No UV for DD and Snape (Was: Snape as Ultimate Hero)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 168302

bergermeister99 wrote:
>  
>  <snip> To have DD completely trust Snape, there is only one
possible thing that Snape could have done.  Snape invoked and took the
unbreakable vow with Dumbledore to protect Harry Potter by what ever
means (even if that meant having to kill Dumbledore)"

Carol responds:

I don't think we can say that there's only one possible thing that
Snape could have done. JKR is always surprising us. But I, for one,
seriously doubt that Dumbledore, who believes in second chances and in
choices, not compulsion, would ever bind anyone with an Unbreakable
Vow, which would mean the death of the person who broke it. Trust is
about believing in the other person, having confidence that he will do
the right thing. Narcissa chose to bind Snape with an Unbreakable Vow
because she *didn't* fully trust him, and his life was less important
to her than her son's. (DD's wasn't important to her at all.)

Note the imagery in the last paragraphs of "Spinner's End," hellish
imagery of fiery chains and ropes. That, and the death of the person
who breaks the vow (if Ron is correct, and he's our only authority),
suggests to me that the Unbreakable Vow is Dark magic. Narcissa, a
Death Eater's wife and Dark Lord supporter whose son may die if he
fails to fulfill the Dark Lord's will is not above using it. In fact,
she says that she's desperate and will do anything to save her son
(aside from, it appears, risking her own life). She's certainly
willing to risk Snape's. And Bellatrix, herself a DE for whom Dark
magic is routine, has no objection to binding Snape to such a vow
(though by doing so, she's implicating herself in her sister's scheme
to go behind the Dark Lord's back, as Snape surely has in mind when he
invites her to be their Bonder, the only other option being Wormtail,
who has been banished from the room and, I suspect, magically barred
from overhearing the conversation).

In any case, a UV evidently requires a Bonder (which strikes me as a
dark parody of a minister uniting a couple taking their wedding vows
in the sacred *bonds* of holy matrimony), and who would have fulfilled
that role for DD and Snape? McGonagall, who trusts Snape only because
DD does once she finds out that he's been a Death Eater? Clearly not.
She states that she doesn't know the "ironclad reason" for DD's trust
in Snape. Hagrid, whom DD would trust with his life but would be
foolish indeed to trust with a secret not protected by a Fidelius charm?

I seriously doubt that Dumbledore's complete trust in Snape has
anything to do with magical compulsion. I think he genuinely believed,
even as Snape was casting the Avada Kedavra, that Snape was loyal to
him. And I believe that trust was merited.

Carol, who thinks that a UV is an example of the kind of magic DD
would never resort to, first mentioned by McGonagall in SS/Ps