DH rambles and crows eating _ LOVEd this book

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173336

Jack-A-Roe wrote:
<snip>

> - He agrees not to run away like Karkaroff.

Carol responds:
Not agrees. Chooses. It's not DD's suggestion. It's his own free
choice: "Then Flee. Flee--I will make your excuses. I, however, am
remaining at Hogwarts" he tells Karkaroff at the Yule Ball (GoF Am.
ed. 426). And he says as much to Dumbledore: "Karkaroff's Mark is
beoming darker too. He is panicking, he fears retribution . . . .
Karkaroff intends to flee if the Dark Mark burns." DD asks if snape is
tempted to join him and Snape says, "No. I am not such a coward." 
Dumbledore agrees. "you are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff,"
he says, and suggest that Snape was Sorted too early. Snape looks
"stricken" (DH Am. ed. 680): his House, to which he is rather
obstinately loyal, has been insulted--but Dumbledore is telling him
that he has courage equal to any Gryffindor's. And JKR in her "Today
show" interview, confirmed that view. He's "spiteful" and "a bully"
(her view), but he's "immensely, immensely brave."

True to his word, Snape not only doesn't flee with Karkaroff but stays
away from the graveyard when LV summons the DEs, causing LV to believe
(rightly) that Snape has left him forever. He returns only when DD
orders him to do so (as they have apparently planned). 

Jack_A-Roe:
> - He goes back to Voldemort as DD's spy.

Carol:
Another act of immense courage, after he has stayed away from the
graveyard and caused LV to view him as "one I believe has left me
forever". "You know what I must ask you to do," says DD. "If you are
ready; if you are prepared." "I am," says Snape (GoF 713). They have
obviously planned his return to LV. Snape has his lies and half truths
prepared (we learn most of them in "Spinner's End"), and he has his
means of "hoodwinking" the Dark Lord, his superb skills as an
Occlumens. (We actually witness him doing so in the first chapte of
DH, where he calmly allows Voldemort to look into his eyes and
Voldemort is satisfied with what he sees there (4). Nevertheless, his
pale face and glittering eyes show that he knows he's going into
terrible danger, as does DD, as shown by the look of apprehension on
his face (713).

Knowing that he is sending Snape into the gravest peril, DD wishes him
luck (as he does to none of the others he sends on less perilous
errands) and stands silent and unmoving for a moment after Snape
leaves (713). Yes, he fears for Snape's mission, which is crucial and
which he alone can accomplish), but he also, surely, fears for the man
himself. If he didn't, he would not have been moved to tears by
Snape's doe Patronus in DH. (Just how he and Snape have been
communicating if this is the first time he's seen it is unclear; he
must simply be recognizing its significance. Lest we forget, DD's one
desire is to see his dead sister in the Mirror of Erised. How could he
not understand and empathize?)

As he tells DD later, he has spied and lied and risked his life
because DD wanted him to (DH 687). And note that he says he's doing it
*for Dumbledore*, not just for Lily. Given a choice, surely, he would
have taken an open stand against Voldemort like the other Order
members. But he can't. DD needs him to infiltrate the Death Eaters,
to, among other duties, tell the Order what LV is telling his Death
Eaters. ("Yes, Potter. That is my job," he says with satisfaction in
OoP as Harry finally gets a clue. Not enough of one, unfortunately.)
And by HBP, he's asking Snape to kill him. No wonder Snape is looking
mutinous. But when DD gives him the information about the soul bit
(not about Horcruxes, which only HRH can know about), he agrees to the
terrible mission of telling Harry Potter at the last possible moment
that Harry must sacrifice himself.

Jack_A-Roe:
> - He provides info the Order, although we don't know exactly what.

Carol:
I'd say, given the timing of his return to Voldemort and the building
plans that are part of his report, that he informed the Order of the
plans to steal the Prophecy and its location in the Hall of Prophecy.
Certainly, he also informed DD of the plot to have Draco kill him (or
more likely be killed in the attempt). He also, obviously, tells him
about the UV. Beyond that, his job seems to be as much supplying
Voldemort with information but leaving out the key point as informing
the Order or DD. And yet, DD seems to have known that the DEs would
infiltrate the Ministry and take over Hogwarts. Where can that
information have come from other than Snaape?

Jack_A-Roe:
> - He extends DD's life.

Carol:
Exactly. He has also saved Katie Bell and Draco Malfoy. (His teaching
about bezoars indirectly saves Ron; his teaching of Expelliarmus
indirectly saves Harry, not only in DH but in GoF and OoP.) And
judging from what we see in DH, he would much rather have extended it
again, if possible, after the poison potion than killed him.  DD has
placed a terrible burden on him, and it may only be his promise to
protect the school or his vow to Draco's mother that nerves him to act
on it. Or maybe it's Lily--saving Harry Potter's son at whatever cost
to himself. (He knows, surely, that Harry is standing there in his
Invisibility Cloak.) He must get the DEs off the tower and out of
Hogwarts or it's all for nothing.

Jack_A-Roe:
> - He basically admits that his soul is not perfect and agrees to be
the one to kill DD. <snip>

Carol:
I interpret this scene differently. He wouldn't be concerned for the
state of his soul if he had murdered before. DD asks him how many
people he has watched die, not how many he has killed. And Snape says,
"Lately, only those whom I could not save" (687). That, for me, says
everything.

Jack_A-Roe:
> - He would have failed to give his information to Harry if Voldemort
had killed him outright or if Harry hadn't been right there.

Carol:
Sadly and ironically, that's true, but how it can be blamed on Snape
escapes me. He's dying from a snake bite, and rather than die in vain
(which is what he fears throughout this scene), he gives the memory to
Harry (along with the memories that will allow Harry at last to
understand him) before he makes his last request for Harry to look at him.

Jack_A-Roe: 
> So we are left with a man who's obsessive love for a women, drove
him to try to make up for the fact that he got her killed. 
> 
> Did he ever care about Harry? No, he tells us this by showing his
doe patronus when DD asked him. 

Carol:
I read that scene differently. He has made DD promise never to tell
Harry that he's protecting him. He wants Harry at the last to look
into his eyes, not only to see Lily but so that Harry could at last
see him for what he was. he didn't have to provide those other
memories, only the one about the soul bit. but he wanted Harry to know
that it was his Patronus that had led him to the Sword of Gryffindor;
that he had been Dumbledore's man since Dumbledore gave him that
second chance, even when DD didn't fully appreciate him. By the time
of his arrest as a DE, Dumbledore values him enought to say before the
whole Wizengamot that "Severus Snape is now no more a Death Eater than
I am" (GoF 
> 
Jack_A-Roe:
> Did he end up helping the light side? Yes. Not because he saw the 
errors of his ways but because he was trying to make it up to Lilly.
> 
> And since results do matter, I will say that he redeemed himself 
somewhat. But he was still a poor human being who only truly cared 
about himself and Lilly.
> 
> And no I would not have named my child after him.

Carol responds:
JKR apparently sees it differently. The virtue she values most is
courage, and there can be no question that Snape had that virtue in
spades. And the whole book revolves around love. Why does Molly kill
Bellatrix? Because she loves her children. Why does Narcissa betray
Voldemort (less openly than Snape but still in the end betray him)?
Love of her son. Why does Lily die? Love of her son. Why does Ron
return to help Harry with the Horcrux quest and fight the final
battle? Love for his friend the Chosen One and the Muggleborn girl he
loves. Tonks fights for Lupin (and, I'd like to think Teddy and her
dead father). Hagrid fights for Dumbledore (and maybe Grawp).

Does anyone besides Dumbledore join the good side for any reason other
than love of friends and family or the WW itself? What other reason is
there to fight, really?

Would it have been more admirable for Snape to lie and spy and risk
his life and ultimately kill his own mentor at that mentor's request
for some other motive than love? Would the life debt to Jaemse have
been a better reason? I think not.

You forgot his infiltration of the DEs and carrying out DD's orders in
DH, not to mention the Sword of Gryffindor and protecting the students
of Hogwarts from the Carrows as best he could without giving himself
away. Detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest? How terrible!
Reinstituting Umbridge's decrees knowing that the students would rebel
and disobey them? Reverse psychology and deep cover. Not going after
the students in their hideaway, where they were protected by Hagrid? I
wonder why not.

And his last act, in the face of a terrible death, makes possible
Harry's intended self-sacrifice and enables him to save the WW.

Give the man a posthumous Order of Merlin.

Carol, who would gladly have named her son Severus but is not so sure
about Albus