Snape and Malfoy (Narcissa)/Why we'll get no further revelelations that Snap

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169775

> Neri:
It answers in a
> simple way at least two Snape mysteries that no other theory I 
know of
> can explain in less than several paragraphs of energetic hand 
waving.
> The first mystery is of course why did Snape make the Unbreakable 
Vow.
> The second is why did Draco turn against Snape and Narcissa in HBP.
> Note that the second mystery is what I term an "official mystery",
> that is, Harry explicitly wonders about it in HBP. 

Magpie:
Harry wonders about it, but I don't think it's the official mystery 
you're making it out to be for us. Draco doesn't turn against Snape 
or Narcissa--even Harry doesn't think so. He wonders about Draco 
speaking to Snape in the way he does, but also thinks they're 
working together. Draco's trying to do the job himself and resents 
all attempts to keep him in the child role via protecting him or 
anything else. Draco is changing his feelings radically about what 
Snape represents and what he means to him, and I think you lose that 
if it becomes about something outside himself like an affair between 
Snape and Narcissa. The bonds between Draco, Snape and Narcissa seem 
stronger than ever in HBP because it's a time of crisis. 

Neri:
In fact it is the
> first thing he asks himself while overhearing the talk between 
Snape
> and Draco before Christmas:
> 
> *****************************************************************
> HBP Ch. 15:
> 
> Harry pressed his ear still more closely against the keyhole. . . .
> What had happened to make Malfoy speak to Snape like this — Snape,
> toward whom he had always shown respect, even liking?
> ******************************************************************
> 
> Until the end of HBP we don't get an answer to this question.
 Instead
> the question becomes even more pressing, since Draco still resents
> Snape and doesn't share his plan with him even after Snape saves 
his
> life in the bathroom, with the critical results on the tower.
> Therefore I believe we require an answer to this question too in 
DH. A
> simple answer would be that Draco got some of the vibrations 
between
> Snape and Narcissa and suspected that they had plotted together
> against his father. Need I remind you that JKR has mentioned 
Hamlet as
> a favorite reading?

Magpie:
Err...but we did get an answer to the question. We even got Draco's 
own version of the answer, that Snape was trying to steal his glory. 
Why should Draco share his plan with Snape just because Snape saved 
him? Draco's trying to be the man here and that means he has to do 
the task that he's been given. He certainly can't go to Snape with 
the fact that he's realizing he's not a killer when Snape is, he 
thinks, a killer himself who can't be allowed to see his weakness. I 
think Draco has enough Hamlet going on in HBP without having to 
introduce a complicated Oedipal love triangle. We even have Draco 
blaming Harry (not Snape or Narcissa) for Lucius' imprisonment. And 
where Draco is certainly challenging father-figure Snape in the book 
and lashing out as him (which is imo normal) he's certainly not 
angry at Narcissa that we ever see. He's becoming paranoid that 
Snape does not have his own best interests at heart. It's imo about 
Draco himself and their relationship. Everything seems based on 
around Lucius leaving so Draco has to step up into his place, not 
that Draco has to punish people for betraying Lucius.

Jen:
What happened to Snape? We don't know much at all about his life at
the tail end of Hogwarts and up to the point he took the prophecy to
Voldemort. What we do know is that some 20 years later the Marauders
are still very much a part of his life, a resentment and hatred he
nurses. Was Sirius thinking about Snape while in Azkaban or when he
took off to find Peter? Nope, not a word about that. In fact, he's
completely surprised when Lupin talks about him in the Shrieking
Shack and then refers to him rather distantly in GOF as someone he
wasn't sure what happened to after Hogwarts. Was James spending time
thinking about what Snape did to him when there was a threat against
his family? Very doubtful.

Magpie:
True, but there again I think we undercut what we have if it turns 
out it was always Snape driving his own hate. What makes it 
compelling and understandable for me so far--and for Harry too, a 
little--is that it's not just Snape being a mean, vindictive person 
and hurting himself with his own hate. He *is* doing that, but his 
hatred is also something Harry can understand, because Harry, too, 
feels hatred. Not because he constantly hates people for no reason, 
but because he feels frustrated and rejected and put upon. That's 
why when he watched the Pensieve sequence he couldn't make himself 
automatically jump into James' pov. He saw an "innocent" (which he 
doesn't usually think of Snape as) being harassed. I think it's very 
important that Snape's accusations against James are real.

The Prank seems to have hit that idea as well. It's understandable 
how Snape feels, both to have been saved by a person he never wanted 
to owe anything to, and under those circumstances. If Snape was 
actually trying to kill Lupin there...I just don't see how it works. 
If he turned the would-be Prank into a murder attempt it wouldn't be 
a humiliating memory for him in the way it is. And if he was going 
in to kill a werewolf, why would he have felt he was in danger? He 
wouldn't have decided that afterwards when he was in denial.

Now, what could have happened in that case (though we've still been 
given no story other than that Snape didn't know Lupin was a 
werewolf at the time) is that Snape went in to kill Lupin, then 
froze, then James dragged him out. But that, to me, just sounds far 
too convenient with Snape being placed in a way to absolve the 
Marauders even though they didn't know it. Sure it shouldn't make a 
difference since they didn't know that Snape knew...but it does. 

Jen:
So far Snape's claims about his own innocence and the Marauders'
guilt haven't made a dent in Harry's hatred. Harry paused to worry
about his own father after the Pensieve scene but was reassured when
he learned from Sirius and Lupin that yes, life marched on and James
moved with it. 

Magpie:
Actually, I disagree. They have made a dent. Harry's pausing to 
worry and try to rationalize what he saw in the Pensieve was 
important--it was the only time he's ever done that for Snape. Every 
doubt Harry has about the Marauders inspires him to be a different 
man himself. I think the little dents, those moments where Harry has 
twinges of feeling something he doesn't want to feel, whether it's 
sympathy for Snape or conscience about Malfoy, are the only hints 
we've got to go on for where personal Harry-revelations might be 
lurking.

Jen:
So what about Snape's continued victim status is
going to move Harry? I see that it might be time for Harry to learn
what intense hatred can do to a person, how it can fuel actions and
override judgement to the point that a life can be taken over and
become very small. Isn't that what Harry is trying to move past? To
realize he must forgive and move on, the very thing Snape never
did? 

Magpie:
But Snape's victim status is something Harry's always fought 
against. It's a sore spot for him. He doesn't like seeing Snape as a 
victim, and when he can he puts it out of his mind. Now, just as 
wynnleaf said that Snape being evil isn't anything new...well, 
neither is Snape being a victim. Harry's heard and been shown more 
than once how Snape was treated by MWPP: he saw the map insulting 
him in PoA, heard Snape's story of the Prank and the life-saving 
revision of the Prank, saw the scene in the Pensieve. He actually 
liked Snape in the form of the HBP and, unwittingly identified with 
him, used Sectumsempra assuming "enemies" meant Harry's own enemies 
when, ironically, the exact opposite was true--so that the HBP 
himself had to run in and save "his" side.

So to me it seems like what we're not going to get either way is a 
total revision of Snape. We can't, because we've already been given 
two versions that are different. We've seen Snape as a vindictive 
bully. We've seen him as a victim. What Harry's been unable to do is 
*reconcile* the two, and that, I think, is what he's going to get in 
DH.

He doesn't need a story about how Snape was really always evil--I 
don't think that will teach him about the danger of hatred, because 
that makes Snape comfortably "the other" as the would-be murderer of 
Lupin all along. That's what happens to evil people when they become 
consumed with hate. Nor, imo, does he need a story of how Snape was 
picked on--that makes him "the other" too. Harry doesn't like 
identifying with that person. That's Neville or Luna, and while 
Harry likes and would protect them, he doesn't identify with them if 
he can help it.

The Snape with whom Harry *does* identify happily is the HBP, the 
kid who's funny and snarky and rebellious and maybe a little 
arrogant. That's the guy I think he needs to reconcile with real 
Snape and through whom he'll gain understanding about both of them. 
That's the guy that showed Harry could go down the same path, after 
all, when he reached for the Prince's wish-fulfillment spell "for 
enemies" and wound up doing something he didn't mean to do. "Such 
Dark Magic, Potter!" 

I do agree that Harry needs to see something that he doesn't want to 
turn into himself, but I think that means getting away from Snape 
doing evil things in school or being victimized in school. That's 
the backstory, I think--interesting, isn't it, that Harry gets all 
that before he "meets" Snape at his own age, finally, in his sixth 
year? Any revelations about Snape being victimized by MWPP or doing 
bad things to them are at this point, imo, pointless because nothing 
will top the Pensieve or Snape being the eavesdropper for examples 
of sheer bad acts on both sides. I think the revelations now need to 
be a bit more about Snape the person independent of his hating or 
being hated by the Marauders. The Prank can still come into it, but 
I think it has to be more about who this boy *was* that they were 
Pranking, or other things in his life, instead of just whether he 
was really not being Pranked or not since as I've said, I don't 
think that either overturns or sheds light on anything.

-m