GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 182190


> Potioncat:
> So...as if the WW is real, not as if an author had to create a 
story. 
> As if we had Time Turners and could go back and fix things. 
> 
> I think if a witch went back and Obliviated Snape so that he 
couldn't 
> tell the prophecy, events would still have led to the Potters' 
death, 
> Lily's sacrifice and Harry as the Chosen One. Maybe Harry would 
still 
> have been orphaned, or perhaps his parents would have been killed 
> when he was older. But I think there were enough actions in place 
> that not much would have changed. For example, Remus told Harry 
the 
> Order members were being picked off, one-by-one; and LV went after 
> one witch himself. The Potters had already defied him 3 times and 
I 
> think they would be targeted.

Magpie:
Well, yeah. But--and I'm not saying that you're disagreeing with 
this--I think Snape's personal responsibility for what happened is 
one of those Very Important Events that Changed Everything and even 
if the Potters *could* have died some other way, they didn't and 
that doesn't change that Snape took action to get someone killed and 
those someone's were the Potters. Not because James and Lily would 
have been assured a long and healthy life otherwise--but they 
certainly might have had one. As Alla pointed out, other Order 
members were still alive come the end of VWI. 

Snape *felt* responsible in ways another person would not have, 
because of the history--and because frankly he was very reponsible. 
It didn't even necessarily have to be guilt that bothered him--he 
did something and the result was something he didn't want to happen 
so he tried to present that. If he'd been able to divorce his own 
actions from it he probably would have. He's the one who took the 
initiative--without needing to--of taking this information to 
Voldemort. But then Snape took steps to undo what he had done. He 
essentially bought Harry's life with his own in some ways by vowing 
to spend his life trying to protect him because of what he'd done. 

I think that's the important thing about Snape, that he's a 
character who actually took responsibility for the unintended (but 
forseeable) consequences of his actions and worked to counteract 
them. Although of course it ultimately seemed to me that he was less 
doing than than playing out his own personal penance for Lily that 
was just manipulated by Dumbledore for his own ends. But his actions 
on the Potter's behalf throughout the story (even if he always hated 
two of those Potters and would not have mourned them) are at least 
good actions. If Harry continued to hold that against him to the 
point where he couldn't acknowledge all the good Snape did for him I 
don't think it would reflect well on Harry.

Though this is a different issue than Snape's everyday nasty 
treatment of Harry, which Harry would naturally resent. (I will 
never stop finding Harry's naming his child after the man anything 
but bizarre and something I have to chalk up to one of those 
authorial moments of "This is how you're supposed to think about 
these characters.")

-m