[HPforGrownups] Re: Clues to Snape's Loyalties

[Kathryn Lambert]

No: HPFGUIDX 170758

justcarol67 <justcarol67 at yahoo.com> wrote:          Kathryn Lambert wrote:
>
> Okay, so I was re-reading SS/PS last night, and something dawned on me. 
> 
> Whenever Harry overhears a conversation between two people,
especially out of doors, he always jumps to a conclusion, and it's
always the wrong one. 
> 
> In SS/PS, he assumes Snape is bullying/controlling Quirrell, when
it's really Snape trying to protect the stone and Harry.
> 
> I can't think of the specific instances in CoS when it happens,
though I am about to re-read that one, so I can double check. 
> 
> In Azkaban, he definitely misunderstands the conversation between
Lupin and Sirius.
> 
> In Goblet, he hears Krum, and misinterprets. 
> 
> And in HBP, he hears Dumbledore and Snape.
> 
> It seems to be a pattern of hearing two people in a secret
conversation, and immediately jumping to the entirely wrong
conclusion. So, if JKR sticks to her pattern, then Harry HAS to be
wrong about Snape. He HAS to be misinterpreting Snape's motives.
Because, the conversation that Harry overhears is always the source of
his actions at the end of the book, and although his actions are
correct, his motivation is often mistaken. EXCEPT in HBP. In HPB,
Harry is RIGHT - or seemingly so. This obvious departure from the
pattern in the other books leads me to believing that it ISN'T a
departure, but a deliberate misdirection by JKR, one that will be
resolved in DH, when we discover that Snape is in fact DDM, and that
Harry, as usual, jumped to a mistaken conclusion. 
> 
> What do ya'll think? Katie

Carol responds:
Small correction: In HBP, he eavesdrops on part of Draco's and Snape's
conversation, not Snape's and DD's. He only hears about the argument
in the forest between DD and Snape through Hagrid, which makes it
incomplete and third-hand (and extra mysterious). Hagrid's
interpretation that Snape was overworked is pretty clearly inadequate
(however true it might be).

I can think of at least one additional example from SS/PS; he hears
Quirrell responding fearfully to Voldemort's threats and thinks that
it's Snape who's threatening him. And in OoP, when he listens to the
conversation between Arthur Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody (among others)
in the hospital wing, he interprets it as meaning that he's possessed. 

He also hears a number of conversations in which the speakers
themselves are misinformed, notably the teachers and fudge talking to
Rosemerta in the three Broomsticks in PoA, so Harry's
misinterpretation is not the only form of misdirection that JKR uses.
Nor is Harry the only one who interprets events and characters
wrongly. Both he and Hermione are wrong about the reason why Tonks has
lost her Metamorphmagus powers in HBP, for example. Misinterpretation
is a common motif in all the books.

I think you're right, and it's not just conversations in HBP that are
at stake here. It's what happened on the tower. Yes, Dumbledore is
really dead, and yes, Snape killed him (unless Pippin is right that
the spell was not a real AK and DD died from the poison or something
else), but there's that exchanged glance between two Legilimens, a
possible silent exchange of images and emotions which passed so
quickly that Harry only saw its consequence, the expression of
(self?)hatred and revulsion, and then, after "Severus, please" (also
misinterpreted?), Snape finally raises his wand and speaks the words,
resulting in a most unusual AK that sends DD over the wall and allows
him to die with closed eyes and a peaceful expression (in marked
contrast to Cedric Diggory and the Riddles). 

Assuming that Harry is wrong and DD was begging (not ordering) Snape
to kill him--for the Order, for Harry and Draco, for the WW--we have
at least two precedents for a widespread misunderstanding of events
involving murder or intent to murder. A large number of Muggles *saw*
Sirius Black "murder" twelve Muggles and Peter Pettigrew, and he was
sent to Azkaban on their testimony (and DD's that black was Secret
Keeper, which he "knew" to be "true"; in CoS, a large number of
Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins *saw and heard* Harry "egging
on" the conjured snake to attack the Muggle-born Justin
Finch-Fletchley and conclude that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin.
Ernie Macmillan, Justin's fellow Hufflepuff, stubbornly tells Harry
that he knows what he saw, but like the Muggle witnesses to the
Black-Pettigrew confrontation, what he and the other students think
they saw--with their own eyes in clear light--is wrong.

Carol, agreeing that what Harry saw and heard on the tower was in some
way misinterpreted and believing that, like Ernie Macmillan in CoS and
DD in PoA, he will learn the truth in DH

  Katie Responds:
  Wow - I hadn't even considered all the other instances of situations, not just conversations, being misinterpreted. There's a really strong precedent for many people, not just Harry, misinterpreting things and getting it all wrong. 
  Even more, I believe that the departure from precedent in HBP means that Snape is really DDM, and Harry is dead wrong about him. Furthermore, and I know this has been brought up before, but when Harry and Hermione disagree about something, Hermione is always right. And Hermione believes Snape is DDM, so I believe she will be right again.
  And I definitely agree that everything that happens on the tower points to DDM Snape. 
  Only a few more weeks until all the speculation ends! And we'll see who's right...I can't wait! Katie
  
 

Katie         

       
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