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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165362

Reposting to include the link and clarify a point:

Cassy wrote:
> With apologies to Severus Snape, whom I agree did the right thing in
conjuring the stretchers to save Harry, Ron and Hermione (and Black!)
from the Dementors; my point is that if Snape had played it
differently in the Shack, he could have captured Wormtail that night
... and he knows it. IMHO, it's terribly tragic that Snape, Lupin &
Black were unable to understand one another sooner ... a cornered rat
(even one so catastrophically underestimated as Pettigrew) should have
been no match for three powerful members of the Order of the Phoenix,
even without the (not inconsiderable) talents of the teenage
trio.<snip> I have no wish to malign DDM!Snape (whom I admire greatly
following HBP) but it's hard to overstate the magnitude of the
disaster here ... "You – you've got to hear me out," he [Black]
croaked. "The rat – look at the rat –" (POA19) This was the dangerous
corner, if you like, the moment when one future was lost: <snip>

> Pettigrew's escape made Voldemort's return possible and Pettigrew's
escape was only possible because Snape failed to listen to Sirius &
Lupin and to unite with them at this moment. If he had done so then
(even with the added complications of lycanthropy and the Dementors),
I have little doubt that Wormtail would now be in Azkaban. <snip>

> However, I would argue that JKR also points to Snape's culpability
in this scene. There is evidence that he is too strongly motivated by
a desire for revenge (and for personal vindication from Dumbledore),
which leads him to take maverick action without reasonable precautions
<snip>: "I've told the Headmaster again and again that you've been
helping your old friend Black into the castle ... I shall be quite
interested to see how Dumbledore takes this ... Vengeance is sweet ...
How I hoped I would be the one to catch you ...". <snip> when Lupin
transforms, Sirius defends the trio & Wormtail escapes. This is hardly
the part that gallant DDM!Snape would have wished to play in events.
> <snip>

> So what would Snape's reaction have been to his debriefing from
Dumbledore at the end of POA? To the knowledge that he has a)
unwittingly aided Voldemort's servant to escape, b) so helping to
fulfill a prophecy of Voldemort's return, c) allowed Voldemort's spy,
*Wormtail*, to witness his immoderate fury, d) almost sent an innocent
man to a fate he would not have wished on his worst enemy and e)
potentially involved Dumbledore, Harry etc. in serious (no pun
intended!) trouble with the Ministry? Of all the 'unseen scenes' so
far, this is the one I would have most desired to witness since it
would settle the question of Snape's loyalties once and for all! I
think he would have been appalled. And for all the extenuating
circumstances, he would have blamed himself. <snip>

Carol responds:
While I agree with you that Snape genuinely believes that Sirius Black
is a murderer and Lupin is the werewolf accomplice who has been
helping him into the school, that being knocked out prevents him from
hearing the true story, and that here, as with many other characters
(including Black, Harry himself, and possibly Lupin) JKR is showing
the danger and futility of revenge, I don't agree that it's all
Snape's fault and that he blames himself. If anything, his coming into
the Shrieking Shack gets *Harry* to listen to Black. And, if it serves
no other purpose (other than some interesting backstory on the
MWPP/Snape dynamics, notably that Snape blames James's "arrogance" in
not believing that Black was the spy for his death), it places him on
the grounds to conjure stretchers and rescue HRH and Black from the
werewolf and any stray Dementors who decide to return. Whether they
realize it or not, it's a very good thing he was there (though,
ironically, he still thinks that Black is a murderer and he's not at
all happy, I'm sure, to find that he's been mistaken all those years.
Just as Harry later displaces the blame for Sirius Black's death onto
Snape, Snape has comfortably been displacing the blame for the
Potters' deaths onto Black--and onto James himself for trusting him.
It's not nearly as satisfying, I'm sure, to find that the traitor is
Wormtail, who is worthy only of being despised rather than hated.)

Nor do I think that Snape has any cause to blame himself for
Wormtail's escape. Even if he had listened to Black's story (surely
too much to expect under the circumstances, given that Black still
hates him and shows no remorse whatever for leading Teen!Severus into
the tunnel to meet a full-grown werewolf), events would have happened
much as they did. Lupin would still have transformed, Sirius Black
would still have fought him in dog form, and Pettigrew would still
have transformed and escaped. (I suppose it's *possible* that Snape
could have Stunned Rat!Pettigrew and used his own Patronus to drive
off the Dementors, but then Snape would be the hero and the plot of
the next two books could not have happened. And Harry's refusal to
allow Black and Lupin to kill Pettigrew, with its ironic consequences,
would be pointless.)

At any rate, the lion's share of the blame for Pettigrew's escape lies
with Lupin, who ran out of the Shrieking Shack without taking his
potion, not with Snape, who was merely knocked out and later conjured
the stretchers. What Snape regrets, I'm afraid, is that Black, the man
he wanted to believe was a murdering traitor is only the would-be
murderer of the real traitor, Pettigrew, and that the twelve years
Black served in prison resulted not from his being a murderer but
because he made the mistake of trusting that traitor (and going after
him vigilante-style instead of going to the Aurors or Dumbledore with
the truth). Snapes's righteous anger turns out to be unjustified. So
by the time we get to OoP, Snape's only reason for hating Black is
what it appeared to be in the Shrieking shack, the "schoolboy grudge":
Black continues to hate him and call him Snivellus and to feel no
regret for (in Snape's view) trying to murder him when they were both
sixteen. It was not, however, the schoolboy grudge that caused him to
behave as he did in the Shrieking Shack, IMO: he really thought that
he was saving Harry from a loyal DE and his werewolf accomplice, and
he expected gratitude that he didn't receive from the arrogant James
Potter's "arrogant" son.

At any rate, I've just read an essay on Snape at the Lexicon that I
recommend to everyone even though I don't agree with all of it
(especially the Lily/Snape arguments). 

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#static:bookseven/snape

Here's what the writer, Michele Nanjo, has to say about Snape in the
Shrieking Shack:

"Rowling is a master at leading her readers astray, and Snape's grudge
may just be her biggest red herring of all. Yes, the boys hated each
other in school but it is probably not James's bullying alone that
Snape can't forgive, or even Sirius's "trick" in sending him to the
Shrieking Shack to face a werewolf when they were sixteen. There must
be more to it than that and we get a glimpse of the hidden source of
Snape's hatred in the Shrieking Shack in Prisoner of Azkaban when he
snarls at Harry, "You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to
believe you might be mistaken in Black"28

"This line tells us two things. Snape truly believed that it was
Sirius who had betrayed the Potters
 and he blames James at least as
much for their deaths. If only James hadn't been so arrogant. . . . if
only he'd done the smart thing and let Dumbledore act as Secret
Keeper, then he and Lily would still be alive.

"This isn't fair, of course. James never intended to risk the lives of
his wife and son. But given Dumbledore's assertion that endangering
the Potters was the "greatest regret of [Snape's] life"29 and that he
turned spy at "great personal risk,"30 it is easy to understand
Snape's bitterness towards James. Is this the wound that goes too deep
for healing—-the secret fuel that keeps Snape's hatred burning? It is
quite possible that Snape blames James because it helps to relieve his
own crushing guilt, much in the same way that Harry blames Snape for
Sirius's death to lighten his own guilt at the end of Order of the
Phoenix. (ellipsis, brackets, and superscripts in original)

I agree with this analysis. If Snape had a regret about the Shrieking
Shack scene, it wasn't that *he* had allowed Wormtail to escape. That
was Lupin's fault. It was that he'd blamed the wrong person for
betraying the Potters. And he can hardly blame James's death on
James's "arrogance" in trusting Black if Black was trustworthy after
all. And Snape *did* save four lives that night at great personal risk
from the werewolf and returning Dementors (unless he really does know
an even better way of fighting them). And he even protects the kids
from expulsion by telling Fudge that they were Confunded. He has, as
far as I can see, nothing to regret except losing control in front of
HRH--and the disappointment that the apparently murderous Sirius Black
wasn't the traitor after all.)

Carol, who sees no sign or regret or self-blame in Snape in this
instance and no need for either