The Continuing Tragedy of Severus Snape: Reflections on Books 1-5

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164568

cassyvablatsky wrote:
>
> Hi, Carol.
> 
> Thanks for taking the trouble to reply in detail. :-)
><snip> my attempt at a (reasonably) comprehensive, supported overview
can be found online at the link cited below (won't mention this again
- but I'd love to know what you make of it...).

Carol responds:
You're welcome. I did glance at the page and copy the links to a file,
but it will be twelve years (well, a long time) before I can give them
my full attention. Next time I'm between editing projects, the list is
slow, and the neighbors' washing machine isn't leaking into my
apartment . . . . :-)
>
Cassy:
><snip> Even allowing for 'the Harry filter', though, I am struck by
the immaturity of Snape's behaviour and the main reason I cite
jealousy as a probable motivation here is that Snape's chief outburst
comes when Dumbledore is being particularly supportive & affectionate
towards Harry after the Quidditch match:
> 
> 'As Gryffindors came spilling onto the field, he saw Snape land
nearby, white-faced and tight-lipped -- then Harry felt a hand on his
shoulder and looked up into Dumbledore's smiling face. ... Snape spat
bitterly on the ground.' (PS/SS13)

Carol:
I've always wondered about that uncouth little demonstration, which is
not at all in keeping with snape's usual demeanor. True, he loses his
head and starts yelling on about three occasions (CAPSLOCK!SNAPE), but
usually, he's coolly sarcastic, sweeping around the room, quelling his
students with a look, speaking in a quietly dangerous voice, etc. Some
posters consider this bit of immaturity, to use your word, as an
indication of Snape's working-class background coming through, but I'm
not so sure that Spinner's End is really his childhood home, and we
don't see any other signs of such a background. (Mild swearing, as in
"I don't give a damn about that wretched Poltergeist" and "What the
[hell]?" is hardly confined to the residents of industrial cities.
Lord Byron, anyone?) It's interesting, however, that the only other
person we see spitting angrily on the ground (or was it at
Dumbledore?) is Karkaroff when Harry is awarded more points than Krum
at the second task.

So, clearly, Snape is displeased, but I'm not sure that we can judge
his reason for being so from the Harry-filtered context. Let's think
about why Snape is acting as referee. The other teachers (except
Quirrell) think that he's trying to give Hufflepuff an unfair
advantage over Gryffindor, so naturally he'd be upset that Harry
caught the Snitch so quickly. (Possibly Harry thinks so, too, at this
point.) That Snape spits just as Dumbledore smiles and puts his hand
on Harry's shoulder is probably just coincidence like his looking into
Harry's eyes just as Voldemort is also looking at him through the back
of Quirrell's head. (It's Voldie, not Snape, who's causing the scar to
hurt, but that's not how it looks to Harry or the reader.)

So, what is Snape trying to accomplish by refereeing the game?
According to Quirrell, he's trying to prevent another attack on Harry
(or thwart it if it happens). Is Snape disappointed that Quirrell
didn't publicly reveal himself as an attempted murderer and that he,
Snape, didn't get a chance to publicly rescue Harry? That seems a bit
out of character for Snape, who wouldn't want the Slytherins to see
him saving Harry. Was he trying to prove to Dumbledore that Quirrell
is dangerous? (DD is present at this game, as he was not for the first
one.)

I don't know what's up with Snape here, but I don't believe that it's
jealousy of DD's affection for Harry any more than I believe Lupin's
claim that young Severus was jealous of James's prowess on the
Quidditch pitch. There's not a shred of evidence in the books to
support that claim. I *would* buy Teen!Severus' feeling that DD
favored MWPP, especially James, over him--not because of Quidditch,
but because of lack of recognition for Severus's gifts and because of
favoritism (the failure to expel MWPP after so-called Prank, for
example). But does that jealous resentment carry over to Harry? And
even if it does, is that what the spitting is all about? I don't think
so. I think it has to do with the game being over before Snape got a
chance to do whatever he was trying to do by refereeing the game,
something to do with Quirrell.
 
Carol earlier:
> Again, you're assuming. We don't *know* that there's a Lily/Snape
> connection.
> 
> Cassy:
> Again, true... although if you start with that assumption & 'think
> backwards' it helps an awful lot of theories to work!

Carol:
Yes. That's how we "proved" that Mark Evans must be a Muggleborn
relative of Harry's who would be sorted into Gryffindor in HBP. :-)
Seriously, we do need to interpret the evidence, but not by fitting it
to our pre-existing theories if we can help it. That's how the
ultra-feminists "prove" that the HP books are sexist. What we need to
*try* to do, and of course it's difficult, is to piece the evidence
together into a coherent theory rather than, like Harry with Snape,
fitting the pieces into our preconceptions. I have to try, for
example, not to take DDM!Snape as a given and to remember that he's
only "true" from my perspective and that of other DDM!Snape theorists.
But there's much more evidence for DDM!Snape than for a Lily/Snape
connection. We can speculate about it and see if the evidence might
lead us in that direction, but we can't take it as a given.

> Cassy:
> So you don't subscribe to the view that it is Lily's *Potions*
talent inside that textbook? I find it curious that Slughorn (who
taught them all) repeatedly equates Harry with Lily (specifically
mentioning her creative brilliance), but compares him favourably to Snape:
> 
> `But I don't think I've ever known such a natural at Potions!
> Instinctive, you know – like his mother! 
 Well, then, it's natural
> ability! I don't think even you, Severus –` `Really?' said Snape
> quietly, his eyes still boring into Harry, who felt a certain
> disquiet.' (HBP15) 
> 
> In other words, Lily demonstrated the sort of imaginative instinct
as a Potioneer that even Snape lacked. And I think Hermione could be
right about a female mind at work, though wrong about the handwriting,
if Snape copied Lily or they collaborated in Potions. <snip>

Carol:
What I see is evidence from SS/PS onward that Snape is a Potions
genius, from his initial speech about "softly simmering cauldrons with
their shimmering fumes" to the Wolfbane Potion that so few wizards can
make. He knows so much about potion-making that he writes the recipes
on the board with a flick of his wand and knows instantly which step a
student got wrong. Snape is clearly a Potions genius (and, it turns
out, a DADA genius) as well. We know that the spells are his. The
snarky "just stuff a Bezoar down their throats" sounds like him, too,
and fits with his first lesson on Bezoars (which came in handy in HBP
by saving Ron's life). I see no reason to doubt that the Potions
hints, in the same cramped writing that he used for his DADA OWL. 

Maybe Lily was also good in Potions, but this is our first indication
of her skill. We've had not just evidence but *proof* of Snape's skill
since the first book. So to jump from her ability in Potions, which
Slughorn remembers along with the cheekiness that made him so fond of
her, and which he uses to account for Harry's (seeming) skill in
Potions, to a connection between Lily and Severus, much less him
copying her Potions hints (which surely a Prefect and Gryffindor like
Lily would not do for any Slytherin and MWPP would not tolerate) seems
to me to be pushing the evidence beyond what it's capable of supporting.

What I see in that passage is the irony that Snape, who knows that
Harry is no Potions genius and whose notes Harry is using to "earn"
those underserved marks is being discredited ("I don't think *even
you,* Severus). Obviously, Severus *was* exceptionally good in
Potions, rather like "the legendary Charlie Weasley" in Quidditch
("Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it!"). Only Harry has the
advantage of Severus's notes after he's experimented with the Potions,
not as he first performed them in class. So Harry is getting credit
for having Lily's genes (which, alas, have not passed on whatever
Potions talent she may have had to her son) and Severus, who actually
did the work, is being overlooked or underestimated yet again. We see
exactly the same thing when Harry tells Hermione that he's learned
more from the Half-Blood Prince (Snape) than he ever did from Snape!

Harry sees the spells and the potions hints as products of the same
brilliant mind. So, I think should we, especially given what we
already know about Snape's Potions abilities.
> 
 
> Cassy:
> No, [Harry as Horcrux is] only speculation, but I do wonder if part
of Snape's problem with Harry – a very large part – arises not from
his facial resemblance to his mother or father but from the fact that
he has Voldemort's scar on his forehead. Snape is mortally afraid of
> Voldemort. 

Carol:
Really? Mortally afraid? He spied on Voldemort for Dumbledore "at
great personal risk," he strides out the door of the hospital wing to
confront him with his prepared story in GoF, looking slightly pale but
showing no real fear (the pale face and glittering eyes exactly match
Harry's as he's about to enter the third-floor corridor in SS/PS); he
uses Occlumency against the greatest Legilimens the WW has ever known;
he dares to stay away from the graveyard and remain at Hogwarts when
Karkaroff flees in terror. Granted, he won't speak Voldemort's name
and doesn't want Harry to do so, either, but that doesn't mean he's
"mortally afraid" of him. McGonagall and Arthur Weasley don't speak
it, either. (I have a little theory, if I can call it that, that
Snape's Dark Mark hurts when he hears Voldemort's name, possibly
because it senses that he's traitor to its master, but that's just an
idea, not a point I'm arguing here.) At any rate, Snape is no coward.
I don't think he's "mortally afraid" of anything. Even Harry is
surprised to see that Snape is "angry and--Was it possible?--a little
afraid" when Snape confronts Draco at Slughorn's party.

Cassy:
Indeed – though Harry never stopped to think it through – the main
reason that Snape was using a Pensieve for the duration of the
Occlumency lessons was not to conceal his thoughts from Harry but to
protect them from Voldemort. 

Carol:
But we don't know that. I still think that Snape is protecting the
memories from an accidental Protego. He clearly doesn't want Harry to
see the one memory whose identity we know. But other explanations are
possible, as the threads on Snape's use on the Pensieve indicates.

Cassy:
What if Snape too has seen `a shadow of him stir behind [Harry's]
eyes
' (OOtP37)? IMHO, if Harry *is* a Horcrux then Snape might well
have seen what Harry is too blind to see...

Carol:
Even so, seeing such a shadow doesn't indicate that Snape is "mortally
afraid" of Voldemort, nor does it necessarily mean that Harry is a
Horcrux, or he would have seen the shadow before during the many times
that he's looked into Harry's eyes. What's happening in OoP is that
Voldemort now has a body and is becoming powerful again, and the mind
link is also becoming more powerful. Harry now starts feeling his
happiness as well as his anger. He understands *why* Voldie is feeling
happy or angry, and he's having visions (moments when he's inside
Voldie's mind and seeing and hearing what he sees) as well as dreams.
None of that necessarily equates to a Horcrux, and none of it ties in
with Snape's being "mortally afraid" of Voldemort. If he were, he'd
have run from his as Karkaroff did, or run *to* him as Wormtail did.
What he's afraid of, or angry about, in the Occlumency lessons, IMO,
is what Voldemort may do to or through Harry via the mind link. He
gets most angry when Harry sees memories that aren't his own ("What
are that man and that room doing in your mind, Potter?") and
especially when Harry starts to see the corridor in the MoM that leads
to the Hall of Prophecy--and does nothing to stop the dream memory
from continuing. It's Snape who stops it. (And, if I'm not mistaken,
he reports his findings to Dumbledore, who says something about "we"
in the chapter where he explains the Prophecy, etc., to Harry. I don't
have time to look it up now, but the things DD knows about the
Occlumency lessons can only have come from Snape.)

Cassy: 
> Oh, I can't wait for July 21!

Carol, who can't wait, either