Re: The Prince’s Tale

[Mari]

No: HPFGUIDX 172592

Marika wrote:

> Snape died before the last battle without even knowing if his 
> efforts (to help Harry survive and conquer Voldemort) had been for 
> nothing or if they actually made a difference. The last word spoken 
>(yelled) to him from a member of the Order was Minerva calling him a 
> coward (before he turned himself into a bat). In my point of view 
> he had deserved to be recogised for who he really was and for all 
> he had done before he died. The knowledge that he would go down in 
> history as a brave and heroic man had probably made him pleased.

Mari now:

I'd like to offer a bit of comfort, based on something I am pretty 
sure we can assume from previous canon. Remember, Snape was a 
HEADMASTER of Hogwarts. Although Harry looks for Dumbledore, not 
Snape when he returns to the office, presumably at some stage a 
portrait of Snape would appear. It's not the same as being alive, and 
knowing what has happened, but if he has a portrait in the office I 
am sure he'd be told by someone that his mission was accomplished. 
Also remember Harry has cleared Snape publicly before this, so if 
McGonagall or any other teachers in the school wish to do so they can 
communicate with his portrait in the office as well. I think its 
pretty likely that they did :-)  

Marika again:

> And I can't believe that Hogwarts (in the Epilogue) kept sorting 
people
> into Houses. Not because Voldemort suggested that Slytherin was the
> only necessary house to keep, but for the same reason that 
Dumbledore
> told Snape that sometimes he thought it was too early to sort at the
> age of 11(DH p. 545), but I wish to add that besides being too early
> it also prevents Slytherins to choose the good path. The parts of 
you
> that are bad will grow worse since people around you are not very
> good. To me is seems like ending up in Slytherin is like spending 
time
> in prison (where serious criminals  influence the less serious ones 
to
> become even worse) - but before you actually have comitted any 
crimes. 


Mari again:

I absolutely concur with this, and have set out in a previous post my 
conviction that the Epilogue gives us reason to hope that the 
generation of children attending Hogwarts nineteen years later might 
be less likely to automatically judge Slytherins as bad. Slytherin 
House itself was never the problem, its the PERCEPTION of it being 
full of dark wizards that causes people like Severus Snape to decide 
that if that's what people believe of him anyway, why not *be* what 
people *believe* that you are. 

Yes, this was a wrong choice, and very hard to redeem. Nevertheless, 
Snape's courage shows most of all in the fact that throughout the 
series he has unwaveringly walked the path he knew was set out for 
him, difficult though it might be, cost what it might, because he 
knew it was the right thing to do, even if it was anything but easy.