Severus lives!

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174554

houyhnhnm wrote:
> > 
> > Snape's eyes have always been so important--they glitter; they
gleam; they pierce--that when something in their depths seems to
vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty, I think it is a fairly
sure sign that he has died.  
>  
> colebiancardi:
> 
> ahh, but prior to Nagini's bite, Harry described Snape's eyes as blank:
> 
> "And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape's face was like a
desth mask.  It was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it
was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes."
> (p 655 US ed)
> 
> I still cling to the hope that Snape didn't die, although the rest
of the WW thinks he is dead.  He has taken off to live in some other
country, far, far away from the Potter boy :)
>
Carol responds:
While it's true that snape's face is like a death mask before he dies,
I think we're seeing the face of despair: He thinks that he has failed
to deliver his message and that Voldemort will win. When he realizes
that Harry is present and he can give him the message, along with
other memories that will allenable Harry to accept the message and
understand Snape at last, he stops despairing and accepts death, with
that last, highly moving look into Harry's eyes. Whether Snape is
seeing Lily's eyes or Lily in Harry or both, Harry is seeing Snape and
feeling something other than hatred for him, the first step toward a
forgiveness and understanding that I don't think could have happened
with a living Snape.

I'm almost certain that Snape died and, more important, died redeemed.
I think our glimpse of the afterlife--DD with his hand healed, Sirius
Black healed of the taint and suffering of Azkaban, Lupin healed of
the suffering imposed on him by being a werewolf, holds out equal
promise for Snape, who was never happy in life and has a chance to be
forgiven in death, even by not-so-heroic James. (whatever happened to
James heroically battling the Dark Lord? Snape has done far more to
defeat him than we ever see James do.) We even see Harry as he would
be if he had died. Death, as DD has always said, is nothing to fear.

Earlier, we were told and now we have been partially shown, that death
really is "the last great adventure." (Luna suggested as much in HBP,
as did NHN, who tells Harry that Sirius Black "will have gone on."
Only for Voldemort, who feels no remorse for his many and monstrous
crimes, is death a punishment. Snape has felt remorse and served out
his long repentance in a figurative Purgatory. While I wanted Snape to
live, I think his death is a release and he will be whole and happy in
the afterlife.

"DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
>From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."

As Hermione tells Ron, she could run him through with a sword but his
soul wouldn't die. The soul in the HP books (unless it's sucked by a
Dementor) is immortal. DD tells Harry not to pity the dead but pity
the living, especially those who are without love. There are fates far
worse than death.

So Snape, like Dumbledore and Sirius Black and all the other dead
characters who are either good or redeemed, *is* in a far country, and
he's at peace. (Of course, if you prefer to believe that he's in your
own home town working as a Healer, I won't deny you your fantasy!)

Carol, who wonders whether the scene in which Harry cuts his hand on
the mirror and can't heal the cut foreshadows his helplessness as he
watches Snape bleed to death; Snape, who can heal Sectumsempra but
can't, or won't, heal himself