!  Um, again! Only 
earlier!

Betsy Hp (loves Snape, and loves the amount of emotion Snape can 
raise in people)