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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182297

xuxu wrote:
>snip>
> You see, when Snape came to Dumbledore, all he cared for was that he
caused the death of the person he loved. That's why DD was disgusted
with him: he saw that if Voldemort had given Snape the means to claim
Lilly back, Snape wouldn't have had a second thought about how much
damage his actions wrought. Snape's plea for a way of redeeming
himself didn't originate from a genuine realization of his own
immorality, but rather from an egoistical grief of a love lost and
hatred for the man who caused it. 
<snip>
> 
> Dumbledore did not believe that YKW was truly dead, and saw that
Snape would be an asset when he returned. But he also understood
Snape's grief because he himself understood grief, and I think that in
a way he was moved by it, when at the same time he despised Snape as a
person. <snip>

Carol responds:

While I agree that DD's reaction to Snape's plea was half-ruthlessness
and half-compassion, I think you're forgetting that when Snape first
came to Dumbledore for help, what he regretted was putting Lily in
danger, not killing her. Neither she nor "YKW" (took me a minute to
realize who you meant: we generally call him LV!) was yet dead (or
vaporized, in LV's case).

There would have been no point in young Snape's coming to DD
(Dumbledore) to ask him to protect Lily if she were already dead. DD
reminds him that Lily's husband and child are also in danger, and
Snape acknowledges that by begging him to save "her--them," but his
concern is really all for Lily, as we see later when he reacts to her
death and shrugs off the annoying and (to him) irrelevant information
that her son is still alive.

DD expresses disgust that Snape would go to Voldemort and request that
he spare Lily without any concern for her husband and son (surely DD
know that Severus hates James, but I suppose he expects him to care
that someone he knows is in danger from LV: As Quirrell says later of
Snape, "Yes, he hates you, but he doesn't want you dead!" Be that as
it may, he does indeed see a use for the young DE, spying on the
as-yet unvaporized Voldemort "at great personal risk," but he first
has to be sure that Snape will do "anything" to save Lily (or, rather,
do "anything" to help Dumbledore if Dumbledore saves Lily, which snape
himself is powerless to do). Snape has already asked Voldemort to
spare Lily (setting in motion the events that will lead to the
fulfillment of the Prophecy when Lily sacrifices herself), but he
doesn't trust Voldemort to keep his promise (with good reason), so he
goes to the only person powerful enough to protect her. (Just how DD
attempts to do that before suggesting the Fidelius Charm is unclear.
It seems that the Potters were already in hiding in Godric's Hollow on
Harry's first birthday, three months before the Secret Keeper switch,
but I don't want to get sidetracked on chronology--not JKR's strong
point.)

When Lily dies and LV is vaporized, Snape, despite being only 21, is
already teaching Potions at Hogwarts, having previously spied for DD
for an unspecified period. At that point, Dumbledore (still not
particularly compassionate even though the young man has risked his
life as a spy and is now one of his teachers, pretending to spy on DD
for LV) tells him that Voldemort is not dead and convinces him to
protect her son (still only a fifteen-month-old baby) so that Lily
won't have died in vain.

IOW, I think you're conflating two scenes from "the Prince's Tale,"
one of which occurs while he's still a DE and first learns how LV has
interpreted the Prophecy (he intends to kill the Potters) and one that
occurs some months later, probably on November 1, when Snape nearly
succumbs to despair, wanting to die himself, and Dumbledore uses the
Tough Love approach: "If you love Lily, you'll protect her son so that
she won't have died in vain" (paraphrased; I don't remember DD's exact
words.

Carol, apologizing for going into so much detail, but that's the way
my mind works