Dumbledore's psychology (WAS Re: Snape's Psychology...)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 187561

> Julie:
> What bothered me was Dumbledore's response. In every other 
> confrontation with anyone acting on the "bad" side--Draco,
> Voldemort/Tom, Lucius, Fudge, Umbridge, the Dursleys, etc--
> Dumbledore delivers his condemnations in soft-spoken tones, 
> using gentle admonishments to make his points and attempt
> to alter behavior or attitudes.

Zara:
My own take on this is that Albus, whether consciously or not, saw his own youthful self/youthful mideeds in Snape, far more than in any of the other "bad guys" we see him interact with. And it caused him to respond to Snape, the way Aberforth responded to him when he himsef was young. They both, for example, have backgrounds that might make them less sympathetic to Muggles, both were bright and magically powerful (Albus more so) and they both went down a bad path until harm (in Snape's case, potential harm) to a loved one diverted them from it.

Albus, apparently, decided to forego the Ministership and spend his life in a position in which he felt he could do more good and wreak less harm as a result of his deliberations after Ariana's death. I think his reaction to Snape was very much "So you're sorry, huh? What are you willing to do about it?" I think the answer of "Anything" (backed up by, at a guess, several months to a year of spying in the first war) went a long way towards creating the opinion expressed in  the GoF Pensieve scene in which Albus declares of Snape, "He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."