Where Are They Now? Character Game

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187330

Potioncat wrote:
> I agree that  he didn't want to teach potions. I sort of wonder if he didn't want to teach DADA even as a kid. It sort of channels his attraction to the Dark Arts in a positive direction, and teaching it allows him to demonstrate his ability.
> 
> So I can imagine (if Snape had survived) some recovery time spent at Spinner's End, some research opportunities, with perhaps a request from Shacklebolt from time to time. Then a few years later, a call from Headmistress McGonagall to be the new, long term DADA master.
<snip>

Carol responds:

I can't see Snape going from headmaster to a mere teacher again regardless of subject. I think he probably had his fill of teaching DADA after that one year; no more satisfying, really, than teaching NEWT potions. He still had to deal with incompetency and insubordination. He might have wanted to remain as headmaster for a year or two (he'd like the prestige and the authority, especially if he finally got respect from non-Slytherin students as a hero in the fight against Voldemort.

But, ultimately, I think he'd rather be free to pursue his intellectual pursuits, maybe publish his spells and potions improvements in new or revised textbooks for future generations of Hogwarts students or, better yet, work as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, a perfect job for a man who can keep a secret and loves magical research. I can just see him, still wearing sweeping black robes, happily descending into the mysterious depths of the MoM each day. there's something medieval and Gothic about him, and I think he'd be happy there. And I think he'd like his own dungeon office surrounded by potions of his own making. He may not have liked *teaching* Potions to pre-NEWT-level dunderheads, but he loved the subject itself, brewing and improving potions, that most poetic and mysterious of Hogwarts subjects. Sure, he was expert at dueling, too, and must have appreciated the chance to teach a subject that he was good at that his students didn't hate, but I think that he loved potion-making itself as much as he enjoyed showing someone up in a duel (Lockhart or Harry)--maybe even more. Working for the MoM would allow him to pursue any field of research that he chose.

And who knows? Maybe he'd meet a female Unspeakable who put Lily Potter out of his thoughts.

Or maybe he's have wanted to be an independent scholar with no boss and no "master."

Carol, who thinks that Snape would never submit to orders from another headmaster after having been headmaster himself

Carol, who