Dumbledore and Snape that night WAS: Re: GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 182296

> > Pippin:

> >  Snape was not asking Dumbledore to protect a civilian, he was 
> asking him to take an Order witch out of the action, and Dumbledore was 
> quite right to consider what the Order could get in return.
> <SNIP>
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Dumbledore is not asking Snape what the Order will get in return 
> though. He is asking what Snape will give **him** in return. 
<snip>
> 
> So, you think Dumbledore and Order are interchangeable definitions? I 
> mean do not get me wrong, it certainly looks like it to me, but erm
 
> it does not look good to me if it is so.

Pippin:
In this case, I think they are interchangeable, although it isn't clear whether
Snape knows there is an Order, per se. But  Snape can't be expecting Albus Dumbledore, 
Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Mugwump etc, etc  to stand guard over Lily personally. 

Lily's situation, IMO, is a bit like the British Prince  in Afghanistan. Obviously 
his commanders didn't want him to be killed, but that wasn't enough reason not to send 
him to a war zone.  Dumbledore doesn't want Lily to be killed, but that may not be enough 
reason to take her out of the war, you see? So before DD can promise that, he needs to 
find out what Snape is willing to do for him and for those who will be protecting Lily, and 
maybe dying to keep her safe as Peter should have done. Or as Dumbledore might have 
had to do, if he had been made the Secret Keeper.

Dumbledore doesn't say he's going to let Lily be killed unless Snape will help him. If Snape 
even thought that, IMO, it's because he was still a DE at heart.  But I think it would be very 
in character for Dumbledore to weigh how many lives might  be lost while Lily  was out of 
action.   We know she was a powerful witch, especially skilled in charms and potions. I 
don't know what she did for the Order, but I bet it was more than hanging out at 
Slughorn's parties and pumping the guests for information (though I bet she was good at 
that.)

We know that James at least did not enjoy being in hiding, and from what Sirius says, and 
what Dumbledore says about the kind of man Sirius was, if there was fighting going on 
James would have liked to be in it. I think they had the sort of attitude that Athos speaks 
of in The Three Musketeers -- when the king tells them to go somewhere and get killed, 
they go and get killed. It isn't for the cause or for the king, it's for their own personal 
sense of worth, because they've given their word and because their friends are counting 
on them. It's why Sirius can tell Peter that he should have died, and why Moody is so 
disgusted with Mundungus, and why Harry is so accepting in the end of what he is asked 
to do. 

Not that Rowling is advocating a Charge of the Light Brigade kind of mindlessness. 
Dumbledore *doesn't* ask Harry not to reason why, in fact he and Snape make sure that 
Harry  thoroughly understands DD's strategy and the rationale behind it before he charges 
into the valley of death, even though the delay proves costly to them both.


Pippin