[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape as Neville's teacher / JKR's sexy men roll call

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 168576

> colebiancardi:
>
> I am not sure what the argument is anymore on the life-debt, and I
> have been reading this thread!!

The argument is over whether, on the one hand, Snape's "debt" to
James, described in this passage, is a real _life-debt_, "magic at its
deepest, its most impenetrable", or if it's just his own sense of
obligation.

The fact that that language was never used to describe it seems a
point against it being a life-debt in that sense, but using the term
"debt" at all seems to reinforce it, especially among the sort of
reader who wouldn't believe snape would ever do anything good for
Harry or James unless forced to.

--Random832