My current opinion of Snape (Longish) / Re: Clues to Snape's Loyalties

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170841

<snip canon>

> zgirnius: 
> And there goes the potion. On the other hand, Snape has had a good 
> long look at the potion, and knows what was done wrong. In other 
> words, he presumably has gone through the process he would go 
through 
> in marking a sample of the potion, were Harry to hand one in. 
Would 
> he give a zero anyway, so that is why he Vanished it? We don't 
know. 
> *Does* he actually give a zero? We also don't know, though a later 
> scene of the same type suggests he did, see below, this one is 
from 
> the day Dolores visits the Potions classroom.

Magpie:
Ah, I see. I had totally forgotten those scenes--though the details 
don't add up to what they were remembered as. Snape doesn't vanish 
Harry's Potion and give him a zero for not having it, he fails his 
Potion because he's done it incorrectly, and tells him why. There's 
nothing unfair in him zapping the Potion away in that context--he's 
already graded it. 

> zgirnius:
> (Note the 'again', suggesting Harry received no mark in the first 
> instance I cite). In this instance, the potion is in awful 
condition -
>  Harry was paying no attention to it, since he was watching the 
> interaction between Snape and Umbridge. But again, is Snape 
Vanishing 
> it because he wants to give Harry a zero even though he knows it 
> deserves a higher grade if it was handed in? Or is a zero what he 
> would surely give that potion, and so he is Vanishing it, in order 
to 
> do so in a public, embarassing way so everyone knows Harry got a 
zero?

Magpie:
I think the latter is correct. We've been told the Potion's a mess 
and Harry knows it. I don't see any reason to believe he'd get a 
higher grade if it was handed in in a bottle. The humiliation of 
Harry is no doubt a plus for Snape, though.  

The later scene is still something different. That's the only one 
where Harry does the Potion fine and gets a zero. In the other 
scenes he's just being a jerk, but doesn't seem to be grading him 
all that unfairly.

I guess that's what you can always count on with Snape--he'll always 
be able to find new and different ways to be a jerk.

-m