Different values of Snape/ Re: House elves

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181081

Carol earlier:
> > 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).
> 
> Aleta: Actually, he (as you state later) threatens Neville with
> feeding the potion to the toad earlier in the class period, when the
> potion is in fact the wrong color.

Carol again:
Feeding the potion to a toad to test it, which is what he says he
intends to do after Neville has had the remainder of the class period
to put it right, is different from poisoning the toad. He says nothing
about poison until he's perfectly aware that the potion is properly
made. He states that he doesn't doubt that Neville has made it wrong
(an out-and-out lie--he can see that it's green, not orange) and that
*if* it's made wrong (which it isn't) it's "likely" to poison Trevor.
I'd say that even if it were made wrong, it *unlikely* to poison him,
as snapewell knows. After all, he knows exactly what Neville did
wrong; he tells him so before resorting to the feed-the-potion
(potion, not poison) threat to get Neville to follow directions and do
it right.

Not a kind or effective method of teaching a boy who's afraid of you
and your subject, but Snape is undoubtedly tired of melted cauldrons
and ineptitude. But to claim that he "fully intended to poison
Neville's toad," is, I think, pushing Snape into Umbridge territory.
His weapon is sarcasm, not physical harm to students or toads.

Carol, who still wonders why a Shrinking Solution would turn Trevor
into a tadpole instead of a smaller toad and wonders whether JKR is
confusing shrinking with rejuvenation