Different values of Snape/ Re: House elves

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181042

a_svirn:
> > He hasn't actually *done* anything to Neville. He called him 
names and bullied him, yes.
> 
Aleta: 
> Snape does engage in (intended) animal cruelty to Neville's toad.
When he doses Trevor with Neville's shrinking potion, Snape fully
intends to kill the toad. It is only because Hermione helped Neville
that he had a proper potion, and Trevor was reduced to a tadpole which
Snape could restore to adulthood. Snape would have been happy to kill
the toad just out of spite.
> 
Carol responds:

Fully intends to kill the toad? Happy to kill it out of spite? Can you
cite canon, please? 

He only says that he'll feed the shrinking Solution to the toad to
test it at the end of the class. Only after he has seen Hermione
helping Neville and is perfectly aware that the potion is green (as it
should be) and not orange does he suggest that "If he has managed to
produce a Shrinking solution, it will shrink to a tadpole. If, as I
don't doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned"
(PoA Am. ed, 128).

It seems to me obvious that Snape would have made no such remark had
he not known that the potion was made correctly. Nor do I think that
the potion, even if made correctly, would have killed Trevor. Can you
imagine the reaction of all the Gryffindor students, complaining to
their parents and Dumbledore?

Snape is at wit's end in terms of getting the cauldron-melting Neville
to follow directions. After telling Neville exactly the steps he has
gotten wrong, Snape asks, "What do I have to do to make you
understand?" (126). So he resorts to stating that "at the end of this
lesson [after Neville has had time to repair his mistakes] we will
feed a few drops of this potion to your toad. *Perhaps that will
encourage you to do it perfectly.*" (Not a word about *poisoning the
toad*.) Instead of having the desired effect (Neville repairing his
own potion), this threat results in Neville desperately getting help
from Hermione (for which Snape, having told her not to help him,
understandably deducts points).

But just as Snape has an antidote to the Shrinking Solution in the
pocket of his robes (128), as he always had an antidote to the potion
of the day (as we see from the very first Potions lesson), he also has
access to bezoars and antidotes of all sorts in his "stores." So in
the unlikely event that the toad had been poisoned (which Snape never
actually said would happen, only that it's "likely" when he knows full
well that it isn't), he would have been able to cure it as easily as
he restored it to its normal self after trickling a few drops of the
Shrinking Solution down its throat.

May I ask what you think would have been accomplished by Snape's
actually poisoning the toad? Surely, that would not have accomplished
his stated goal of getting Neville to understand the subject and
follow directions.

So, surprisingly, I agree with a_svirn on this one. He is bullying
Neville, certainly, trying to scare him into following directions. But
fully intending to poison Neville's toad? I think we need to remember
who Snape is, the master of innuendo and half truths, as we see with
particular clarity in "Spinner's End."