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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166135

Carol earlier:
> > I don't see your logic here. Snape was spying "at great personal
risk" before Godric's Hollow, as Dana admits ("Snape turned before
GH"). How, then, can Harry's story that Snape's remorse occurred
*after* the Potters' deaths not be inconsistent with the facts already
presented in canon?
> <snip>
> 
> Dana now:
> I did not base my assessment on how Harry interprets what DD said to
him. DD tells Harry that Snape regretted the way LV interpreted the
prophecy and that he knew the people it involved and if he indeed did
then he must be sorry they are dead too right? Harry is
oversimplifying but he is not wrong.
> 
> I see no contradiction in what DD said and what he thought was
Snape's reason to turn.
> 
Carol again:
Nor do I. I was disagreeing with Alla's interpretation of your post,
not with your points, which I stated that I essentially agree with. (I
do think that the life debt was Snape's *primary* motive for wanting
to save the Potters, and I agree with you that he resented James
Potter's "arrogance" in trusting Sirius Black over Dumbledore.) But
the idea that Snape wanted Harry dead is simply not supported by
canon. So I'm not sure why you're arguing with me here. It was Alla
who brought in Harry. I didn't.

Carol earlier:
> > As Dana points out in the post you [Alla] quoted, Snape first
spies, then becomes a teacher, then, two months into his teaching
career, the Potters are killed. Harry's version omits the spying
career and the two months of teaching and jumps immediately to
Godrics' Hollow. It transforms "how Voldemort interpreted the
Prophecy" (which Snape  apparently reported to DD before he began
spying) into "Voldemort killed the Potters."
> 
Dana:
> Where is it canon that he spied first and then took up the job? He
couldn't have spied without the job because defecting was no option,
he needed to hide behind LV's orders to go to DD and be a spy for him,
otherwise he would have been considered a traitor.
<snip>
> 
> So if I missed anything and this is not the scene you are referring
> to, please point it out to me. I never got the impression Snape was
> already spying for DD before he started working at Hogwarts.
<snip>

Carol:
He couldn't have spied *on Dumbledore* (as he's ostensibly doing for
Voldemort) without the job, true. But I'm talking about spying *on
Voldemort* "at great personal risk," which he can hardly do while he's
at Hogwarts. The spying has to precede the teaching.

Here's the canon, which you appear to have missed:

"Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side
*before Voldemort's downfall* and turned spy *for us*, at great
personal risk. He is now now more a Death Eater than I am" (GoF Am.
ed. 591).

Here's the timeline as I see it:

Snape overhears the Prophecy sometime before Harry's birth and reveals
it to Voldemort. The weather indicates that it's either fall, winter,
or spring. Trelawney's "almost sixteen years" suggests the fall before
Harry's birth.

Snape learns how Voldemort interprets the Prophecy and goes to
Dumbledore. Obviously, Harry (and Neville) must have been born at this
point or Snape could not know the people involved (according to LV's
interpretation).

Snape begins spying on Voldemort "at great personal risk." Logically,
he would do so immediately after going to Dumbledore, and logically,
he must do so before he begins teaching at Hogwarts.

Snape applies for the DADA post and receives the Potions position
instead. He would begin teaching on September 1, the usual start of
term. At this point, he is ostensibly spying *on Dumbledore* for
Voldemort, which means that he would spend most if not all of his time
at Hogwarts, as his teaching duties would also require. Spying on
Voldemort "at great personal risk" is no longer either possible or
necessary.

The Potters are killed at Godric's Hollow on October 31, two months
after Snape begins teaching at Hogwarts.

The spying "at great personal risk" unquestionably precedes the deaths
of the Potters, as does young Snape's remorse and defection. I'm quite
sure that their deaths *increased* his remorse, but they did not
initiate it. That, says Dumbledore, was caused by his realizing how
Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy.

Harry's version of Snape's defection is simply wrong. He is
telescoping events to fit with his view of Snape as evil and ignoring
what he already knows from the Pensieve scene in GoF.

Carol, who again is not arguing with Dana's earlier post but with
Alla's deduction from it and who hopes that Dana isn't injuring
herself by jumping on and off of chairs

Carol