Snape, a Deatheater.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 163832

> Nikkalmati
> Agreed, that Snape is making a deliberate move here, but I don't 
think the  
> motive is hidden from us by JKR.  I think she intends for us to be 
able to  
> figure it out.  She is not holding back here. 

Magpie:
I don't think she's holding back either. I think she means the 
reason for Snape's taking the Vow to be a big question mark. We 
can't know it without knowing his true allegiance. So she's 
intentionally hiding it from us.

Nikkalmati:
> This is my story and I'm sticking to it.  (For now at least).  I  
don't think 
> it is a comedy, if Snape doesn't know what he has promised with 
the  UV.  It 
> is even more of a tragedy.  When he promises to do the deed if  
Draco cannot, 
> he steps off a cliff with no bottom visible.  I find that  plenty 
distressing 
> for Snape, especially as he didn't see it coming.  Yes,  that is 
exactly what 
> Snape ends up doing - chasing Draco around.  How many  times did 
he request 
> the little snake to come to his office and Draco defied  him?  
Doesn't Snape 
> look pretty ineffective in his interview with Draco  during 
Slughorn's party?  
> There is some real tragic irony here.

Magpie:
This paragraph confused me on first reading because I had no idea 
what the story was you were sticking to. Now that I've read the post 
I realize that you meant that Snape is taking the Vow in order to 
find out what Draco is up to. There's tragic irony to the scene 
regardless of whether Snape knows the task. What makes it comical to 
me if he doesn't is that every line of Snape's in the scene is 
really saying, "Um, what are we talking about, exactly? Could 
somebody give me a hint?" The tragic irony is lost on Snape himself, 
because he as yet has no idea what it is he's agreed to do. He's got 
to wait a while before that dramatic moment comes--and when it does 
we never see it. I find it hard to believe Rowling would write a 
tragic story all about somebody agreeing to do something terrible 
without realizing it and then forget to write the moment where the 
person has that terrible realization.

Yes, Snape looks ineffective in trying to chase after Draco--but 
that can't be blamed on Draco being a little snake and does not 
require Snape to have taken the Vow to find out the truth. In fact, 
once again imo, we're given a scene where Snape's trying to find out 
what the task is where he's given lines that don't match up to that 
in a way that Rowling really doesn't usually do. Snape's lines to 
Draco in the Xmas party scene, imo, make far more sense if he's 
trying to find out what Draco is specifically doing to fulfill his 
task than if he's trying to figure out what the task is.

Nikki:  
> Yes, "he means me to do it in the end, I think" is a bluff and a 
lie.   We 
> know that isn't true, because LV intends for Draco to fail and 
the  instructions 
> the DEs on the Tower have is to stand back and let Draco do  it.  
Snape 
> doesn't even pay lip service to those instructions.  He  runs in, 
blows DD away and 
> drags Draco out by the scruff of his neck.   Those were not LV's 
orders.  If 
> LV talked to Snape before Spinners End, his  orders would have 
been to stand 
> back and let Draco hang himself.  If he had  planned for Snape to 
kill DD, he 
> could have ordered Snape to do it at any  time.  No, LV doesn't 
think DD can be 
> taken out that easily by Draco or by  Snape and as long as DD is 
at Hogwarts 
> he wants Snape there too.  LV is not  going to order Snape to 
reveal himself 
> by making a potentially useless murder  attempt.  Draco doesn't 
matter.   He, 
> unlike Snape, is  expendable.

Magpie:
You're answering a lot of questions here, but none of them seem to 
back up the idea that Snape took the Vow to find out the task.

Snape's line here does not have to be a complete lie just because of 
LV's orders as shown on the Tower. Snape's full line is to say 
that "He" means Snape to do "it" in "the end," but that he means for 
Draco to "try first." In the unlikely event Draco succeeds, Snape 
can stay at Hogwarts a while longer, Snape says. It would be totally 
in character for LV to like the idea of Dumbledore being killed by 
Snape to drive home the betrayal and Dumbledore's mistake at 
trusting Snape. Only Snape and Voldemort are privvy to Voldemort's 
feelings about Snape as a double agent. Snape could very well 
understand correctly that killing Dumbledore is something he wants 
Snape to do *in the end*. 

That, in any event, is what he is saying to Bellatrix and Narcissa, 
who do know what the task is. He's telling them that Voldemort 
intends for Snape to eventually be the person who kills Dumbledore, 
but that he is still demanding that Draco try to kill him first. He 
understands that his killing Dumbledore will spell the end of his 
time at Hogwarts. If he's truly working blindfolded here, he's 
pinned the tail right on the donkey. It's a good thing Draco's task 
really did fit all that. That's part of the oddness of Snape in the 
scene if he's gathering information--he does most of the talking 
instead of letting anyone else fill things in.

> Nikkalmati:
> It is not in character IMHO for Snape to take foolish risks.  He 
is  putting 
> his life on the line and I think there has to be a corresponding  
payoff.  He 
> doesn't risk himself unnecessarily.  He knows he has a  valuable 
part to play 
> to bring down LV and he is not going to waste  himself.    It is 
in Snape's 
> character to risk himself to find  out vital information about 
what Draco plans 
> to do and to position himself to  stop it.

Magpie:
But you've just had him take a completely foolish risk 
unnecessarily. It sounds smart when you say "risk himself to find  
out vital information about what Draco plans to do and to position 
himself to  stop it." The trouble is that description doesn't fit 
what he's supposed to be doing.

If Snape's goal is to find out what Draco's task is, his behavior 
should show that in Spinner's End. Yet his behavior in Spinner's End 
doesn't show getting information as a priority. At one point he even 
literally stops someone from giving him the information he so 
desperately wants! If he's bluffing he's completely forgotten to do 
so in a way that draws out information from the other people. The 
only place in the scene where he's allegedly actively doing 
something to find out the secret is where he takes the Vow...an 
action that isn't related to getting a secret at all. Why would 
agreeing to do some undisclosed thing on pain of death reveal to you 
what the undisclosed thing is? It doesn't. It's only after he takes 
the Vow that Snape has to start frantically trying to get Draco to 
tell him what he's been told to do--he apparently didn't manage to 
get it out of Narcissa and Bellatrix even after he took the Vow.  
The Vow as an attempt to find out information is never referenced 
again. 

And why doesn't Dumbledore just tell Snape what the task is, btw, 
since he seems to know perfectly well for most of the year? Why is 
he making Snape chase after Draco to get him to tell him when he's 
got no trouble figuring it out himself that I can see? In fact, why 
hasn't Snape figured it out by the time of the Xmas party when he's 
seen the first murder attempt? By that point a big portion of the 
audience has figured it out (if they hadn't already in Spinner's 
End), and it's not often we're ahead of Snape.

Then there's the question of why Snape kills Dumbledore, which it 
leaves open (Snape didn't stop Draco). If he only took the Vow to 
find out the task, why does he go through with it himself? To save 
his own life at the expense of Dumbledore's? That's fine, but it 
makes Snape's motivations all about Snape himself rather than 
anything he's trying to do for anyone else, and so far we haven't 
seen anything about the dramatic fallout of that between Snape and 
Dumbledore. It makes Dumbledore's death essentially a sacrifice to 
protect Snape all due to this mistake of Snape's that isn't really 
referenced.

If Snape knows what Draco's supposed to do I think it makes far more 
sense at every level. Snape is chasing Draco not to find out what 
his task is, but to find out how Draco is trying to carry it out so 
that he can run interference.  He took the Vow for some reason that 
had to do with killing Dumbledore or agreeing to kill Dumbledore 
upon the pain of death--not for a reason that doesn't really follow 
from what he's doing and is never linked to his actions in the book. 
That seems far more in keeping with the book's climax where the two 
boys (Draco and Harry) learn that Draco has been being watched as he 
tried to become a murderer. The only person for whom Draco's task 
seems an important surprise seems to me to be Harry. (The surprise 
for Snape and Dumbledore seems to me to be Draco's method of killing 
Dumbledore--the Cabinets.) Plus, if we were really supposed to have 
figured out that Snape took the Vow in order to find out "vital 
information about what Draco plans to do so that he can position 
himself to stop it", wouldn't we all know he was really DDM? 

-m