Sirius and Snape parallels again

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185048

> Montavilla47:
> That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless Dumbledore really
> thought that the prophecy was nonsense.  If Harry or Neville had 
> the possiblity of being the one who would vanquish Voldemort, then
> it only made sense to protect them, even before Snape showed up
> with his warning.

Pippin:
I do think Dumbledore thought the prophecy was nonsense. But even if
he didn't,"those who have thrice defied him" is so vague as to be
meaningless. It could apply to any wizard who hated LV, and as he
himself said, there were many of them. Unless Dumbledore had the
resources to put every wizarding baby born towards the end of July
under the secret keeper spell, he had to wait on Voldemort's decision.
Protecting only some of the children would be tantamount to painting a
bullseye on them.


> 
> Pippin:
> > Dumbledore was serving notice that Snape wouldn't be allowed to
use the Order as he'd hoped to use Voldemort -- to dispose of Lily's
 family so he could have her to himself.
> 
> Montavilla47:
> I find that quite unfair.  There is absolutely no indication that 
> Snape intended to have Lily "to himself."  We don't, of course, 
> know exactly when Snape heard the prophecy, so it's impossible
> to say that he didn't know it would apply to Lily and Jame's son.

Pippin:
 Snape turned to Dumbledore only because he feared that Voldemort
would not keep his word, not because he no longer found the bargain
itself acceptable. Snape may have made his request of Voldemort before
or after he delivered the prophecy, probably before, since Hagrid says
that no one understood why Voldemort had left James and Lily alone for
so long. It didn't occur to me that Snape might have asked Voldemort
to spare Lily even before she'd got married, but that doesn't change
anything. My point is that he had asked Voldemort to spare Lily
knowing that those whom she loved were also at risk. His morality was
the same as Aragog's. 

> Pippin:
> > But that meant DD would lose two fighters -- was it wrong for him
to ask what Snape could offer in return? 
> 
> Montavilla47:
> Really, all I can say to that is that if Dumbledore was thinking 
> only about the number of his fighters, then he has no business
> faulting Snape for his indifference to James and Harry.

Pippin:
The number of his fighters is the number of innocent lives that
Dumbledore can protect --  what on earth is wrong with Dumbledore
thinking about that?

Montavilla:
> And, as someone who is unabashedly pro-Snape, it's always
> nice to be reminded that, as big of a jerk as Snape could be,
> Dumbledore was a much bigger one.

Pippin:
I suppose so. As Dumbledore says, his mistakes are correspondingly
huger. Almost all of JKR's heroic characters have their disappointing
aspects. That's what makes them seem so real, and makes them so much
fun to discuss. We don't have these kinds of debates about Neville and
Luna.

Pippin