Did Snape see Regulus's Death? (Was: Reading the Runes . . . .)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166953

Carol earlier:
> <snip> As it is, I'm confining my comments to portions of the
paragraph on Snape.
> 
Cassy added:
> Snape has an able and gallant defender. :-)

Carol again:
Thank you very much.
> 
Carol earlier:
> 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 responded:
> 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. <snip>

Carol responds:
That's possible, of course, but there's a big difference. Draco,
unaware of any ulterior motive Voldemort may have had regarding
revenge against Lucius, was eager to serve and bent on revenge
himself. We can see his state of mind from the end of GoF onward:
first, excitement that Voldemort has come back and certainty that
Voldemort's side will win (and the Pure-bloods will triumph); then,
fury that his father has been imprisoned and determination to get
revenge; then pride that he's been selected to do a job that evidently
involves something more than killing Dumbledore (I remain convinced
that Voldemort was in on Draco's plan to fix the Vanishing Cabinet and
that he wanted his DEs to get into Hogwarts to make sure that Draco
did the job or died trying.) 

I don't think, however, that he would have assigned Severus to kill
Regulus for a variety of reasons, among them that, according to both
Snape and Bellatrix, killing using an AK requires will or desire to
kill. For the Cruciatus Curse, you have to want to cause pain. For the
AK, you don't necessarily need to hate the person and want them dead,
but you have to be willing to kill. As Snape tells Harry, "You don't
have the will or the nerve." If Regulus and Severus were friends, I
don't think Severus would have had either the will or the nerve. (He
may not have had them with DD, either, but that's a whole 'nother
discussion.)

Also, just as Dumbledore assigns Order members tasks that fit their
individual talents and lifestyles, Voldemort seems to have had
specialists in the Cruciatus Curse (Bellatrix et al.), people assigned
to commit murder (Dolohov, Travers, et al.), at least one Imperius
specialist (Mulciber), and spies like Rookwood. If you want to
threaten someone, send Fenrir Greyback. Give them the work that
they're good at. Someone like Lucius Malfoy can be trusted to perform
any of the curses, but if you assign Unforgiveable Curses to an
amateur unless there are special circumstances (as in Draco's case),
you end up with bungled Imperius Curses (note Herbert Chorley in HBP)
or Death Eaters killed by friendly fire. Voldemort has all the killers
and torturers he needs. Not one of the, so far as we know, is a gifted
potion-maker. Enter Severus Snape, who could easily have "slithered
out of action" by claiming that he had a crucial potion to tend.

Carol earlier:
> 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" <snip>
> 
Cassy responded:
> I don't think we can accept Bellatrix as a reliable source on
anything to do with Snape. <snip>

Carol again:
Oh, I think her doubts about Snape's loyalty to Voldemort (and his
sneering contempt for her) are very telling. She sesnse that his
loyalty doesn't match hers; she doesn't trust him. He seems to
persuade her in "Spinner's End" that he OFH! (or OTSDG, Out To Steal
Draco's Glory), but I think she previously suspected, with reason,
that he was Dumbledore's man. "The usual empty words, the usual
slithering out of action . . . oh, on the Dark Lord's orders, of
course!" (HBP Am. ed. 35) sounds as if Snape has been avoiding
participating in the Dark Lord's dirty work for a long time. (Of
course, since he began teaching at Hogwarts, his job, from LV's
perspective, would be to spy on Dumbledore. Before that, I suspect
that he was chiefly a potion maker. LV would need undetectable poisons
and other concoctions, and why make them himself if a gifted underling
could do it?) Te return to the point, I think we *can* trust Bellatrix
here. If she says that Snape "slithered out of action," a charge he
doesn't deny, I suspect it's true. 
> 
Cassy wrote:
> <snip> 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.

Carol responds:
Maybe. But just having joined the Death Eaters and sworn loyalty to
Voldemort is in itself a terrible thing, and to have had Severus
murder his own friend would take away from the thing he's supposed to
have felt remorse for, revealing the Prophecy to Voldemort and thereby
endangering the Potters. (Of course, the remorse would have increased
incrementally when they were actually killed, but it's the realization
of how LV interpreted the Prophecy, not what happened afterwards, that
caused his remorse.) I can see the death of Regulus being a trigger of
sorts, causing him to realize that he hated Voldemort and wanted out
and enabling him to understand for the first time what death is, but
to have him actually be Regulus's murderer takes away from the central
Harry/Snape relationship. 

The whole point of the upcoming Snape/Harry confrontation (assuming
DDM!Snape) will be for Harry to understand Snape's killing of
Dumbledore and forgive his earlier crimes against Harry. The murder of
Regulus isn't directly related to Harry and would be a distraction
from the eavesdropping and Snape's connection to the Potters' deaths.
I think that whatever young Snape did as a Death Eater, aside from the
bungled eavesdropping and revelation of the Prophecy, will remain
vague. Any deeds or crimes will remain unspecified, in which case,
you'll be free to think that he must have performed Unforgiveable
Curses and I'll be free to think that he only witnessed them, having
his own potion-related duties to perform.

Cassy: 
> 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:
Wormtail murdered Cedric Diggory because he had the wand and LV was in
no position to do it himself. Same with Quirrell, who tried to murder
Harry with LV inside his head. Certainly, LV delegates some murders to
underlings. That's the job of people like Dolohov (who also Crucios
countless people) and Travers and possibly Evan Rosier, whose crimes,
annoyingly, are unspecified. But that doesn't mean LV is *forcing*
these people to get their hands dirty. Most of them wouldn't have
joined him in the first place if they weren't willing to commit
crimes. (Regulus seems to have been an exception, thinking that the
DEs were some sort of Pure-Blood Supremacy Society; Severus may have
joined out of anger and rebellion combined with a desire for
recognition, a chance to get credit for his potion-making brilliance
and spell-inventing. I doubt that either of them was eager to run out
and murder people. Probably, like Draco, they had no real conception
of what death was.)
> 
Carol earlier:
> 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-/>quote.org/articles/2004/0804-ebf.htm
> 
Cassy responded:
> 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:
Thank you. It's an important point, IMO. I'm sure that young Snape
*saw* Regulus die, but if he had done it himself, I don't think that
JKR would have broken off where she did. I remain convinced that DD's
death is Snape's first murder, maybe even his first Unforgiveable Curse.
> 
Carol earlier:
> It's very likely that Severus knew Regulus at Hogwarts. They were
only two years apart <snip> 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 responded:
> 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/

Carol again:
Well, at least we agree that a Sevvy/Reggie friendship seems likely.
(Regulus, being younger, wouldn't have witnessed the "Worst Memory"
incident.) As for the details, we know next to nothing about Regulus
(only what Sirius, not the most objective witness, tells us and the
RAB note), but I don't think that Teen!Severus was as Dark as he's
painted. He was certainly studious and obsessively interested in DADA,
as well as brilliant and inventive at potion-making and
spell-creation, but aside from really hating the Marauders (with good
reason) and having sense of humor oddly resembling James's, he doesn't
look like a future Death Eater until we get to Sectumsempra, the only
Dark spell in the book, AFAWK. The toenail hex and Langlock are no
worse than the hexes that the Hogwarts students routinely use on one
another, and Muffliato is useful for anyone who doesn't want
eavesdroppers listening in on private conversations. (It's interesting
that the counterspell to Sectumsempra doesn't appear in the margin of
the book. Perhaps it's too complex, or he hadn't invented/discovered
it yet.)

At any rate, I'm not going to speculate about a "dark" friendship
based on so little evidence.
> 
Cassy:
> 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. 

Carol:
I don't think so. Narcissa, maybe. I think he would have shared her
contempt for Muggleborns and the Black family's view of itself as
"nature's nobility." (Even Sirius shares that arrogance; his attitude
in the "Worst Memory" scene reminds me of Bellatrix's regal air of
superiority when we first see her in the Pensieve.) But Bellatrix was
much older. Sirius never saw her after he was fifteen until she and
her cadre of followers were sent to Azkaban. According to the Black
family tapestry, she shouldn't even have been in school when Sirius
and Severus entered. Certainly, she was gone before Regulus arrived.

Cassy:
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.

Carol:
First off, I don't really trust Sirius as a witness regarding Severus
because of that "bad blood" and what happened afterwards. But that
aside, the Slytherin gang may have been led by Bellatris in Severus's
first year (no indication that Rodolphus, who seems to follow his
wife's lead at the MoM, was also a leader), but they couldn't have
been in school together for long. I'm guessing, based on Sirius's
nasty "Malfoy's lapdog" comment, that the leadership fell to Lucius
Malfoy around Severus's first or second year. Granted, Sirius doesn't
mention Malfoy as belonging to the gang, but I can't imagine him being
overshadowed by the likes of Avery and Macnair. (Rabastan Lestrange,
forever overlooked, isn't mentioned, either, but I'd bet my last Knut
that he was a member.)

Cassy:
> 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?

Carol:
Maybe, but I see no indication that Sirius cared in the least about
his "idiot" brother, and if he blamed Severus for recruiting Regulus
as a DE, surely he would have said so, given his hatred of Snape. It's
too late now for Sirius to speak, and he didn't even know that Snape
had become a Death Eater until Snape revealed his Dark Mark at the end
of GoF, so I'd say no to all these possibilities except maybe the
first. As far as I can see, the so-called Prank was simply the
reckless Sirius's idea of revenge on Severus for following them around
and trying to get them in trouble (which, in turn, was probably his
revenge on them for hexing him two on one).
> 
Cassy:
> 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? 

Carol:
Yes, the list of unanswered Snape questions is quite long. Some of
them have been asked by Harry himself. Those, at least, we should get
definitive answers to. (I'll be very disappointed if we don't!)

Cassy:
Why didn't Regulus go to his brother with the stolen Horcrux? 

Carol:
Probably because he knew that Sirius didn't trust him, and he didn't
trust Sirius, either. Besides, Sirius had his own house from the time
he was seventeen and wouldn't have been at 12 GP when Reggie returned
with the locket.

Cassy:
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).

Carol:
I don't think that Severus's loyalties were suspect at that time.
After all, he'd revealed the Prophecy (or part of it) to Voldemort.
Nor do I think, for reasons already given, that Severus killed
Regulus, though I'm 99 percent certain that he witnessed Regulus's murder.

It is, however, interesting that Severus thought that Sirius was the
spy. Maybe Regulus had something to do with that suspicion. (How could
a Black brought up as he was *not* believe in Pure-Blood superiority?
Sirius would have been exactly the type of person that Voldemort would
recruit. Lupin, in contrast, was a wishy-washy Half-Blood werewolf
with a conscience he was too weak to act on and Pettigrew as a
supposedly talentless nobody, a Muggle-born, too, possibly. So
naturally, if Severus (and Regulus?) suspected that someone close to
the Potters was giving Voldemort information, they would have
suspected Sirius. (And Severus believed Sirius to be capable of
murder, which would have added to his suspicions.)
> 
Cassy:
> What I want to know is what happened when Severus caught up with
Regulus? <snip> 

Carol:
But you're jumping the gun or wand). We don't even know for sure that
they were friends or that Severus witnessed Regulus's murder, much
less that Severus killed Regulus, so it's a bit early to wonder what
happened when and if Severus caught up with Regulus. What I want to
know is whether Regulus's death had anything to do with young Snape's
change of heart. I think that's enough to wonder about now.

Cassy:
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.) 

Carol:
I agree that Snape seems to know about the Horcruxes. Knowledgeable as
he is about Dark magic, he may have suspected their existence from the
time he first realized that Voldemort was not dead (and I don't
believe him for a moment when he tells Bellatrix that he thought LV
was dead). I think that, like Dumbledore, who trusts him completely,
he has suspected the existence of at least one Horcrux from the time
of Godric's Hollow, and multiple Horcruxes from the time of the diary
incident. 

Cassy:
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).

Carol:
Or perhaps they arrived at the same conclusion, that Voldemort was not
dead. And remember, Dumbledore had seen Voldemort after he had made
about four Horcruxes and would have wondered what could blur his
features and redden his eyes in that way. And DD was going memory
hunting long before CoS. The Morfin and Hokey memories were obtained
not long after the crimes they related to. I don't know if Dumbledore
suspected that Voldemort was making Horcruxes at that time, but he
certainly knew that Riddle had murdered Hepzibah to steal her
treasures. Put that together with Harry's survival at Godric's Hollow
and the disappearance of Voldemort, and perhaps with Snape's Dark
Mark, which must have faded but not disappeared altogether, and you
have a suspicion of multiple Horcruxes, confirmed by the destruction
of the diary Horcrux in CoS. (If it's destroyed but Vapormort isn't,
then there must indeed be more than one Horcrux. And DD, I think,
would have concluded that those Horcruxes included Voldemort's
greatest treasures, the ring, the locket, and the cup. What he didn't
know until he saw Slughorn's memory is how many there were.

But to assume that Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes because Snape
confessed that he had murdered Regulus is, IMO. to underestimate
Dumbledore's intellect and overestimate his capacity for forgiveness.
He would extend a second chance to a DE who had demonstrated the
sincerity of his remorse and his loyalty to DD by risking his life to
spy on Voldemort, but he would never, IMO, have allowed a young man
who had murdered his own friend to teach at Hogwarts.

Cassy: 
> In any case, I agree with you that Snape was traumatised by the
murder of Regulus Black. 

Carol:
Good. Even that much is speculation, but it can at least be supported
by what little we know about both young men.

Cassy:
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>

Carol:
Well, we're in the realm of speculation now. I'm afraid there's no
canon to help us. My own speculation is that either the UV provisions
requiring Snape to watch over and protect Draco are no longer in
effect or that Draco, being of age, will ask/demand that his mother
release Snape from the obligation to watch over and protect him. ("I'm
not a child, Mother!")
> 
> 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/> )

Carol:
"Riddled"? Do I detect a pun? Certainly, Snape is a much more
enigmatic character than Voldemort, more of a riddle than Riddle. ;-)

Carol, who thinks we already know Snape's regrets but thinks that
Harry will discover some sort of Regulus/Severus connection (not a
murder!) when he starts unraveling the locket!Horcrux mystery