Snape's turn to DEs (Re: The Prince interpreted)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173304

Carol earlier:
> > 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
<snip> 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. 
> 
Jen responded: 

There are a couple of important points missing from the 
interpretation above.  For one thing, Lily doesn't seemed shocked by 
Snape calling her a Mudblood because she's already aware he uses that
term for all Muggleborn witches and wizards save her:  <snip>

> In addition, Lily expresses that she's "made excuses for you for 
years," and says "I can't pretend anymore."  Perhaps she isn't 
operating with every bit of information about Snape's life in that 
moment, but it doesn't sound like Lily has made a snap judgement based
on one incident, either.  She's apparently seen enough evidence 'over
the years' for her to have reached the conclusion that she can't
pretend Snape is other than a person who has grown to have 
*something* in common with those sympathetic to Voldemort. 
> 
> But my main objection to the above interpretation is the idea that
Lily holds even an iota of responsibility for Snape's choice to join
the DEs.  Even if her decision to turn her back on him was premature
and made without the whole story (and as I said above, there's 
evidence this was not the case), Snape and Snape alone made the 
decision to follow Voldemort.  
> 
> In fact, my understanding was Lily was the only thing tethering
Snape to a different path, and her awareness of that fact was one
reason she made a point of talking to him about his friends and
defending him to others.  Lily's comment about reaching a parting of
the ways with Snape came across as a defeat to me rather than a rash
act:  After many years of seeing good in Severus and wanting to be
friends with him despite the objections of others, Snape had finally
acted in a way that opened Lily's eyes to realize she couldn't *make*
him change the path he was on.    

Carol responds:
Of course Lily isn't responsible for his choices or his mistakes. But
IMO he hadn't made his choice until that point. As you say, she was
the only thing keeping him from joining his fellow Slytherins, the
people he thought were his friends whose evil deeds he has been
excusing because he doesn't want to see them as evil. He's in denial,
as far as I can see, and certainly, if it hadn't been for Lily, he
would have joined them earlier. they are his house, and he never loses
his affection for Slytherin and Lucius Malfoy and the people who made
him feel that Hogwarts was his home, at the same time indoctrinating
him with their pure-blood prejudices (which he clearly did not yet
have on the Hogwarts Express or he would not have been friends with
Lily and wanted her to join him in Slytherin: Slytherin = brains;
Gryffindor = brawn in his early view). He's clearly torn. He has to
choose between Slytherin and Lily and he can't do it until her
rejection leaves him, in his mind, nowhere to go but to his friends.
He has not yet acquired the courage to do the right thing regardless
of consequences. Without Lily's friendship and support, there's
nothing to hold him back from his ambition to become a DE. (He must
not have done so until he left school, however, or Black and Lupin
would have known.) Through no fault of her own, Lily's refusal to
forgive him pushes him over the edge. (But, of course, had he not
joined the DEs, we'd have no story.)

I also concede that he must have said "Mudblood" in relation to other
people despite her objections, and that's why she *thinks* he's
already made his choice, that and his continued association with
people like Avery and Mulciber and his refusal to see them for what
they are. I misread her shock in SWM as shock that he would use the
word rather than shock that he would apply it to her and, I confess,
applied that preconception to my reading of DH. But it seems to me
that Severus, unlike his "little Death Eater friends" who openly
express their ambition to become DEs, is torn between Lily and the
DEs. IMO, He's teetering on the edge like Draco in HBP trying to
choose between killing and not killing DD and. like Draco, is unable
to choose. Yes, *she* says that he has made his choice, but that's her
interpretation based on his friends and his use of the word
"Mudblood." (as we see later from Blaise Zabini, blood prejudice alone
does not make a Slytherin a Death Eater.) Notice that when she says
that he's chosen, he says, "No. Listen. I didn't mean--" and when she
refuses to forgive him, he's wordless. He can't find the words to say
because he still has not yet made his choice. Love for her, a deep
desire for their continued friendship and her approval, is still
holding him back. But surely, this is the defining moment. If she'd
forgiven him, given him the second chance that DD later gives him,
perhaps he'd have found the courage not to join the DEs. (Evidently he
never does so openly, or Sirius Black and Lupin would have known.)
That does not make his decision her responsibility. Of course, it's
his decision, his mistake, which he would never have regretted had
Voldemort's interpretation of the Prophecy not endangered her. But
nevertheless, it's the SWM--his use of the word "Mudblood" and Lily's
reaction--that triggers his choice to join the DEs.

A word of explanation. I had always thought that the life debt to
James was the reason he went to Dumbledore, and I believed that he
also regretted that Voldemort had targeted Potter's innocent wife and
child. It turns out to be only Lily (but his loyalty to Dumbledore and
his determination to protect Lily's son for her sake grows into
something more, a desire to bring down Voldemort and to do
"anything"--to spy, to lie, to risk his life--to serve Dumbledore's
cause. yes, it's because of Lily, but Lily helps him to do what's
right rather than what's easy. (As for seeing that Voldemort is evil,
even Draco sees that but is too weak to fight against him.)

I also thought that the so-called Prank came after the worst memory,
that it was both the incident that pushed Severus to join the DEs and
the moment that James became something other than an arrogant,
bullying toerag. Wrong on both counts. Severus's decision to join the
DEs seems to be the result of the SWM, the worst memory not only
because it severed him from Lily but because it was his incentive to
join the DEs, which led, ultimately, to her death. 

And James? We still don't know what turned him around. It must have
been Lily (who still, apparently, didn't want him to hex Severus, who
had once been her friend). And James, of course, would have had to
stop running with a werewolf and get serious about his
responsibilities once he married and fathered a child. (Contrast Lupin
near the beginning of DH.) So since James really was the "toerag" that
Lily thinks he is at the time of the so-called Prank (as we see in
SWM) and we get no alternate version of the "Prank" (Lily doesn't know
what happened, and Severus, it seems, has been sworn to secrecy by
Dumbledore and can't tell her that Lupin really is a werewolf), the
"cold feet" version is as likely as James's finding about it belatedly
and stopping Severus (who wasn't an Animagus and didn't know how the
other boys survived their encounter with the werewolf). Either way,
James is protecting Sirius (and himself?) from expulsion and Remus
from much worse. He doesn't care about Severus. And in SWM, Severus
has done nothing to merit being attacked unawares tow on one. He's
only studying his DADA exam, which still matters to him--as it would
not if he had already made up his mind to be a DE. (Cf. Draco in HBP
saying that the Dark Lord doesn't care whether he's a fully qualified
wizard.)

As for the point made elsewhere in this thread about the so-called
Prank being Severus's fault, yes, he suspected that Lupin was a
werewolf. Yes, he wanted to know what the Marauders were up to and
thought it was dangerous, but he was trying to show *Lily* (not
Dumbledore) that they weren't the wonderful boys everyone thought they
were, and even though he clearly can't tell her that Lupin is a
werewolf, he walks away from his talk with her with "a spring in his
step," not even hearing what she says about Avery and Mulciber because
she has acknowledged that James is "an arrogant toerag" rather than a
hero (DH Am. ed. 675). She has said that they're still best friends
and that she dislikes James Potter, and that's all that matters. It's
only after he publicly calls her a Mudblood that she stops seeing the
good in him, the part of him that doesn't deny and excuse Avery's and
Mulciber's evil behavior, the part that reflects his secret doubts
about his own Muggle blood. (Imagine being a Half-Blood in a House
that uses passwords like "Pureblood." Not excusing him; just trying to
imagine how it felt to be the brilliant but neglected Severus Snape,
who reminded Harry of a plant left in the dark. How different would he
have been if, like James, he had come from a family that loved him and
encouraged his prodigious talents? His friends in Slytherin seem to
have recognized those talents and admitted him into their gang despite
his being a Half-Blood. The choice between them and Lily must have
been painful, and it's easy to see why he turned a blind eye to what
they really were, just as Remus Lupin ignored his friends' bullying
despite his qualms of conscience.)

Also note that Lily tells James and Sirius that Severus has done
nothing to them. She doesn't blame him for the so-called Prank. Until
he calls her a "Mudblood," indeed, even after he's done so, she says
that James is as bad as Severus (OoP Am. ed. 648). Clearly, he hasn't
gone around using Dark Curses like Avery and Mulciber even if he
defends them as supposedly humorous. Nor is any hex in the HBP's book
at all dark until he invents Sectumsempra. (That's a question I'd like
to ask JKR: When and why did Severus invent Sectumsempra?)

Sorry. I'm straying from my point. Yes, he wants to go down there, but
for Sirius to show him how to do it, knowing that he isn't an Animagus
and has no defense against the full-grown werewolf he'll meet there is
indefensible. It's like offering a drink to an alcoholic knowing that
the alcoholic can't refuse, only in this case, the drink could kill
the alcoholic.

In any case, we never see the adult Snape using the word "Mudblood."
That word ruined his life. He knows the pain it causes and even if he
uses it in the company of DEs, he never judges people by their blood
status (Muggles excepted) AFAWK. By HBP, he is tired of watching
people die for their blood status or their views on Muggles or
Muggleborns. "Lately, only those that I could not save" says it all.
And by DH, Hermione, that insufferable know-it-all, is to be called
Miss Granger.

Carol, who thanks Lily for being Severus's saving grace, giving him
the means and motive for redemption, and hopes that her soul has
forgiven his