Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower: A Defense of Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165260

Am I crazy or what? (Don't answer!) I've just published an Internet
article on gather.com defending Snape. I'm going to copy it here and
provide the link, and you can comment on it (kindly, please, even if
you don't agree with it!) at either place. (you have to register at
gather.com to comment, but it's free and all that.) Here's the article:

It's simplistic to think of a character as complex as Snape as
"friend" or "foe," as the Border's Books quiz asks readers to do. What
matters with regard to the death of Dumbledore is where Snape's
loyalties lie, and evidence ranging from Snape's saving Harry's life
in Philosopher's Stone to his image in the fake Moody's Foe Glass to
his sending the Order to the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix
strongly suggests that he's Dumbledore's man through and through. Nor
is "Snape killed Dumbledore; therefore, he's evil" the clinch-all
argument that those readers who neglect to look below the surface
think it is.

For one thing, it's not even certain that the spell Snape cast on the
Astronomy Tower was an Avada Kedavra. Other spells, such as the one
that injured Tonks in the Department of Mysteries, send out jets of
green light like the one the narrator describes coming from Snape's
wand in "The Lightning-Struck Tower." Avada Kedavra, in contrast, is
described three times in Goblet of Fire, always accompanied with a
"blinding flash of green light" and a rushing sound, neither of which
is described in relation to Snape's spell. And the Avada Kedavra
victims we've seen (notably Cedric Diggory and the Riddles) have died
with their eyes open and a surprised or horrified expression.
Dumbledore dies with his eyes closed, as if he had time to come to
terms with his death, and his "wise old face" looks as if he's asleep,
very much like the "peacefully sleeping" portrait in a later chapter.
However he died, Dumbledore was neither horrified nor afraid. Snape is
quite capable, as we know, of casting nonverbal spells. If anyone
could cast a nonverbal spell disguised as an Avada Kedavra, he could.

And there's that exchanged glance between two men we know to be
Legilimens (Legilimentes?). The brutal-faced Death Eater (Yaxley?)
tells Snape that "the boy [Draco] can't do it," meaning that the third
provision of the Unbreakable Vow is now in effect. Snape has to "do
the deed" or die. At the same time, Dumbledore, who surely knows the
terrible choice that Snape is facing, speaks his name softly. They
exchange glances, and only then does Snape's expression change to one
reflecting emotions remarkably like those Harry felt when he force-fed
poison to Dumbledore in the cave. Can Snape's look of hatred reflect
self-hatred or, perhaps, fury at Dumbledore for making him keep his
promise, foreshadowed by the argument in the forest? Can the revulsion
be revulsion at the deed he has to do?

Even at this point, Snape doesn't raise his wand. Only when Dumbledore
says "Severus, please" (obviously not a cowardly plea to spare his
life, whatever it may mean) does Snape lift his wand and speak the
words "Avada Kedavra"--not "screaming them into the night" like
Wormtail murdering Cedric in the graveyard--simply speaking them. And
yet, instead of falling backward with his eyes open, like Cedric and
Frank Bryce and (apparently) the Riddles (even the spider simply falls
onto its back with its legs in the air), Dumbledore rises into the air
and floats "like a rag doll" over the battlements. What kind of Avada
Kedavra is this? Is it an Avada Kedavra disguised as something else to
allow Dumbledore to die peacefully from the poison as he floats to the
ground? Or is it an Avada Kedavra combined with another spell to send
him over the battlements and perhaps slow his fall? (He lands oddly
sprawled, but there's no indication of broken bones.) Sending
Dumbledore over the battlements, surely a deliberate choice on Snape's
part, prevents the horrible Fenrir Greyback from having Dumbledore for
"afters" and allows Snape to get the Death Eaters and Draco (whom he
grabs by the scruff of the neck like a kitten) off the tower and on
their way out of Hogwarts. It also prevents Harry, whom Snape surely
knows is hiding under the Invisibility Cloak (even Draco saw the two
brooms but is not as good as Snape as "putting two and two together"),
from rushing out to fight the Death Eaters. By the time that Harry is
released from the freezing spell (another hint that Dumbledore didn't
die instantly?), the Death Eaters are running down the stairs under
Snape's orders. Harry hits one in the back with a Petrificus Totalus,
but if he'd fought them in the confined space of the tower, four on
one (six on one, in his view), he'd surely have been killed.

There is no saving Dumbledore, who would have been killed by the Death
Eaters if Snape or the poison (or Draco under coercion) hadn't killed
him. Snape has no time to figure out what's wrong with Dumbledore and
rush out for the proper antidote, even if it were already prepared.
(No Bezoar would work against such Dark magic, and some poisons have
no antidote.) And with the Death Eaters there, Snape can't  even
attempt to save his life. If he does, the Death Eaters or the
Unbreakable Vow will kill him. He has to conceal his loyalties (surely
what Dumbledore wants him to do so that he can keep his cover and
subvert Voldemort from within the ranks of the Death Eaters) or die.
And if Snape dies, the boys will die, too, or be captured and turned
over to Voldemort to be tortured and killed, one for failing to kill
Dumbledore as ordered, the other for being the Prophecy Boy.

Unable to save Dumbledore on the tower despite his newly revealed
skills as a Healer (he's saved Dumbledore from the ring Horcrux, Katie
Bell from the cursed necklace, and Draco from Sectumsempra), Snape can
only choose to die from breaking the vow, accomplishing nothing and
leaving the boys to the nonexistent mercies of the Death Eaters, or
kill Dumbledore himself. Snape and only Snape can get Harry safely off
the tower and the Death Eaters and Draco off the Hogwarts grounds. If
Dumbledore dies in any other way, Fenrir Greyback will ravage
Dumbledore's body and mayhem will ensue (as the bloodred rubies of the
shattered Gryffindor hourglass and Hagrid's burning house suggest).

Snape's first concern is for Draco, whom he gets safely to the gates.
("Run, Draco!") Then he has to contend with Harry, who has followed
him. If Snape were evil, he would either have killed Harry on the spot
or Stunned him and taken him as a captive to the Dark Lord without
wasting time talking. Instead, he saves him from a Crucio and easily
deflects all his spells, having ordered the three Death Eaters who
have not been killed or Petrified off the grounds, and delivers some
last, typically sarcastic advice, coupled with reasons that make him
sound like a loyal Death Eater but which probably are not his real
reasons: "No Unforgiveable Curses from you!" (sound advice,
considering that Harry has to defeat Voldemort through the power
Voldemort knows not: Love) and "Again and again and again until you
learn to keep your mind closed and your mouth shut!" In other words,
"If you're going to duel a Death Eater as skilled as I am, you'd
better learn Occlumency and nonverbal spells." And he's right.

Draco to the contrary, Dumbledore is not a "stupid old man." Nor has a
wizard as old and wise as Dumbledore, one who saw through Tom Riddle
from age eleven, been fooled all these years by Severus Snape, whom he
knows much better than Harry does. I confidently predict that his
complete trust in Snape will prove to be fully justified in Deathly
Hallows.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976915293 

Carol, who has never posted an article accessible to the general
public before and is feeling very nervous!