Snape's dilemma (Was: Dumbledore as a judge of character)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166071

Carol earlier:
> >
> > I think we agree that Harry's life is essential to the defeat of
Voldemort. *If* Snape saw the two brooms and correctly deduced that
Harry was on the tower in his Invisibility Cloak, and *if* he knew
from an exchanged glance with Dumbledore that killing Dumbledore
himself (rather than letting the DEs do it) was the *only* way to get
Harry (and Draco) safely off the tower (and the DEs out of Hogwarts),
how could Snape's action not be the right thing to do?
>
Dana responded:
> *If* Snape was thinking of Draco and DD when he ran from his office
to the tower, if he indeed did not know Harry was there, then he
should have allowed members of the Order to follow him. But he did
not, he made sure that no one could offer any assistance and thus
making a decision based on his previous actions, taking out Flitwich
and asking Hermione and Luna to take care of him and not allowing
anyone to follow him, he specifically *choose* to endanger Draco,
Harry and DD. This does not make his decision to take out DD, to
rescue them, more noble because he had options *before* he reached the
tower.
>

Carol again:
Forgive me, but you're deliberately avoiding the question. His reasons
for not "allowing" Order members to follow him are irrelevant as they
could not have gone through the barrier. (Lupin tried, remember?)
Moreover, Snape could not possibly have anticipated the circumstances
on the tower--a weakened, wandless Dumbledore whom he could not try to
save without being killed by the vow or the Death Eaters and Harry
hiding beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

We don't know what Snape intended, or hoped, to do when he got to the
tower because what he expected to find and what he actually found are
different.

Also, and this is the key point, I am not considering Snape's motives
here. I am posing a moral dilemma that only DDM!Snape would face,
assuming that he figured out from the brooms that Harry was under the
Invisibility Cloak. (ESE!Snape would have let Harry rush out from the
Invisibility!Cloak to be killed by the Death Eaters--or killed him
himself, or taken him to Voldemort. OFH!Snape would probably have let
the DEs kill him, thinking that with Dumbledore dead, Voldemort had won.)

But DDM!Snape faces a moral dilemma. He not only has a duty and a
moral obligation to protect Draco, which he cannot fulfill if he's
killed by the vow (or the DEs), he has an obligation to protect Harry.
If Harry dies, the WW is lost. And if Snape dies, there will be no one
to get the Death Eaters off the tower (a feat that Snape accomplishes
by sending DD's body over the ramparts and giving them no reason to
stay). If someone other than Snape kills Dumbledore, Harry will rush
out and be killed or captured. Snape, assuming that he isn't killed by
the vow for failing to "do the deed," can't protect Harry because
he'll be revealed as an enemy of the Death Eaters and killed by them,
leaving the boys with no protection. His only options are to kill the
dying Dumbledore himself, which enables him to save the boys, or die
and take the boys with him (or allow the DEs to capture them, which
amounts to the same thing.

Now I realize that there may be holes in this scenario, but suppose,
for the sake of the moral dilemma I'm presenting, that there aren't.
Suppose that this is really the position in which DDM!Snape finds
himself. That being the case, should he choose to murder the one man
who has trusted him because there is no other way to save the boys, or
should he choose to die "nobly" and "heroically" (actually futilely),
leaving the boys to the nonexistent mercies of the Death Eaters? 

If Draco dies, Snape has failed in his duty, failed as a friend and
protector. If Harry dies, the WW has no one to protect it from
Voldemort. (DDM!Snape knows the first half of the Prophecy. He knows
that Harry is the Chosen One. And he's been protecting Harry all this
time. Why stop now?)

I understand that Sherry can't get her head around this proposition
because to her, murder is never justified. But I can't get my head
around the opposite, that it would be right for Snape to let Harry (or
Draco) die. That, I'm sure, is why Dumbledore is pleading--not for his
life, or for Snape's, but for the boys and especially for Harry. He's
saying, IMO, that unless Snape kills him and fulfills the vow, there
will be no one to protect them and they will die. So Snape, furiously
and against his will, commits murder to save a boy he hates so that
boy can save the WW. It's an act not of cowardice but of courage.

But nobility aside, *if* Snape knew that Harry was there and was
acting to save him as well as Draco, surely that was the right choice.

Carol earlier:
> > Wouldn't *saving Harry's life* justify what would otherwise be
unjustifiable?
> <snip>
>
> Dana:
> No, because Harry's presence was unknown to the DEs and therefore
his life was not in immediate danger because only if DD died, was
Harry free to move, not before. He could have re-armed DD, who I am
sure even in a weakened state could take them on with ease, especially
with Snape's help (were it not for that pesky UV).

Carol again:
Yes--"were it not for that peksy UV," which makes rearming DD not an
option. If Snape does any such thing, he will die. So kindly look at
the circumstances as they are. The only reason that Harry's presence
remains unknown to the DEs is that Snape gets them off the tower
before Harry unfreezes, in time for Harry to hit one of them in the
back, but not in time for him to fight them.

And Draco is also in grave danger. Even if the DEs haven't been
ordered to kill him if he fails, Voldemort has promised to do so, and
only Snape has a chance of talking him out of it. (Snape does, at
least, get Draco safely off the grounds, the necessary first step to
saving his life.)

So, for the purposes of this post, the question is, which is the right
choice, to commit murder and save Harry, keeping hope alive for the
WW, or to keep his soul intact and die along with Dumbledore and the boys?

I cannot for the life of me see letting Harry and Draco (especially
Harry) die as the right choice, nor do I think that Dumbledore would
see it that way.

BTW, not all DDM!Snape theories require a manipulative Dumbledore, and
I am not positing a manipulative Dumbledore here, only a Dumbledore
who knows that Snape and only Snape must kill him because only Snape
can save the boys and get the DEs out of Hogwarts.

Carol, still posing her ethical dilemma and not interested *for the
purposes of this post* in what might have been if Snape hadn't taken
the UV or in anything that happened before he discovered the situation
on the tower