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

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 182325

Potioncat quotes:
> "Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air;
> Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and
> his wand had flown out of his hand.

> ""Don't kill me!""

Ceridwen:
I'm not surprised Snape asks not to be killed.  Dumbledore, still "a 
blinding, jagged jet of white light," can disarm him.  He hasn't even 
settled into corporeal form again to do this.  I didn't notice this 
when I read the passage whole in the book.  Thanks.

Potioncat:
> I have the feeling that DE!Snape and DD have met before.  DD seems 
> to think there is a message from LV, Snape seems to think DD
> might kill him.

Ceridwen:
It's possible that LV used Snape as a go-between before.  He 
apparently had some personal contact with Dumbledore in school, 
something that few other students seem to have had.  Dumbledore's 
office is password-protected, and he tends to leave the management of 
students to his subordinates.  Snape, however, has promised not to 
expose Remus as a werewolf.  I think that was probably handled at the 
highest level, since it was a pet project of Dumbledore's to 
successfully shepherd a werewolf through the seven years of school.  
Snape learning the secret by first suspecting it for whatever clues 
Remus and the Marauders left around, and Snape almost becoming that 
experimental student's victim, would land him directly in the 
headmaster's office.  The plan went awry owing to the normal impulses 
of teenagers.  Dumbledore had to put a lid on it.

So, Snape as one of the few students who have actually faced 
Dumbledore as headmaster, and Snape as possibly the only Death Eater 
to have done so, and Snape being junior to the Death Eaters who had 
Dumbledore as their teacher, could well have been sent on such a 
mission. Why would LV discount this resource?

Potioncat:
> At the same time, a general would want to minimize the danger to 
> his troops. Sending them into harm's way needs to be done with the 
> best cover possible.

Ceridwen:
The mission is the thing.  Having one's soldiers survive to complete 
the mission is important.  Sure, some death is impossible to avoid, 
but keeping troop numbers up leaves more troops for future missions, 
and prevents morale from crumbling based on mistrust of the general.  
Dumbledore as a general here would want to stop the deaths of his 
soldiers because fewer soldiers means fewer successful missions, and 
an overwhelmingly outnumbered force.  The overall mission is to 
capture or kill LV, and stop the reign of terror spread on his orders 
by his DEs.

Besides, who would want to follow orders from a general who doesn't 
seem to have his priorities in order, and who appears not to have the 
welfare of the troops under his command in mind?  Only people with an 
unwavering loyalty to personality, like the Death Eaters.  Once their 
personality was vaporized, most of them scrambled to prove 
their "unwilling" participation.  They didn't have the good of their 
world in mind, only their own ambitions and their own attraction to a 
charismatic madman to inform their actions.  Hopefully, the Order 
members who allowed themselves to be put in harm's way (this is an 
extra-governmental militia, no one's been drafted) did it for the 
greater goal of ridding their world of a menace.

Ceridwen.