Dark Magic/ Ministry and Dementors/ Snape's role LONG

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176601

Alla wrote:
> <snip>
Carol earlier:
> > Without Snape, there would have been no eleven-year respite for
the WW. Order members were being killed off one by one--the McKinnons, 
> the
> > Boneses, the Prewetts, Benjy Fenwick, etc. It was only a matter of
> > time for Lupin, Black, and the Potters
> > <SNIP>
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> We do not know whether eleven year old respite would have been 
> possible or not. <snip>

Carol responds:
An eleven-year respite without the events at Godric's Hollow (Lily's
self-sacrifice, the deflected AK, etc.)? What could possibly have
brought that about? If Snape hadn't revealed the Prophecy, Voldemort
wouldn't have gone after the Potters to kill Harry, Snape wouldn't
have asked Voldemort to save Lily, Voldemort wouldn't have offered to
spare Lily, Lily's sacrifice wouldn't have protected Harry, the AK
wouldn't have backfired, Voldie wouldn't have been vaporized, and the
war would not have ended. Any other mother sacrificing her life for
her child, say Marlene McKinnon or Alice Longbotttom, would have had
no more effect than the German mother spreading her arms to protect
her children in DH. Even Lily's death would have had no such effect if
she hadn't first been offered the chance to stand aside and let LV
kill Harry.

An eleven-year respite from a Dark Lord whose soul is anchored to the
earth by five Horcruxes (at that time)? How? IMO, Godric's Hollow is
unique and nothing else could have "killed" Voldemort, released people
from the Imperius curse, and made the capture of the DEs possible.
Life would have continued as it was at the time of VW1 or gotten
steadily worse. And the Potters would have been targeted by the DEs
just as the other Order members were. Their likelihood of survival in
a WW run by Voldemort would be small and Harry's chances for happiness
equally small. (He would not have grown up like Ron in a relatively
normal WW. Nor would Ron have grown up that way. Voldie would have
been in charge. The only person who was stopping him from completely
taking over the WW was Dumbledore, who couldn't or wouldn't kill him
because he knew about the Horcruxes.
> 
> 
> Carol:
> > The only thing keeping Voldemort from taking over the Ministry,
and, from there, the WW, had Snape not revealed the partial Prophecy 
> would
> > have been Dumbledore. There would have been no Chosen One without 
> LV's
> > acting to thwart the Prophecy.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Yes, there would have been **just Harry** - exactly my point. <snip>

Carol:
"Just Harry"--a normal wizard boy with no more powers than Ron or
Neville in a world ruled by Voldemort? Even if he survived, what
chance would he or any normal wizard or witch have had of happiness?
His parents were in hiding even before the Fidelius Charm and in
danger of being killed as Order members before that. No one trusted
anyone else; everyone feared the Dark Mark appearing over their house
and coming home to find family members dead. The Order members were
outnumbered by the DEs (twenty to one, if we believe Lupin) and were
being picked off one by one. Wonderful, happy state of affairs,
perfect for "just Harry" to grow up in peace and happiness. Not even
the eleven years of peace caused by Lily's sacrifice, just a
continuation of VW 1 with ever worsening conditions until they reached
the state of affairs we see in DH or worse. Somehow, I think that the
only way Harry could have had a happy, normal wizarding childhood
would be if Voldemort had never been born.

Harry becomes "Just Harry" after Voldemort is killed and the soul bit
in his own head is destroyed. Harry the ordinary wizard kid could
never have accomplished what Harry the Chosen One accomplished. And
even that is only possible because Voldemort was vaporized when Harry
was fifteen months old.

> Carol earlier:
> <SNIP>
> > Essentially, if Dumbledore could have stopped Voldemort by 
himself, he would have done so. He couldn't. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> We do not know that. He may have destroyed all Horcruxes himself for
all I know. <snip>

Carol:
On the contrary, we know what happened when he tried--a dead hand (he
would have died if not for Snape) and no one to save him when he'd
drunk the potion in the cave. Canon makes it clear that DD could *not*
have destroyed the Horcruxes all by himself, or lived to battle
Voldemort had he made the attempt.

> Carol: 
> >> He revealed the partial Prophecy, triggering the events at 
> Godric's
> > Hollow. He begged Voldemort to save Lily, making her survival 
> possible
> > and her death a self-sacrifice rather than a planned murder, which 
> in
> > turn gave Harry the blood protection (extended by DD to the 
> Dursleys)
> > and made Harry's survival possible.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Um, yes. Just looks horrifying instead of heroic to me. <snip>

Carol:
I'm not calling it heroic. I'm showing that Harry would not be alive
(or the Chosen One) if not for Snape. IOW, I'm showing Snape's
importance to the plot, not his heroism in this instance.
 
Alla:
> <snip>
> And he of course was saving Harry's life, to me saving son of Lily,
but he was saving his life of course and did those other heroic 
things unrelated to Harry, of course he did.
> 
> My point was that **without Snape** Harry had a chance to have a 
normal life without Snape needing to save his life even, I do not see
how anything that you wrote refutes it. <snip>

Carol:
And my point is that, regardless of Snape's motives, without Snape,
Harry would not be alive at all. And that includes teaching the
Duelling Club the Disarming Charm. No other teacher taught Harry that
all-important life-saving spell.

Alla: 
> And Harry would have had a loving mum and dad, maybe.
> 
Carol:
Maybe. But given the way that things were going in VW1 and the number
of people in the Order photograph who died shortly after it was taken,
not to mention PP's spying, I'd say that their chances for survival,
much less happiness, were small. 

Lupin says of the first Order: "We were outnumbered twenty to one by
the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one" (OoP 177).
Harry thinks about the photo of the Order members, half of whom would
be dead within a few weeks: "He could still see his parents beaming up
at him from the tattered old photograph, unaware that their lives,
like so many of those around them, were drawing to a close" (OoP Am.
ed. 178). Granted, the Potters were specifically killed because of the
Prophecy, but the others weren't. The McKinnons, the Bones, Benjy
Fenwick, Caradoc Dearborn, the Prewetts, and Dorcas Meadowes were all
killed solely for being members of the Order (or related to order
members, in the case of the Bones and McKinnon children).

The WW during Voldie's first rise to power was no safe place to raise
children. Black tells Harry, "In the old days [Voldemort] had huge
numbers at his command; witches and wizards he'd bullied into
following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark
creatures" (93). In GoF, Mr. Weasley describes the atmosphere of
terror that the WW lived under: "You Know Who and his followers sent
the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed. The terror it
inspired. . . . Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark
hovering over your house and knowing what you're going to find inside"
(142).

We get glimpses in all the later books, especially HBP and DH, of what
life is like outside Hogwarts with Voldemort in charge. Had there been
no eleven-year respite, nothing to stop Voldemort, life for "Just
Harry," ordinary wizard kid with Order member parents and a
Muggle-born mother would have been no picnic. And, had it not been for
Godric's Hollow and the soul bit that lodged in Harry, giving him a
link to Voldemort's mind and emotions, no one, not even Dumbledore,
could have destroyed Voldemort.

Yes, Harry was deprived of his parents and sent to live with Aunt
Petunia in part because of Snape. But had Snape not revealed the
partial Prophecy to Voldemort and later begged him to spare Lily,
matters would have been much worse. Voldie would have remained in
power and even if Dumbledore kept him in check, Dumbledore would not
live forever. Only Voldemort had Horcruxes anchoring him to earth, and
he could wait. Snape's actions--regardless of his motives--made
Harry's survival possible. And throughout the books, he taught and
protected Harry.

Bezoars, Expelliarmus, Polyjuice Potion, even the discovery that Harry
is a Parselmouth all trace back to Snape. So, of course, does that
useful little charm Muffliato. Snape saves Harry's life on numerous
occasions and imparts essential information and tools in DH.

Without Snape, where would the HP books be? Where would Harry be? Not
a happy boy living a normal life but just another suffering wizard kid
with no more chance than you or I of defeating Voldemort.

My only question, and it's purely hypothetical, is how much power and
influence *Dumbledore* would have had if Voldie had not been vaporized
at GH and how long he could have held out against a Voldemort
determined to kill him and take over Hogwarts, especially since DD
knew that Voldemort could not be killed. Without a Chosen One, DD
would certainly have tried to destroy the Horcruxes by himself, and we
saw how well *that* worked out. I think that the state of affairs in
DH (minus DDM!Snape) would have been reached much earlier, with or
without the Elder Wand. LV might even have killed DD and made the
Sword of Gryffindor into his sixth Horcrux.

Carol, noting that the only way for Harry to be "Just Harry" and live
a normal wizarding life was to defeat Voldemort, which would not have
been possible without Eavesdropper!Snape and the whole Snape subplot