Snape's Request gave Harry a second chance? (Was: Snape/Dumbledore thingummy)

[lanval1015]

No: HPFGUIDX 175810

> Alla:
> 
> Snape did not have to do anything? Well of course not. He after 
all 
> already **did** something - he delivered prophecy to Voldemort. He 
> did not have to come to Dumbledore.
> 
> "If she means so much to you," said Dumbledore, "surely Lord 
> Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the 
> mother, in exchange for the son?
> 
> "I have - I have asked him" - p.677, DH.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I read it as Snape indeed **wanting** Harry dead in exchange for 
> Lily.
> 
> 
> "You disgust me," said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so 
much 
> contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. "You do 
not 
> care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? "They can 
> die, as long as you have what you want?"
> 
> Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.
> 
> "Hide them all, then," he croaked. "Keep her - them - safe. 
Please" -
>  p.677 - 678
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> It does not look to me that Snape gives a fig about them dying, 
> personally and he disgusts me in that scene just as much as 
> Dumbledore.
> 
> And even when he asks to hide them all, he says to keep her safe.
> 
> 
> I remember so many preDH arguments that Snape came to Dumbledore 
> because he could not bear to see Voldemort killing the baby.
> 
> 
> Looks like he could bear it quite well to me.
> 

Lanval:
Oh, yes, I agree completely. There's nothing in this scene that 
indicates Snape wanting anyone but Lily saved. DD asks Snape if he 
has asked LV for Lily's life in excahnge for her son's, and he 
confirms it. Nothing but wishful thinking could swing this around to 
give it the opposite meaning.


Also: Bloomsbury Ed. p.544:
'I thought... you were going... to keep her...safe...'
[...]
'Her boy survives,' said Dumbledore.
With a tiny jerk of the head, Snape seemed to flick off an irksome 
fly.

End of quote.

Not to ambigious, is it? 


This, I believe goes for all the short Pensieve vignettes. They are 
meant to clear things up, to give crucial information that had been 
lacking -- not to provide red herrings, steer the reader off the 
trail, confuse, raise doubts, whatever. The story is almost over, 
here's what *really* happened.If Snape anwers DD's question whether 
he has come to care for Harry with a cry of "For *him*?", and 
produces the doe patronus, to which DD replies, "After all this 
time?", then that's exactly what it means. Snape only cared for 
Lily, and not for Harry. If Snape says he only asked to spare Lily, 
then that's what he did. 

Not to say that the Pensieve scenes can't be read and interpreted in 
its nuances by our own views and preferences, but when it comes to 
plain facts stated in them, I believe they need to be taken as just 
that. Facts.

On a side note, what if LV had decided to go after the Longbottoms 
instead of the Potters? Would Snape have found that disturbing 
enough to notify DD? 

Lanval, who has given up hope of keeping up with all the messages.
*runs back to peskily busy RL*