The Prince interpreted

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 172726

Montavilla47:
> 
> Nope.  Not for a single split-second did I doubt in Snape's
essential goodness.  It played out exactly as I had predicted at least
a year ago.
> 
> I knew that if Snape was going to be good, then JKR would start out
DH by continuing to make him look as bad as possible.  
> 
> If, on the other hand, he was going to be evil, that she would 
continue to plant doubt in our heads by having him provide vital
information or some such thing. <snip>

Carol responds:
I knew on a rational level that Snape had to be good based on the
story structure (the reversal/recognition scene had to come near the
end, and, as you say, he had to appear evil for the device to work). I
knew, again on a rational level, that she'd been setting us up with
his ambiguity for five books and the UV and "murder" of Dumbledore in
HBP, but on an emotional level, I started having doubts about his
goodness. Was he using Occlumency on Voldemort and forced to watch
impassively when he'd much rather have saved Charity Burbage? and what
about George's ear? (Lupin's ranting about Sectumsempra as Snape's
signature curse made me think *he* might be ESE. What nonsense!
Severus would have been kicked out of school if he'd been using a
cutting curse that wouldn't heal on fellow students, and Lupin never
knew he'd been a DE so he can't have known what he did then.) The doe
Patronus and the "terrible" detention with Hagrid of course reassured
me, but I got all upset again with "The Sacking of Severus Snape,"
reading it too quickly and not realizing that he was casting only
defensive spells. Imagine if he'd sent McGonagall's daggers firing
back at her. So I skipped ahead to his death, which was horrible and
which I didn't understand at the time. I had to read the parts I'd
skipped and then read "The Prince's Tale" to understand that he'd seen
Nagini in a bubble, which meant it was time to tell Harry about the
soul bit. He was desperate to talk to him, and his pale face as he
understood that Nagini was going to kill him was not fear of death
(how many times had he risked it?) or even (mostly) fear of that
terrible death, but fear that he would die without talking to Harry,
telling Harry what he needed to know to defeat Voldemort. And this
way, he got to explain (or show) a lot of things that he'd never have
been able to tell Harry otherwise.

The "greed" in his eyes in the first scene may be Harry's
interpretation. He doesn't yet know that Snape is good. He has hated
him until that minute, but now he's in shock over Snape's death and
the reason for it. The "greed" could be intense longing. He wants to
meet that little girl, to tell her that she's a witch. He's excited by
his plan, and we see his dejection when it fails. We also see that
while he holds Muggles in contempt (surely because of his father) he
has nothing against Muggleborns. Lily is a witch to him, pure and
simple, and later on the Hogwarts Express, he innocently hopes that
she'll be sorted into Slytherin as he expects to be. (It must have
been his mother's House.) He does nothing to earn the contemptuous
nickname "Snivellus," which is merely a distortion of his name by
another little boy who judges him by the House he wants to be in.

We see that he and Lily are really friends, that he's different from
the boys he runs around with (and blind to their faults). Oddly, as
Valky also noticed, the worst memory comes *after* the so-called
Prank, which means that James did not suddenly become noble and
heroic. He's still willing to ambush Severus and publicly humiliate
him. We're given no alternate version, so Severus's idea that James
saved him because he got cold feet must be right, and the worst memory
has to be, as the LOLLIPOPS people have always argued, because he
slipped and called her a Mudblood and she refused to forgive him even
when he slept outside the Gryffindor common room and abjectly begged
her to do so. That, and not the worst memory, must have been the
turning point. His despair caused him to join his "friends" because he
felt he had not other choice. Lily is prejudging him, assuming that
because *they* have become Death Eaters, he has done so, too, but I
think she's mistaken. Not only does he still love her (not a silly
crush like Harry's on Cho at the same age: she's all he cares about
other than DADA and maybe Potions, apparently),  but she's the one who
says, "You've chosen your way. I've chosen mine." (DH Am. ed. 676).
There's no evidence that he's done anything worse than turning a blind
eye to his friends' Death Eater ambitions. Clearly, he's not like
them, nor is there any evidence that he routinely uses the word
"Mudblood" or she would not have been shocked by it. That scene is the
turning point in his life, and the next time we see him, he's a Death
Eater begging Dumbledore, again abjectly, to find a way to save Lily.

Dumbledore, who of course knows him to be the eavesdropper, treats him
and his request with contempt, and Snape accepts the reprimand,
begging him to keep "her--them--safe" and vowing to do "anything" in
return, a vow he keeps for the rest of his life (678). His "tale of
deepest remorse" is wild grief for Lily which is of course unfeigned.
And he promises to protect Lily's son for Lily's sake, but makes DD
promise never to tell. "Potter's son" must never know that he's being
protected. Dumbledore reluctantly agrees, which explains why he never
told Harry why he trusted Snape. But the trust by at this point
becomes absolute. We see Snape complaining in Harry's first year about
his mediocrity but agreeing to keep an eye on Quirrell, Snape telling
DD that he's not tempted to flee like the coward Karkaroff and DD
agreeing that Snape is "a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff," with
the left-handed compliment implying that Snape should have been sorted
into Gryffindor, which has the odd effect of causing Snape to look
"stricken" 630). We see him scolding DD for putting on a cursed ring.
Snape has contained the curse in DD's arm (apparently the ring itself
is no longer cursed or else he removed it). DD gives Snape a rare
compliment ("I am fortunate, extremely fortunate, that I have you
Severus"). Snape has already told him about Voldemort's plan involving
Draco and that it's intended as "slow torture" for Draco's parents.
They agree that LV expects Snape to kill Draco. DD tells Snape that
the only way to save Draco from LV's wrath is for Snape to kill him
instead. Snape reacts with sarcasm and then, when DD talks about
saving Draco's soul, he asks about his own. Clearly, he has never
killed anyone before. DD persuades him that saving a dying man from
pain and humiliation is better than being mauled by Greyback or
tortured by Bellatrix. Snape, apparently realizing that his soul is
safe but Draco's would not be, and perhaps hoping that the moment will
never come, agrees. We find that he only spends time with the Death
Eaters on DD's orders. Apparently, he stayed away from the graveyard
intending never to return, to stay at Hogwarts rather than running
like Karkaroff, to fight and die rather than rejoin them. He only
returned on DD's orders. he would not have done so otherwise. 

He starts to rebel against killing DD because DD has not told him
everything. When DD does tell him about the soul bit, and that Harry
must die, he at first says that he thought they were protecting him
for Lily. When he learns that Harry has been protected as part of DD's
plan and that he must die setting out to meet his own death, Snape is
horrified. When DD asks how many men and women he has watched die, he
says, "Lately, only those I could not save" (687). This is our glimpse
of the true Snape, the brilliant but reluctant double agent who would
much rather be saving lives.  Yes, it's still for Lily, but she's his
ideal. He's like a medieval knight going into battle for the honor of
a lady, but it's more than that. Lily, to Snape, represents everything
that is good and pure, everything that is worth saving and fighting
for, and he is protecting her "mediocre," rule-breaking son, whom DD
now seems willing to sacrifice, for her sake. Snape casts his doe
patronus, which DD must have seen before but never understood, and he
is moved to tears. At this moment, he finally understands Snape.

This vignette is also important because it contains the message that
Snape must somehow deliver to Harry, somehow get him to listen to,
when LV starts becoming protective of Nagini. That, of course, is what
Snape was trying to do when Voldemort sets Nagini on him because of
the Elder Wand. Ironically, he would have failed. Harry was in the
shack already, witnessing the terrible scene, and had he escaped, he
would never have found him, nor do I think it likely that Harry would
have listened.

There's more: Snape as headmaster protecting the students in unseen
ways, his very presence preventing the Carrows from taking over the
school and filling it with Death Eaters, Snape reprimanding Phineas
Nigellus, his connection with HRH, for calling Hermione a Mudblood;
Snape arranging and carrying out the lovely plan that will allow Ron
and Harry to get back to gether and Ron to retrieve the Sword through
need and valor.

I'm not sure about Dumbledore, but I wholly admire and, yes, love,
Severus Snape.

Carol, sure that Snape has earned freedom and happiness in the
afterlife and hoping that he is honored in the WW