Why DD did not ask Snape to kill him. (extremely long)

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 165921

Okay I am going to rant a little bit on Snape and why I think DD did not ask Snape to kill him. After I post this I am going to hide under some rock to avoid the herd of Snape fans trying to run me over.

There are a few reasons why I do not believe that the scenario of DD asking Snape to kill him actually  fits with what is shown to us or why it isn't even logical (for me that is). Of course it is besides the fact that the majority of fans seem to hold this view while JKR specifically states it is not easily guessable what will happen in book 7 or she will be extremely annoyed. So she must either be really depressed that so many fans are now on to her or she is laughing her head off for pulling the wool so thoroughly over the heads of her fans for all of them to think they understand Snape. (And yes that could include me: I make no illusion I would be able to figure JKR out)

I have read many arguments about why people believe what happened on the tower was directed by DD and Snape was acting out his orders. Well, there are a few problems with the logic of these arguments for me to understand them as true. Instead I am going to argue that I think Snape indeed did kill DD because he got himself into this mess and there was no other way for him to get out of it; but for me, DD's orders had nothing to do with it. I even have another reason but will talk about that further down.

So why do I doubt DD asking Snape to kill him and why for instance the argument in the forest does not sound as proof to me that DD asked this of Snape? From a logical standpoint, Snape's reaction in the forest makes no sense if DD indeed asked him to kill him. Why? Because Snape by that time already believed LV expected him to do it and he committed

himself to an UV to do it if Draco failed. So why argue DD for it? If he doesn't, he dies - either by LV's hand, or due to the UV. So what does it matter if DD then asks him? Wouldn't it make Snape's job a little easier if DD agrees it is for the best?

Let see what would happen if Snape rejects DD's orders -->  well he dies; if not by the UV then by LV's hand, because it would make it very clear Snape's loyalties are not on his side. So what happens if Snape acts on DD's orders? Oh yes, he lives. Which he also would if he acts out the UV and acts on LV's orders (presumed orders). Mmmh, then why would Snape have a problem with DD if he asked him to do it? Or even argue about it? Did Snape have a death wish and he was planning to die if DD had not asked him to kill him and save his own life? So the lines of hate in Snape's face are there because Snape hates himself for not dying -- is that what all Snape fans want me to believe? Because hating himself only because DD

now expects Snape to kill him makes no sense to me if LV expects him to do it as well, or if he keels over for not doing it when the UV comes into effect. At least for me, there is no logic to it. Why not? Because all of them (DD/LV/UV) give him the same option. Do it or die. DD's orders are totally irrelevant to the outcome under these circumstances, unless I am to believe that Snape had rather died and had planned to do so. In that case of course he could hate himself for being so stupid to be left with so few options, but it doesn't sound logical to me that it would be only DD's request that would install this self-hatred in Snape. Unless of course Snape really did show hate for DD at that moment -- after all Snape does have a nasty tendency to blame everybody else for letting himself get into more than he can handle -- but more on that later.

Okay the second argument of many Snape fans is that Snape is doing this on DD's order to save Draco from becoming a murderer. This necessitates the question; DD's death is serving Draco how? The boy can't come back to school for his implications in attempted murder of Kathy, Ron (even if they were not the targets) and Dumbledore, Imperio Madam Rosemerta, and letting DE's into the castle.  He can be sent to Azkaban for his involvement in this if the MoM ever catches him, and oh my he is still at LV's mercy and with only Snape, who is now known as a murder, to vouch for him -- and this is helping Draco, how? And just because Harry showed him some pity doesn't mean Draco can now consider himself saved; maybe Harry can do something for him at the end of book 7 (if both of them life that long), but at this moment Draco is still in the same trouble, maybe even more than before DD's death. (so if this was DD plan than it seems like a really poor one) Let's hope LV will let the boy live now that he showed himself too weak for his cause and disobeyed a direct order even if Snape saved the day on assumed orders, because if LV did not mean for Snape to do it in the end as he suggested (by *thinking* it is what LV wants him to do) in the beginning of the book, then Snape himself has a lot of explaining to do, and it might not be enough to protect Draco at the same time. Maybe Draco will be given a second chance (because LV is in such a good mood now DD is gone), and LV will find someone else for him to kill. Let see if Snape is still bound to the UV this time and do it for Draco again and again and again


Well you get my drift -- or just let the kid get killed because he is done with it and has more important things to do. From this position it doesn't seem like the sun will be shining for Draco any time soon. So again I ask the question: how does this arrangement protect Draco? By the way, isn't it interesting that in the US version DD suggests something entirely different? Doesn't this suggest that if Snape and DD arranged this, then saving Draco was never part of it, why else suggest something different to the boy if all as been arranged in the first place? It doesn't make sense to me that DD would ever want Snape to kill him to deliver Draco back to LV; and besides, also like Neri has suggested before, don't you think it would raise an awful lot of questions if Snape would still walk this earth while Draco died, and thus failing his task, and of course DD is not dead either; but if Snape kills DD than Draco can't be hidden away so... This sounds to me that DD was either not aware of the UV or did not care much for Snape keeling over for breaking the vow. At least it doesn't seem like DD has the same plan as Snape fans say he does if he ordered to have Snape kill him because he is more valuable alive (and in LV's camp), because if Draco had taken the offer it would be bye bye Snape. Even if the UV would not be broken Snape would still have to face LV and you can bet your *ss that Bella would bring Snape's head on a silver platter for having her sister and her nephew killed (as no one will tell her about it, she is to loyal to LV and if to many people know then there is too much risk for this plan to fail), and not finishing the job and it would have been the end of the plan.  Doesn't sound really airtight to me this plan Snape fans are trying to sell me but than again I am not interested in a bridge either. (Sorry, could not resist promise will behave from now on)

Oh, but there is more of course, because Snape fans will say DD asked this of Snape because Snape is more important to Harry alive. How? So he can tell Harry what LV is going to do next? Or any of the members of the Order? Are they really going to listen to what he has to say? It was DD who trusted him, but he never explained to anyone why. I think it is a little too much to ask of anyone to still keep this in mind when the same person just killed the one who trusted him. By the way -- without the UV Snape could just go to LV and tell him he doesn't want to pretend he is working for DD anymore and that he wants to come out and be a proud DE.  This does not require a dead DD -- according to Spinner's End, LV already trusts Snape so he doesn't have to be convinced in this fashion, and Bella is essentially nobody, so why do anything that would risk the entire operation or a plan B for that matter and take an UV?  How again does this serve Harry or even Draco? If his only use to LV is being a spy, then with DD's death he will be no use to him either, so with that it makes no difference -- besides, we still have to wait and see if LV is as thrilled with Snape murdering DD as Snape thinks he will be because now he has no spy in the Order as well. So what is he going to make him do? Brew potions?

Or send him out to kill a few more annoying Order members? And this can serve Harry how? Wouldn't it be far more logical to assume that DD wanted Snape on the side of the Order to help Harry? Even if Harry himself did not want to talk to Snape, Snape could still pass information on to the Order, but this is no more. So we can only assume that the only way Snape is ever going to help Harry from LV's side is by physical action that will show Harry without reasonable doubt Snape is on his side. No one in his right mind will trust Snape by his word:

that's what DD did and he is dead; and if it was on his orders, he forgot to let anybody else in on this little secret. So I seriously doubt any of them will change their minds about Snape any time soon, and no, not even Lupin -- don't be ridiculus. Lupin might want to be liked, but Snape is not on his list of people he wants to be liked by.

So maybe it is me failing to see what use Snape will be to Harry, but at this moment I see none. I even think Snape will be a lot of trouble because Snape will have to do whatever LV asks of him because if he doesn't, his benefit to Harry is short lived. Besides, we already know that Snape doesn't want to help Harry if he can get out of it. Sure even Quirell tells us Snape doesn't want Harry dead, but is this for the same reason the Order want Harry alive? Or is that pesky lifedebt still at play?  Everybody keeps saying that Snape has tried over and over to save Harry's life, but the only real attempted that has registered with me is in book 1. No Snape involvement when it comes to saving Harry's life in book 2; motivated by revenge in book 3; and bringing everybody to the castle was not a necessity to save lives persé -- he even might have done it to get rid of Sirius as fast as he could, so no points for Snape there. No life saving in book 4: DD could have managed fake!moody alone fine. By the time he sent the Order, Harry could have been dead for all he knew, so no points for saving Harry's life either in book 5; and nobody knew he was there on the tower even if Snape had noticed the second broom.  The death eaters didn't know and if Snape had allowed the Order members to follow him onto the tower, they could have taken all the death eaters, so no points for saving Harry's life in book 6. Mhh over and over right? And beside when did Snape ever put his own life on the line for Harry? He certainly did not go to the MoM himself to make sure Harry was okay; he was the only one who knew and still found his cover more important and we are told he was ordered by LV to stay behind meaning he was privy to LV's plans, even before Harry's adventure to the DoM.  He could have warned to MoM so the DE's would have been surprised by a dozen aurors instead of a couple of teenagers. For g*d sake, they were running around the MoM building: how hard would it have been for an auror to run into them without any risk to Snape's cover?

Many argue that Snape did not hurt Harry on the way out at the end of book 6, but apparently they forgot Snape was run over by a Hippogriff. Snape's so-called hurt expressed in that moment seem to me his hatred for Harry is coming to a climax when Harry called him a coward -- not because Snape just had done a brave thing, but because the whole Harry/ James issue has prevented Snape to live the life he wanted as he is still controlled by a Potter brat in his adult life, and that must really hurt.

So what do I think DD asked of Snape in the argument in the forest? Well, I believe DD asked Snape to stop his spying days and help Harry in his task to defeat LV. This would be too much to ask of Snape now that LV trusts him, because if he now renounced LV, he will move up on the "to do list" of things LV needs to dispose of. This would be something I can see Snape arguing about with DD, and what DD would order Snape to do. Personally, I believe DD's biggest mistake about trusting Snape is sending Snape back to LV in GoF. I believe

Snape indeed turned in his loyalty and the reason for this is not because he is LV's man, but because he lost faith in DD. And I believe Snape's hate for James, Sirius and, eventually, Harry, is the cause of this. I believe Snape has grown to see DD as a substitute father and until Harry showed up everything was fine, and Snape was a happy camper getting the respect (or forcing it) from all who surrounded him, including DD: but then Harry shows up and in his first year he steals Snape's glory when he tries to expose Quirell, so DD's eyes are on Harry and not on Snape, and this must have brought back so many memories, for it was James who stole his glory when he himself was a student.

Then in CoS, Snape again tries to prove to DD what an incompetent jerk Lockhart is by trying to expose him for what he is, and again it is Harry who ends up running the show. Then in the third year, the old wounds are really ripped open because not only does DD give the DADA job to Lupin of all people, the one he would have been killed by if it weren't for James -- he tries to warn DD all year about him helping his friend Black, and when he finally faces the inner demon himself, DD helps him escape proving to him once again that Snape has to take a back seat to all of them, just like the time he is sworn to secrecy while all four got away, and James even got rewarded a year later with the headboy badge. Then in GoF, Fake!Moody puts the final nail in the coffin by announcing that DD doesn't really trust him, as he gave him permission to search his office and this while Snape has been trying to warn DD all year his mark is getting darker as the pensieve memory shows, and how does DD react?   That he already knew, even if he wasn't told. So, when in the hospital wing Snape is again confronted with Sirius Black, I believe Snape lost all faith in DD, and I really believe that sending Snape to LV was DD's biggest mistake, because it meant losing control over him entirely. Snape's hatred for DD has been building over these 4 years, and I believe that OotP was the climax where Snape lost the intention to be on the right side; and I believe it did not go unnoticed. I even believe that DD noticed the delay in time it took Snape to send the Order to the DoM, and it might even have caused DD to decide to finally give Snape the DADA position because he knew he had already lost him. Slughorn's memory of LV asking about the Horcruxes does not require him to be a teacher, even if it did make it easier. DD did not even needed Harry to retrieve it if push came to shove. I believe it was convenient for DD to make Harry do it because it would keep him preoccupied and out of Draco's way. Snape's attempts in all the books to get Harry expelled, I believe, are sincere, because I believe the fight between Snape and Harry are about sibling rivalry: to get a father's attention even if Harry is not playing the same game. Snape has been trying to prove to DD he is loyal to him by keeping Lupin's problem a secret, even at the cost of his own pain: he then returns after a short stroll as DE and spies for DD, which I believe was real even if LV suggested it, because it just provided a chance for Snape to get out, and then he works for DD for 10 years without causing problems, and in all his attempts to warn DD about the people he is hiring, and again turning spy for him, DD still makes him second to Harry/ James. When Snape felt he could never win DD's attention, he also lost his loyalty to DD and thus the side of light, and he made the same decision he made when he was a young man: that the Dark Side had more to offer. Only problem is, Snape still has the lifedebt and it will come into play in book 7, and there we will see that Sirius' little joke will save both Snape and Harry.  Because it will force Snape out of LV's camp, and Harry's side will be the only one left, and Snape will take it.

For those who might wonder why DD did not mention to Harry that Snape might have turned, and also why DD would never ask Snape to kill him in front of Harry, is because he knows what hate can do to you, that it can consume you and that it will drive all love out of you if you let it control you. Snape would not have died, not by UV or at the hands of LV, if he let DD die on his own accord (if he was really dying from the potion from the cave), so if Snape by legillimency saw DD was dying he could have stalled to let DD die because you cannot kill someone that is already dead, and the vow to do the task Draco was ordered to do would nullify at that same moment. Harry would not have hated Snape even more and Snape could still cross over to LV if that was really what DD wanted of him, and also order out the DE because DD's death was the end of the mission, end of story. So it is very improbable that DD died seconds before Snape AKed him and Snape still going through with it. Snape killed DD because he hated DD for not choosing him, not even when he spied for him at great personal risk. He still chose Harry, and thus James' and Sirius' side.

Okay I'll stop now, and if you made it to here, thank you for your patience with this extremely long rant.

Dana