Did Snape see Regulus Wa: Readng the Runes: Literary Patterns in the Potterverse

[Unspeakable]

No: HPFGUIDX 166944


Carol responds:
My apologies for snipping almost the whole of this interesting and
thought-provoking post. May I suggest that you present some of your
ideas individually, which would make it less of a burden on your
fellow posters to think about and respond to them? I wish I had time
to go back and examine the structure of the individual books and
follow up on these parallels.

Cassy adds:
*blushes* No need to apologise and thanks for replying. I hope to
post some of the ideas individually when I have time - just thought
it might be a change to work on a slightly different scale (I'm awed
by the minutiae of these discussions but it can be rather
exhausting!) and sometimes patterns work best from a distance (hence
the overview). Of course, if you feel like coming back sometime....!

Carol responds:
As it is, I'm confining my comments to portions of the paragraph on
Snape.

Cassy adds:
Snape has an able and gallant defender. :-)

Cassy writes:
I've noticed that Snape often turns out to be that
mysterious 'someone' in the Potterverse. Someone alerted Lily &
James so they could go into hiding ('Dumbledore 
 had a number of
useful spies. One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James and
Lily at once.' POA10), there is strong evidence that this could be
the reason Dumbledore trusted Snape ('You have no idea of the
remorse Professor Snape felt when he realized how Lord Voldemort had
interpreted the Prophecy. I believe it to be the greatest regret of
his life and the reason that he returned –' (HBP25); 'someone'
originally betrayed the Prophecy to Voldemort ('My – our – one
stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a
short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building.' OOtP37),
we learned that this *was* Snape in HBP25; unfortunately, 'someone'
also murdered Regulus Black ('No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or
on Voldemort's orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever
important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person.' OotP6). On
this basis, I think there is a good chance that Snape might have
performed the murder, under duress; after all, JKR has hinted that
as a Death Eater, he would have seen and done some terrible things 


Carol responds:
However, I disagree with your deduction that young Snape, himself
only twenty or so at the time, would have been assigned to murder
Regulus. Surely, that job would go to a cold-hearted killer like
Dolohov, who murdered the Prewetts, or Travers (there's an Azkaban
escapee we haven't seen yet!), who murdered the McKinnons.

Cassy adds:
Interesting ... however I don't necessarily agree. At the tender age
of 16, Draco Malfoy was assigned an important role in the plot
against Dumbledore, supposedly in vengeance for his father's
mistake. It might be that Voldemort was always intending for Snape
to perform the actual murder; however, the fact remains that Draco
was given the task. On this principle, I submit that the young Snape
might have been ordered to kill Regulus Black (possibly, though not
necessarily, in front of witnesses?) as a test of Snape's loyalties.
(You and I both seem to believe that Snape and Regulus were friends at
Hogwarts - perhaps Voldemort suspected as much, or indeed, suspected
Snape of 'turning' Regulus or deliberately recruiting a traitor.)
Dolohov, like Greyback in HBP, could have been waiting in the wings, in
case
Snape's nerve failed.

Carol responds:
The idea that Snape has actually committed murder before he AKs
Dumbledore is inconsistent with Bellatrix's sneering remark that he
consistently "slithers out of action" and with his own mental
anguish (if we DDM!Snapers are correct in our interpretation) as he
looks into Dumbledore's eyes before he raises his wand and again
when Harry shouts, "Kill me like you killed him, you coward!"

Cassy adds:
I don't think we can accept Bellatrix as a reliable source on
anything to do with Snape. And I think Snape's mental anguish is
sufficently explained by his being forced to kill his one friend in
the world and then being taunted about it by Harry Potter: see
http://book7.co.uk/one/ <http://book7.co.uk/one/>

Furthermore, I think one of the reasons why Snape was ultimately
prepared to commit the murder entrusted to Draco Malfoy was to save
Draco from having to live Snape's life. And I do think that when
Snape returned to Dumbledore (with the information that Voldemort
was after the Potters) he was already a murderer. Indeed, though I
desperately want to see Snape redeemed in DH, it would be something
of a cop-out IMHO if he was not revealed to have done terrible
things as a member of Voldemort's followers (as opposed to 'betrayal
in the abstract. JKR needs to show that it is possible to come back
from the Dark.

In any case, I remember my history teacher explaining that dictators
often force all their followers to get their hands dirty as a way of
ensuring loyalty through shared guilt and on this basis I think we
can assume that all the Death Eaters will have killed. (Wormtail
murdered Cedric Diggory on Voldemort's instrction.) The very name
sounds like a killers' club, IMHO.

Carol responds:
Nor does JKR say in the interview you mention that Snape has "seen
*and done* some terrible things" as a Death Eater. http://www.accio-
<http://www.accio-/>
quote.org/articles/2004/0804-ebf.htm

Cassy adds:
I stand corrected re. the wording (and have amended my site with due
acknowledgement to you): http://book7.co.uk/runes/
<http://book7.co.uk/runes/>

Carol responds:
It's very likely that Severus knew Regulus at Hogwarts. They were
only two years apart (Regulus was born in 1961, according to the
Black Family Tree at the Lexicon, and Severus was probably born in
January 1959--yes, I'm aware of the available evidence and the
reasons for disputing that year of birth) and in the same house.
Quite possibly, Regulus, who presumably did not get along with his
brother, Sirius, would have been friends of some sort with Sirius's
enemy, especially given Severus's talents with invented spells and
so forth. It seems likely to me that their relationship (Sevvy's and
Reggie's) was similar to that of Cedric and Harry, the two Hogwarts TWT
champions, who were several years apart but on friendly terms most of
the time, only somewhat closer (like Harry and the Weasley Twins)
because they
were in the same house and less competitive.

Cassy adds:
Interesting - and encouraging - that so many of us believe in a
Regulus/Snape connection - we must be onto something! :-) I agree
with most of what you say here; however, I see the Regulus/Snape
friendship as somewhat darker than Harry/Cedric. See discussion:
http://book7.co.uk/seven/ <http://book7.co.uk/seven/>

Regulus, separated from his defiantly rebellious and contemptuous
older brother, would have joined his much older cousins, Bellatrix
and Narcissa, in Slytherin and was probably under their sway from
his first day at school. Snape too, according to Sirius, was a
younger member of the gang dominated by Bellatrix Black and her
future husband Rodolphus Lestrange and he was two years older than
Regulus. Given the bad blood between Sirius and Snape, one has to
wonder how Regulus fitted into that equation. Did Snape set out to
take Regulus under his wing, in order to spite his hated enemy,
Sirius Black? Might this have been one reason for the life-
threatening prank that Sirius pulled on Snape at the end of their
fifth year? Was it Snape who recruited Regulus as a Death Eater, as
an act of revenge on the Marauders?

More than that, there are a number of outstanding mysteries
that might connect Snape and Regulus. Why did Snape defect? Why did
Voldemort suspect Regulus of trying to defect? Why didn't Regulus go to
his brother with the stolen Horcrux? Is it possible that Regulus was set
up to
believe Sirius a spy and that Snape was sent after him as a test of
Snape's loyalties? (Interestingly, Snape seems to have been the only
one to suspect Sirius of being a spy *prior* to the events of
Godric's Hollow.) It is possible that Snape, backed into a corner,
was ordered to murder Regulus at the very time he was planning to
defect himself (i.e. near to the time of Harry's birth when Snape found
out how Voldemort had interpreted the Prophecy).

What I want to know is what happened when Severus caught up with
Regulus? Was Regulus weakened, or already dying, having swallowed
the potion in the cave? Might Snape, desperate for information to
help Lily, have attempted to interrogate him using Legilimency – or
worse? Did Snape force Regulus to reveal, for instance, that
Voldemort had made a Horcrux, which he (Regulus) had stolen? For
Snape, it seems, does know about Horcruxes. (It was he who saved
Dumbledore's life after he sustained an injury from the ring Horcrux
and whom Dumbledore asked to see after drinking the potion in the
cave.) And though `certain proof' only came from Riddle's diary,
Dumbledore seems to have believed from the very beginning of PS/SS
that Voldemort could not be dead. Perhaps Snape told him (when he
confessed to the murder).

In any case, I agree with you that Snape was traumatised by the
murder of Regulus Black. And I believe we will see the consequencies of
this in his fatal (?) attempt to protect Draco in Deathly Hallows:
http://book7.co.uk/fourteen <http://book7.co.uk/fourteen>


Cassy V., whose Snape is still riddled with regrets (but who will be
comforted by something that Dumbledore has told him concerning
Harry: http://book7.co.uk/nine/ <http://book7.co.uk/nine/> )



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