[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape's Rage at Being Called Coward : No, just a coward

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 171948

Carol:
In any case, DD was already dying, and, as I interpret his words, he wanted
Snape to kill him. How was DD, wandless and too weak even to stand, supposed
to protect Harry and Draco from the DEs and get the DEs out of Hogwarts? I
doubt that they would have obeyed him. Snape was the only one who could save
the boys. Nothing could have saved the dying DD, not with the DEs present,
ready to kill DD if Draco or Snape didn't, and no time for Snape to figure
out what the green poison was and brew the appropriate antidote.


Sherry;

Unless I missed something in canon, there is no proof that DD was dying.  We
assume he was dying, but canon does not explicitly state that.  There is no
canon that the green stuff would have been terminal.  I will not believe
until I must, that Harry will have to live with the burden of thinking the
stuff he gave DD at his demand was the thing that killed him.  In any case,
Snape didn't know any of that had happened.  He just pulled out his wand and
uttered the words.  Saved his own neck and was a coward to the end.  In my
own opinion, of course.  Wasn't there a place in that scene where Harry
thinks DD is sounding stronger?  We don't know that he would have died with
or without Snape's treachery, so I refuse to believe it was hopeless.  And
even if that's how JKR makes it turn out, I'll be cruelly disappointed that
Harry will be sacrificed to Snape.  It's all about Harry for me, as ever,
and I can't bear to imagine that a 17-year-old boy should have to live with
that!

Sherry