Excusing Snape of any responsibility ( was Re: Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin)

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 168183

Betsy Hp:
> This statement confuses me.  Are you saying Snape was the main 
> player in HBP, and Dumbledore was sort of stumbling along in his 
> wake? That Dumbledore knew something big was going down and just 
> assumed Snape would take care of it all?  That doesn't really jell 
> with the charater of Dumbledore up until now.  IMO, anyway.
<snip>

Dana:
Yes, at least it is my interpretation of things when you read the 
conversation between Dumbledore and Draco.

Pg 549 UKed paperback 

`As a matter of fact, I did,' said Dumbledore. `I was sure it was 
you.'

`Why didn't you stop me, then?' Malfoy demanded.  

`I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on 
my orders –'

`He has't been doing your orders, he promised my mother –'

`Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but -'

End quote from canon

And here is the reason why DD left it to Snape. 

Pg 552

`I appreciate the difficulty of your position,' said Dumbledore.

`Why else do you think I have not confronted you before now? Because 
I knew that you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort realised 
that I suspected you.'

`I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had 
been entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you,' continued 
Dumbledore. 

End quote canon.

In my opinion it is not yelling against DD as a character, as we have 
seen so far, to have Snape take care of things because he himself 
considers it to dangerous to approach Draco. He trusts Snape but we 
have seen DD make this mistake before when he did not teach Harry 
occlumency himself but left it to Snape. In both cases Snape failed. 

Betsy Hp:
> One of the reasons I'm "smugly sure" (tm) that Snape is DDM is 
> because JKR *loves* to turn things around in the end.  Honestly, if 
> Snape was supposed to be evil in the end, I'd have expected HBP to 
> end with Snape saving the day and everyone singing his praises.
<snip>

Dana:
Although I totally understand this reasoning, I think personally JKR 
will not turn it around because she turned something else around 
instead and that is Harry being right, while he has been wrong so 
many times before. JKR makes the student outgrow the mentor making DD 
wrong and Harry right. 

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "if Snape was supposed to 
be evil in the end" because essentially it is the climax of book 6, 
where she pretty much exposes Snape's loyalties, while they have been 
murky from book 1 to 5. 

The books are about Harry and I believe why she choose to expose 
Snape in book 6, to make Harry right at the end of this book but then 
to have him learn (in DH) that even though he is right about Snape, 
not being on the side of the Order and him betraying DD (and maybe 
even Sirius), he can't let hatred rule his life and he can't take 
matters into his own hands and that taking revenge out of anger/ 
hatred is not a good thing, no matter how right you are.

At the end of OotP (to me that is) she begins with seeding DD being 
wrong by trying to reason that Snape's hatred is not influencing his 
loyalties to such an extent that he would betray, the Order, DD or 
Harry, because of it. And he does so by making the illogical 
comparison that Sirius personal hatred for Kreacher was not what made 
Kreacher betray him but that somehow indifference was the cause of it 
all. DD downplays Snape's hatred for Harry (and his hatred for 
Sirius) and I believe it will be shown that DD was very wrong about 
underestimating that hatred.  
  
Betsy Hp:
> What I find interesting is that *Dumbledore* sees Draco's life as 
> worth more than his own.  (And possibly Katie's and Ron's, which is 
> a problem, I agree, but more with Dumbledore than Snape, since 
> Dumbledore is purportedly running this particular show.)
<snip>

Dana:
DD seeing Draco's life more important then his own is his own 
personal choice to make but he definitely would not have wanted to 
put other people's life in danger because of it and why he gives 
Snape the task to take care of it because he deems it to dangerous 
for Draco to interfere himself. 

DD isn't running the show, he is failing to get control over the 
whole situation and he gets angry with Harry because Harry calls DD 
up on this seemingly lack of control, because he observes Draco is 
still able to work on his plan while no one seems to be actively 
preventing him from doing so, regardless of the many warnings Harry 
gives DD. DD put his trust in Snape to handle it but as we see in the 
conclusion Snape finishes the job, Draco was set out to do, instead.  

Betsy Hp:
> While I do wonder what the Marauders did to cause Snape to hate 
> them (and vice verse, for that matter) I do agree that canon is 
> fairly quiet about the origins of the enmity.  JKR drops plenty of 
> delicious hints that we're free to run with.  But she's never 
> giving a crystal clear "and so it began" kind of reason. I'm not 
> sure that she ever will, quite frankly.  I don't know that we need 
> one.

Dana:
I totally agree with you here and it is definitely left to a lot of 
speculation on the part of the reader to figure out how things, that 
are said about it, fit in the overall picture of what actually 
happened between all of them and the interactions they had with each 
other. Maybe you are right maybe we do not need one but I actually 
believe that it is this interaction what set the whole darn thing in 
to motion and it surely has made a big influence on Harry's life so 
far. So I personally would still like some resolution by 
understanding why things happened as they happened but of course that 
doesn't have to mean endless pages of marauder (all though I 
definitely would not mind this at all - without Snape ;o)) 
interactions with Snape just the outline of the pieces to make the 
puzzle fit.  

Betsy Hp:
> However, Snape trying to catch the Marauders in wrong doing doesn't 
> seem equal to him deserving death, IMO.  Nor does it seem equal to 
> Lupin becoming both a murderer and a cannibal.  Which is what 
> bothers me most about the "Snape would have gotten what was coming 
> to him" argument.  I mean, even if one agrees that Snape deserved 
> to be attacked and ravaged by a werewolf for sneaking about after 
> the Marauders 
<snip>

Dana:
Let me try to rephrase it by actually quoting Sirius comment because 
my take on this comment is different then what many readers use when 
they refer to it in their arguments. He never said `he deserved it', 
he used a different phrasing. 

POA Pg 261 UKed Paperback

`*It* served him right,' he sneered. `Sneaking around, trying to find 
out what we were up to 
 hoping he could get us expelled
'
 
Severus was very interested in where I went every month,'
 Snape had 
seen me crossing the grounds with Madame Pomfrey one evening as she 
led me towards the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it 
would be – er – amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the 
knot on the tree-trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to go 
after me. Well of course Snape tried it 
'

End quote canon

Sirius could have actually meant that Snape deserved to be played a 
trick on and because nothing happened he can still feel he deserved 
the prank because he was too nosy for his own good. "Curiosity killed 
the cat" so to speak. 

It could be just "want to know what Remus is up to? Then fine here is 
how you can find out, have fun." 

The main problem is with the part Lupin tells us after Sirius's 
comment because Snape is either really not that bright as he wants to 
make himself and others believe or he could have known what he would 
find there. 

Sirius and his friends found out the nature of Lupin's condition when 
they where about 11 or 12 and Hermione found out in her third year 
(while not having more interactions with Lupin then Snape would have 
had). Lupin was hidden behind a murderous tree as I have stated 
before and brought there by the school nurse. DADA is Snape's 
favourite subject and we see that it was part of the OWL DADA exam 
and so I have real trouble believing that Snape could have not put 
two and two together.  
And so I believe that could have known what Lupin was doing there and 
if Snape still felt that it was more important for him to find a way 
to get the marauders expelled then to read the danger signs, then yes 
it would have served him right because it was none of his business to 
go there in the first place. 

Sirius never actually states that Snape should have been killed or 
deserved to be killed or bitten but he could still mean the guy 
deserved to be tricked.  

I know I have probably expressed myself poorly because I had no 
intention of suggesting Snape should have been killed but if he had 
been because he personally choose to go there then it was his own 
responsibility and it was not the joke that would be the cause of it 
but Snape's own desire in seeking revenge.  

As far as canon tells us, at this moment, Sirius did nothing more 
then tell Snape *how* to get in if he so much desired to know what 
Lupin was doing there. It was not Sirius that put Snape in harms way 
but Snape himself, especially with all the animosity flying around 
there was no reason for Snape to even listen to Sirius at all. To me 
there is a difference and I think it is why Sirius wasn't expelled 
not just to hide the incident away because DD could have made up a 
number of excuses for his expulsion without Lupin being mentioned. 
But DD's memory is as good as it ever was and why I think he was 
fully aware of Snape's own contribution in the whole ordeal. 

I also find it curious that it seems JKR downplays the actually 
danger Snape was in (in contrast to him dying I do not want to imply 
being a werewolf will not have any perminant affect on your life and 
that it can pretty much ruin it). It might just have been put in 
there to emphasis how easy it is to look past danger when so familiar 
with it or she actually put it in to emphasis that Werewolf killing 
their victims is a very rare occurrence. She makes Lupin suggest this 
too when she has him state pretty much the same as Ron that they 
*sometimes* kill to eat. (Chapter: a very frosty Christmas)  

HBP Pg 442 (chapter 22)

`Well, their brother was attacked by a werewolf. The rumour is that 
their mother refused to help the Death Eaters. 
Anyway, the boy was only five and he died in St Mungo's, they 
couldn't save him,'

`He died?' repeated Harry, shocked. `But surely werewolves don't 
kill, they just turn you into one of them?

They *sometimes* kill,' said Ron, who looked unusually grave 
now. `I've heard of it happening when the werewolf gets carried 
away.'  

End quote canon

Where did Harry get this information? Lupin told him something 
entirely different in PoA. Was it something he was taught in class or 
maybe he just thinks this because he has been so familiar with a 
friendly werewolf, that he can't imagine a werewolf could actually 
kill (he also saw a man bitten by one in St Mungo's when visiting 
Arthur in OotP and he did not die either). And if Harry, as a 16 year 
old in HBP, can develop this idea (even if it is his own and not 
taught) then it is actually not hard to imagine Sirius and his 
friends, who shared a dormitory with Lupin since age 11 and then 
roamed the grounds with him at age 15, would develop the same idea 
about Lupin being harmless? 

James might not have thought Snape's life was in danger in the sense 
of him dying but in the sense of preventing him from becoming a 
werewolf. I do think that James was more aware of the problems it 
caused Remus then Sirius did (so I agree with you). There are more 
ways to destroy a life then merely killing a man, DD tells us in 
OotP. It might have been the aftermath of it that makes Lupin believe 
that he actually could have killed Snape, maybe it was DD himself 
that enforced this idea upon the marauders or maybe Lupin's has 
developed this idea in to adulthood and maybe it was only Snape that 
believed he could have gotten killed (was in Lupin's face about it 
all the time). 

I know it is a lot of maybe's but still seeing Harry express himself 
this way while he has been told a different story altogether just 
three years before makes you wonder why JKR put this in and it surely 
influenced my take on the whole ordeal but I admit I should have 
expressed myself more clearly nonetheless.   

There is no canon to support that Lupin would have been punished for 
it at all because Greyback had been walking free all those years 
after biting numerous children including Remus, which is a commonly 
known fact. I do not think you can compare Buckbeak to Remus because 
Remus is still part human. The only one in real trouble would have 
been DD (besides Snape of course) because he allowed a werewolf to 
attend school and he probably would have lost his position because of 
it.       

To be honest I do not think Sirius would have gone to Azkaban for it 
because Snape still had free choice. 
Sirius's did not have responsibility when it comes to Snape's actions 
but he did have an moral responsibility to Remus and if Remus had 
attacked Snape (which he could not have been accountable for because 
he has no human control over his werewolf form) it would have been 
something that Remus would have had to life with the rest of his 
life, to know that he did to another what was done up on him. As far 
as we know Remus never has bitten and transformed another human into 
a werewolf and that is what Sirius would definitely have had a moral 
responsibility for because he told Snape how to get to him and they 
promised to keep each others secrets and Sirius rashness exposed that 
secret. And so indeed I agree that James probably saved Snape to safe 
both of his friends to have to life with the responsibility of their 
actions if things had gone wrong but not because Sirius was 
responsible for what Snape did. 

I truly believe that Sirius actually told Snape in an attempt to 
protect his friends from Snape's nosiness, in an attempt to make it 
stop once and for all (no not by having Snape killed) but he totally 
went about it the wrong way and it might have set the stage for 
future events to play out like they did. 

JMHO

Dana