Did Snape know Draco's task in Spinner's End/Snape as Neville's teacher

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 168414

Miles wrote:
> <snip> Knowing!Snape is most probably ESE!Snape, right? <snip>

Carol responds:

Well, no. DDM!Snape could well have told DD before "Spinner's End"
that Draco had been assigned to kill DD and been told by DD in turn to
do everything conceivable to prevent Draco from making that attempt.
It seems clear that Snape agrees to takes the first two provisions to
protect Draco (something I can't see either ESE!Snape or OFH!Snape
agreeing to do). 

Having heard Bellatrix say that she'd be willing to sacrifice her
(imaginary) sons to the Dark Lord's service, followed by Narcissa's
scream of despair, Snape says tentatively, "It might be possible . . .
for me to help Draco." Narcissa responds, "Severus--oh, Severus--you
would help him? Would you look after him, see he comes to no harm?"
(Note that "help him" does not mean helping him kill DD or get DEs
into the castle, which Snape clearly does not know is part of the
plan.) Snape hedges ("I can try") and then Narcissa kneels at his
feet, seizes his hands, and kisses them, saying, "If you are there to
protect him . . . Severus, will you swear it? Will you make the
Unbreakable Vow?" He hesitates again, Bellatrix taunts him with
slithering out of action, and he agrees, calmly and with an unreadable
expression, to take the Unbreakable Vow (with Bellatrix as bonder,
which implicates her in the web and guarantees that she won't go to
Voldemort). Not that Narcissa's concern is Draco's safety; she has
appealed to Snape to be Draco's protectior, to "look after him and see
[that] he comes to no harm."

The only life being risked at this point is Snape's own; he's swearing
to do what he would do in any case: watch over and protect his
favorite student, a boy in his own house who happens to be in extreme
danger. No doubt the tears of a beautiful mother and the scorn of a
Voldie supporter he's gone to some pains to persuade of his loyalty
have some part in his decision, but Draco's safety is paramount and
seems to be his main motive in agreeing to the vow. And the first two
provisions ask him to do exactly what he's just promised to do without
the vow, watch over Draco and protect him. Only that third provision,
the one that causes his hand to twitch, presents a problem, and your
own reasoning works there:

> Miles:
> How could he deny the Vow in the moment he accepts to make it? If he
would deny it in this very situation, Bellatrix would be a deathly
threat to him in the future. Narcissa would not trust him anymore,
Draco would be most probably lost. He manoeuvred himself into a dead
end - into Spinner's End, no escape possible but the only open way
left - the Vow. He might think that it could be harmless when he
started to make it, but had no chance to deny the last and fatal part
of it. <snip>

Carol responds:
As far as I can see, this reasoning still applies. Snape doesn't
anticipate the third provision of the vow. It wasn't mentioned when he
agreed to take it, and his hand twitches when he anticipates her
words. Now granted, Snape is a Legilimens, but I don't think he could
have seen this thought form in her mind. Legilimency isn't mind
reading; it's the ability to see someone else's mental images and
detect their emotions. If Snape has used Legilimency on Narcissa, he
has surely seen only what's uppermost in her mind (and what he doesn't
need Legilimency to see), her fears for Draco. So, as you say, he's
maneuvered himself into a dead end. He can only hope that the wording
of the vow ("if it seems that Draco will fail") or Dumbledore's own
formidable powers will provide him an out. And, of course, DDM!Snape
would report the situation to Dumbledore immediately, just as he would
do if he'd been trapped into making a vow to do some unknown task if
Draco fails to do it.

Carol, who thinks that Snape was in control of the situation up till
the moment when Narcissa dropped the bombshell of provision three and
that Snape's loyalty to DD never wavered in "Spinner's End" or afterward