Thoughts Regarding Snape

[julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 171163

<snip>
> 
> Allie replies:
> 
> In order for Snape to give Harry and the Order greater aid, it would
> be prerequisite for Harry and the Order to acknowledge that 
Dumbledore
> did in fact ask Snape to kill him.

Julie:
I don't think this would be a prerequisite, certainly not
at the beginning. In order for Snape to aid Harry and the 
Order, there are only two prerequisites, that he *is* on 
their side, and that he remain alive. He doesn't have to
have any contact at all with them to assist them. He can
weaken Voldemort's position from the inside, by destroying
Horcruxes, by setting up Death Eaters to be killed or 
captured, by sowing dissention among a select few (the
Malfoys would be one obvious target, after Voldemort 
essentially set Draco up to get revenge against Lucius),
by messing with Nagini (certain potions perhaps), etc, 
etc. And if he has even one person who knows his true
allegiance (Aberforth, perhaps?) he can indeed relay 
critical information to the Order through that person 
without his identity being known.

Allie:
  Based on Harry and Snape's
> history, I just can't imagine this happening, and I'd have thought
> both Dumbledore and Snape would foresee this problem in the process 
of
> developing their secret plans.  (And if we assume that Snape is 
loyal
> to the Order, the circumstances of Dumbledore's death must have been
> planned well in advance, immediately after Snape told his mentor 
that
> he had made the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa, as opposed to a
> spur-of-the-moment self-sacrifice in the face of Death Eaters at
> Dumbledore's beloved school.)

Julie:
I do believe a there were contingency plans made in advance.
Certainly if Dumbledore was fatally cursed when he destroyed 
the Ring Horcrux, then he knew it was a downhill ride, however
much time Snape's intervention may have bought him. And he 
knows the war will come to a head once he does go. So he
installed Snape as the DADA teacher.

I also agree that one contingency plan Dumbledore would have
set in place is making Snape promise to kill him if it came
to that. I don't think it was the Plan, but more of a worst
case scenario. The evidence in fact points to Dumbledore and
Snape trying to avoid this scenario, with Snape doing his
best to get concrete information from Draco about his plans.
Unfortunately it doesn't work.

Allie: 
> Harry has indicated his dislike and distrust of Snape numerous times
> throughout the series.  In his third year, for instance, he attacked
> Snape for his narrow-minded determination to turn Sirius over to the
> dementors, shouting "You're pathetic!  Just because they made a fool
> of you at school you won't even listen!" (PoA, American paperback, 
pp.
> 361).  Two years later, he declared to himself that "whatever
> Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape" 
 and this was before
> he even found out about Snape's Unbreakable Vow and realized that it
> was Snape who overheard the prophecy midway through his sixth year
> (OotP, American paperback, pp. 851).
> 
> Dumbledore, of course, knew all this.  As recently as the end of 
OotP,
> Harry told him point-blank that "Snape made it worse, my scar always
> hurt worse after lessons with him [
] How do you know he wasn't 
trying
> to soften me up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside 
my
> [mind]?" (OotP, pp. 833).  Dumbledore has also informed Harry 
that "I
> have watched you more closely than you can have imagined" and it 
would
> not have taken much in the way of fancy magical spying devices for
> Dumbledore to notice that Harry and Snape openly loathed each other
> (OotP, pp. 839).  He himself acknowledged the fifth-year Occlumency
> lessons (the only time he asked Harry and Snape to work together as
> allies against the Dark Side) as a "fiasco" (HBP, American 
hardcover,
> pp. 79).
> 
> In short, Harry has always hated and will always hate Snape,
> Dumbledore was aware of Harry and Snape's mutual enmity, and
> Dumbledore would have had better judgment than to create a plan that
> hinged on Harry overcoming his past and learning to trust his least
> favorite teacher, his father's childhood enemy, his headmaster's
> murderer, and the man responsible for his marking as "the Chosen 
One."

Julie:
Again, what happened on the Tower wasn't a set plan. The only
"plan" was that Snape would kill Dumbledore if it came to that,
rather than succumbing to the UV. And probably that they would
do everything they could to save Draco's soul. They had no way
of knowing about the cabinet, that the DEs would find a way
into Hogwarts, that Harry would be present when Draco finally
confronted Dumbledore. That part just "happened." As things do.
Even the great Albus Dumbledore can only control so much ;-)

Allie:
>  For Dumbledore to believe that Harry would sit still to listen to 
any
> advice from Snape without jinxing his former teacher silly, in my
> view, defies logic.  Therefore, my only conclusion can be that 
Snape's
> apparent murder of Dumbledore was not the brainchild of Dumbledore
> himself, but of a different master.

Julie:
I agree that Harry listening to advice from Snape as things
stand now does defy logic. But Snape doesn't have to talk
directly to Harry to pass on information, or to do things
that will actively help Harry defeat Voldemort. And again,
there was no brainchild plan IMO only broad consistencies
that could be applied to any number of eventualities, the
specifics of which neither Dumbledore nor Snape could 
foresee. 

Allie:
> 
> Time for a couple pre-emptive defenses.  It is true that Harry has
> believed seemingly impossible stories of innocence before.  Sirius's
> explanation of the change in Secret-Keeper, the illegal Animagi, and
> so forth, initially appeared to be just as farfetched as the 
proposed
> theory that Snape killed Dumbledore on his victim's orders.  
However,
> Sirius's story had one crucial element that Snape's never had:
> evidence.  He waited until he had Pettigrew cornered, until he could
> force the rat to transform to human, until he had a guilty culprit 
who
> could say "'He was taking over everywhere!  What was there to be
> gained by refusing him?'" before he even approached Harry (PoA, pp. 
374).
> 
> Snape could lay down claims that he acted on Dumbledore's 
wishes 'til
> the cows came home, but he would never have proof that he did it out
> of interest in Harry's well-being, not Voldemort's.  He could whip 
out
> a Pensieve and show a flood of memories of his instructions from
> Dumbledore, but how would Harry know that even as he received these
> orders, Snape wasn't thinking "how convenient, now I have a handy
> cover-up for the death the Dark Lord so desperately wants"?  A
> portrait, which according to J. K. Rowling only speaks "catch 
phrases"
> from the subject's lifetime, can offer no substantive evidence that
> Dumbledore really intended these events to be.
> 
> Furthermore, at the age of sixteen, Harry is much less naïve than 
the
> thirteen-year-old who rescued Sirius from the clutches of the
> Ministry.  He has seen three people, including a fellow student and
> two of his closest friends, die at the hand of Voldemort and his
> servants.  He is suspicious of the government, he has to watch all 
the
> people he trusts for signs of the Imperius Curse, he has witnessed
> Voldemort's return, and he is burdened by the knowledge that he must
> destroy the most powerful wizard of all time or else be destroyed
> himself.  It would take a lot to make him trust a man who was
> effectively responsible for his parents' deaths and may or may not 
be
> a Death Eater, and frankly, I don't blame Harry.  I would tend to be
> wary of a man who is very good at breaking into other people's minds
> and very good at keeping them out of his own, myself.

Julie:
I agree it would take a lot for Harry to trust Snape again.
Not only a lot, but some time. Harry was presented evidence 
about Sirius's innocence and all but immediately went from
hating him to trusting him. Granted Sirius was more of a
figurehead to Harry than a real person, while Snape is a
very real person in Harry's life. That does make Snape's
road a great deal more difficult, if he is to gain Harry's
trust (and who's to say Snape won't just show up at the
end, save Harry before Harry can say yea or nea, and only
after Snape's demise might Harry slowly realize Dumbledore
had in fact been right in trusting Snape?).

That said, I believe there are some startling revelations
to be had in DH. I also believe Harry can and will *change*
internally, and see the world and others in less black and
white than he does at the moment. (While I agree he is no
longer naive, he is still young and hotheaded.) Any change
in his view of Snape will be partly due to any revelations
he receives, be they from pensieves, portraits, time travel,
or what have you, and partly from his own internal growth
and maturity. IMO anyway.

Allie:
> Finally, having said all this, I'd like to take a moment to put
> forward my own views on Snape, because I'm concerned that I've
> slightly misrepresented myself in this post.  Do I believe that 
Snape
> was working for Voldemort throughout HBP?  Not necessarily.  Do I
> think his entire role in the war against Voldemort thus far has 
taken
> place by Dumbledore's design?  Most likely not.  To me, Snape's
> loyalties until the final chapters of Book Six were highly, highly
> ambiguous; if an objective observer had witnessed every second of
> Snape's life from the moment he went to the Hog's Head to overhear
> Trelawney's prophecy to the moment of Dumbledore's death, I doubt 
even
> he would be able to tell us which side Snape was on.  From the
> beginning, I believe Snape was a man out for himself, playing spy 
for
> whichever side seemed to be winning at the moment.  In killing
> Dumbledore and forfeiting Harry's trust, however, he appears to have
> made his choice; until new canon, I consider him a servant of 
Voldemort.

Julie:
Fair enough. I agree that based on the canon of six books 
an objective observer couldn't tell us which side Snape is
on. That was obviously deliberate on JKR's part, as was the
appearance of Snape as a servant of Voldemort after the Tower
scene. Appearances are so often deceiving in the HP books 
though, and we *do* have new canon coming in just 18 days(!).
So I'm going with my gut (and with my hope) and considering
Snape Dumbledore's man (not in servitude, but by free choice)
until that new canon proves otherwise ;-)

Julie