Snape's Rage at Being Called Coward : No, just a coward

[vivamus42]

No: HPFGUIDX 172155

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" <ceridwennight at ...>
wrote:
>
> vmonte:
> > I'm glad Lily didn't decide to just step aside and let Voldemort kill 
> > Harry. I mean, why would she step in front of Harry unless she 
> thought 
> > he could die?  And surely she knew that stepping in front of him 
> would 
> > sentence her to death as well. But she did it anyway.
> 
> Ceridwen:
> Actually, I've thought about this sort of scenario a lot.  . . . 

> Thinking about something like this when not in the situation, when you 
> wuold react instinctively instead of thinking, makes you consider all 
> sides.  A truly selfless parent would throw themselves between their 
> child and death without a thought.
> 
> Without a thought of what would happen to the child once the parent is 
> dead.  That car isn't going to stop a dime's breadth away from the 
> child just because the parent is lying dead.  Those bullets won't stop 
> just because they have a victim.  The ocean won't get shallower just 
> because the parent is dead.  In most of those cases, the child will die 
> anyway.

Vivamus:
While I appreciate your approach, I think there is more intelligence
behind parental sacrifice than you are giving credit for.

In the animal world, the parent usually protects the offspring until
the moment in which the parent would die.  At that point, the animal
parent abandons the offspring and lives to breed again.

For humans, as much as we'd like it to be different, it usually works
the same way, EXCEPT that human orphans usually live.  So human
parents are much more likely to die for their offspring, but still
only if the offspring can be saved.

So yes, parents will throw themselves in front a car for their child,
but not to die WITH the child; they will do so to shove the child out
of the way of the car.  The parent dies, but the child lives -- and
that is something virtually every human parent will agree is worth
dying for, whether in the heat of the moment or in considered thought.
 
> Ceridwen:
> In the Potter's case, James is dead.  Lily can be fairly certain of 
> this.  Voldemort is in the room, and ordering her to step aside.  If 
> she does, Voldemort kills Harry.  If she doesn't, Voldemort, to her 
> knowledge at that time, kills her, and then kills Harry because there's 
> no one to protect him.  Toddler Harry doesn't know magic.  Toddler 
> Harry can't wield a wand: he doesn't even have one.  Accidental magic 
> might serve to protect him for a time, but not for long.
> 
> At that point, no one knew what Lily's sacrifice would accomplish.  It 
> had never been done before.  Lily made the same sacrifice parents have 
> been making for millenia, knee-jerk and without thought.  In her case, 
> it turned out differently.
> 
> Snape isn't Lily.  Snape is human.  Why should he trust that his death 
> would provide magical protection to Draco, Harry and Dumbledore?  Did 
> Lily do something to prepare for such an eventuality, given that 
> someone knew about the prophecy, which was why they were in hiding?  Or 
> did it just happen, randomly, the handmaiden to the prophecy?  How 
> would Snape know whether his sacrifice would protect those he leaves 
> behind?
> 
> I wouldn't trust to luck.  As I said, I've thought about this a lot.  
> People I have known love stories about parental sacrifice, and make a 
> big deal out of how selfless the parents all were.  But, really, what 
> happens to the child, as far as we know in the real world, when it's 
> left in a situation like that all alone?  A parent will react on 
> instinct.  Unless the fanfics are true, Snape is neither Harry's nor 
> Draco's father, and he's too young to be Dumbledore's dad.

Vivamus:
Without other information, I would agree with this in terms of the
instinctive responses of Lily, but she did not merely step in front of
Harry. She performed an apparently brilliant protection charm for him
-- possibly of her own invention, but certainly prepared (or at least
researched) ahead of time.  What she did may have LOOKED like a mother
instinctively  (and uselessly) standing between her child and death,
but was actually a highly-considered plan to protect her child at the
certain cost of her own life.

Since the charm had to be powered by love, according to the bits in
canon we've heard about it, Snape could never have performed it, no
matter how much he knew -- probably not even for Lily.

Just because someone has an instinctive motivation to stand between
another person and death, that does not mean they are not able to
think, plan, and operate intelligently when the time comes.  I don't
think Lily's reaction was knee-jerk or thoughtless at all. 

Vivamus