Snape and moral courage WAS: Re: The Houses, Finally

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 184686

Pippin:
<HUGE SNIP>
Snape and Harry have both seen enough to understand that everyone
dies, that for all their striving to survive, the best anyone can ever
hope for is to die at the right moment. That's not being a pig for
slaughter. It's being a grownup.



Alla:

You see when I read stuff like that is when I start to doubt myself. 
Where in canon do you see that Snape thought that he made a promise 
to protect Harry with damaged soul?
It just feels as if you are stretching big time, trying to include in 
**protection of Harry** something that Snape never knew was there in 
the first place. So now when I am reading Snape's promise to 
Dumbledore, what I am supposed to understand Snape actually saying is 
not that he is promising to protect Lily's son from great danger, but 
that he is promising to protect his soul from being damaged and if he 
cannot do so, then he would go ahead and agree that dying is the best 
thing for Harry.

Souls exist in Potterverse, of course they do. I just do not see what 
Snape's initial promise had to do with souls. Soul's spiritual life 
is super important in Potterverse, of course it is, I just do not see 
anything in Snape and Dumbledore final conversation that makes me 
believe that what Dumbledore is actually saying is that Harry has to 
die for the good of his soul and what Snape is actually saying – oh 
yes, that is why it is in line with my promise and I agree that for 
him to die is the best thing.

As littleleah said, Snape is not taking Harry at gunpoint to die, 
thank goodness for that, but boy I would never say that he is 
protecting him either based on last conversation.

I have no issue with Harry's choice to die, oh and by the way I 
completely of the opinion that he figured out completely on his own 
that Dumbledore's plan is a good one for the good of the mankind and 
all that. I have no problem with that. I adore Harry for that.

But you are absolutely right – to hear Snape agreeing with it and 
then to think that he was supposed to be his protector, that is a bit 
creepy to me.

Magpie:
This has always been the theory, but I don't see how it works. First,
there's no proof that any DEs were watching Snape in the years before
Voldemort returned to make sure he was acting like he hated Harry.
Snape could keep an eye on Harry without acting like he hated them.
Lucius Malfoy himself tells Draco isn't not prudent to be known to
hate Harry. <SNIP>

Alla:

Yes, yes, yes. I have never heard an argument about how exactly that 
would be better for Snape the spy to hate Harry which I understood. I 
am not even talking about agreeing or disagreeing with it, I just do 
not get how it supposed to work.
Voldemort thinks that Snape is spying **for him**, so of course he 
would want Snape to be respected by Dumbledore IMO, you know to be 
closer to get the goods on him and to be closer, means be closer to 
Dumbledore's chosen one, no?

JMO,

Alla