Could Harry have saved Snape? (was Reacting to DH...)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178073

Alla wrote:
> 
> As I said upthread, even I would have been Okay with Harry
attempting to save Snape, just to showcast his saving people thing.
> 
> But, on the other hand, I think that him NOT to do it is so much
more realistic.
> 
> As Julie? said, would anybody expect him to try to save Bella for 
> example?
> 
> Wasn't Snape in the same position? Harry knows **nothing** yet of DD
plan to sacrifice him, no of the plan, so why would Harry consider
saving someone who murdered Dumbledore even if he forgets of six 
years of torment? Why would Harry consider saving somebody who as far
 as he is concerned at the end of book 6 he wants to do the opposite?
<snip>

Carol responds:
I understand your position and I agree that Harry's reaction is
realistic: Snape is now "the man he hated as much as he hated
Voldemort" (quoted from memory and probably mangled). But Bellatrix
and Snape are not really comparable. Dumbledore trusted snape; Snape
was a member of the Order of the Phoenix; and Snape has never
physically harmed Harry (other than throwing him *away* from him after
the Pensieve incident. He has only taunted him about his similarity to
his arrogant father and his {Harry's} own mediocrity (along with some
pont dociking and favoritism of the Slytherins).

Harry knows that Bellatrix was the ringleader of the DEs who tortured
the Longbottoms into insanity and has personally seen her Crucio
Neville and murder Sirius. He has seen her (in a Pensieve memory)
claim to be LV's most faithful follower. She has personally taunted
him and tried to get the Prophecy orb from him. He knows nothing good
of her, and his view of her is largely accurate.

Snape is another matter. True, he revealed the Prophecy to Voldemort,
but DD has told Harry that Snape felt great remorse for that action.
And, true, he killed DD before Harry's eyes, which Harry regards as a
treacherous act of murder. But Harry also knows, on a subconscious
level that he perhaps represses because it conflicts with the view he
wants to have of Snape, that Snape saved his life during his first
year and helped to thwart Quirrell, that Snape conjured those
stretchers in PoA, that Snape (according to DD) spied for the good
side at great personal risk, that he did not go to the graveyard with
the other DEs but did something dangerous on DD's orders afterwards,
that he helped DD deal with Barty Crouch Jr., that Snape provided
Umbridge with fake Veritaserum, that Snape sent the DEs to the DoM,
that he's finding out for DD "what the Dark Lord is telling his Death
Eaters." Harry knows that Snape treated DD's hand when he suffered a
deadly injury from the ring, that he saved Katie Bell's life. He
*witnessed* Snape saving Draco's life. And perhaps he knows
subconsciously that Snape saved Harry himself from the Crucio at the
end of HBP rather than casting it, as Harry assumed.

Snape, unlike Bellatrix, is a puzzle, and Harry has wondered about him
and questioned his loyalty to DD ever since he's revealed *not* to be
the villain in SS/PS. And Harry has even had moments, however
fleeting, of empathy for Snape based on his memories, especially SWM,
in OoP.

So while Harry would probably have felt overjoyed if Voldie had turned
on Bella and killed her, with Snape, he feels only shock and horror
and confusion, partly because of the way Snape died and the reason for
it, but also, possibly, because of those memories of Snape that don't
fit with the picture of him as a murdering traitor.  And there are
those repeated pleas, so unlike Snape as Harry knows him, to "let me
go to the boy." Why, Harry must wonder (without being aware that he
wonders it) does Snape want to see him so badly? Why not just accept
LV's assertion that the boy will come to him?

At any rate, Harry's shock does not prevent him from collecting the
memories, once Hermione has provided a means to do so, nor does it
prevent him from honoring the dying man's last request, looking into
his eyes--a request that Bellatrix certainly would never have made.
With regard to saving Snape, Harry is reduced to the same helplessness
he felt seeing Draco lying in a pool of his own blood (where he would
have died had it not been for Snape). But Harry at least realized that
he didn't want Draco to die (especially not by Harry's own hand). With
Snape, he doesn't know what to feel. At least he's not gloating,
celebrating the death of the sarcastic teacher turned, so it seems,
loyal LV supporter. There's no feeling of satisfaction at achieving
vengeance. And the shock enables him to view the memories and move
from hating Snape to understanding and forgiving him.

While I think it's tragic and ironic that neither Harry nor Hermione
made any attempt to save Snape, clearly Snape himself didn't hold it
against him. All that mattered to him was getting those memories,
especially the one containing the message about the soul bit, to Harry
and then earning the only reward he ever wanted, looking again into
Lily's eyes. What's remarkable to me is not that Harry, who rather
perversely has never attempted to learn healing magic after seeing it
demonstrated by both Snape and DD, did not attempt to save Snape but
that he attempted to do what Snape wanted him to do, making sure,
though he did not know it at the time, that Snape did not die in vain.

As for Hermione, at least she kept her head enough to conjure the
vial. It was probably too much for her to remember the dittany, and,
she, too, had never learned those healing spells (conveniently for
JKR's plot if not exactly in character for Hermione).

Carol, who finds this scene with Snape an important step toward
abandoning all his resentment and desire for retribution in
9unconscious) preparation for his upcoming self-sacrifice