Snape's Psycology: WAS: More thoughts on the Elder Wand subplot - Owner?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187453

Montavilla47:
> > Quite probably, teen!Snape would have been just as horrified if his spell had produced that reaction.  
> > 
> > The only analogous situation that I can think of with Snape was  when he was ten and Petunia was hit--and he denied doing it. But I don't think the situations are really close enough, either in how they came about, the outcomes, or the maturity level of the participants to make a good comparison.

Carol responds:

I think that Severus hitting James with the little cutting hex (which doesn't act like a full-fledged Sectumsempra and doesn't require any complicated countercurse) is probably a bit closer. He doesn't feel any remorse there, but neither do his antagonists.

As for the tree branch falling on Petunia, I think the closest analogy, given that Severus is nine or ten years old and wandless, is thirteen-year-old Harry's accidentally "blowing up" Aunt Marge (or eleven-year-old Harry's accidentally loosing a snake on Dudley). Either way, the kid is angry, and he performs accidental magic, which explains Severus's confused reaction and his denial. He did do it, and he *was* furious at Petunia for spying on him and Lily, but he didn't mean to do it. At any rate, that's how I read the scene. It has nothing to do with Muggle-hating any more than Harry's accidental attacks on Aunt Marge and Dudley make him a Muggle-hater. (A Dursley hater, maybe. <smile>) Hagrid's unprovoked attack on eleven-year-old Dudley after he's called Vernon "a great Muggle" comes closer to Muggle hating. The less said about it, the better if we want to think of Hagrid as a good guy.

Beatrice: 

> yeah, somehow I don't think so.  First, it seems that Snape may actually be the author of that particular spell.  I make this assumption purely on the basis that most of the notes in the margins of that text seem to be of his own discoveries and when Harry attempts to use levicorpus against him after DD's death Snape screams at him that he is just like his father who used his (Snape's) own spells against him... Even if Snape didn't create the spell, he knows what it does as he designates it "for enemies." <snip>

Carol responds:
There's no need to assume. Of course, it was his spell. That's how he (and probably he alone) knew the countercurse. My theory (not shared by everyone, I realize) is that he adapted the cutting hex he used on James into something more sinister ("for enemies") after SWM. He'd want to get revenge on them at that point, especially after Lily rejected his friendship and started openly liking James. But he also at some point seems to have invented that complex, chanted countercurse (which Harry didn't find in the potions book, so I assume that it came later, after his "return" to "our side," as DD expresses it in GoF).

> 
> > Montavilla47:
> > But, there are still only three Unforgivable spells, as specified by the author.  And Sectumsempra, while designated "Dark" by its creator (which makes it "Dark" to me), is not one of those spells.  If Sectumsempra were meant to be as dire as an Unforgivable, then I don't think JKR would have designated those three spells as especially bad.
> 
> Beatrice:
>  Well, it may not give you an "automatic" life sentence in Azkaban like the other three spells, but it might be considered a crime depending on the circumstances. <snip>

Carol responds:
I don't think anyone even knew about Sectumsempra, including the MoM. Lupin acts as if it were Snape's signature spell, which is odd because Severus could hardly have performed Sectumsempra at school without being expelled (Madam Pomfrey, not being an expert at Dark magic, couldn't have cured it any more than Molly Weasley could restore George's ear). And if Sirius Black, who went to Azkaban just after Godric's Hollow, at which point Snape was already teaching Potions at Hogwarts, didn't know that Snape had been a Death Eater, Lupin wouldn't have known it, either, until they were both members of the Order.

However, unlike Avada Kedavra, for which there's no countercurse and which there's no way to block (unless you're Harry Potter!), Sectumsempra can be repaired with Snape's complex chanted countercurse, and it doesn't always kill. I think if the MoM knew about it, they'd certainly consider it Dark Magic (as Snape, who should know, does) but they wouldn't consider it Unforgiveable. (Crucio, of course, is designed specifically to torture and can be put to know other use, which makes *it* Unforgiveable--despite occasional bending of the rules by the likes of Crouch, Fake! Moody (a secret DE), Umbridge ("what Cornelius knows won't hurt him), and, of course, Harry. The Imperius Curse (Harry and McGonagall bend the rules there) is probably Unforgiveable because of how it can be used--or rather, abused. It's odd, given that the MoM has no objection to Obliviating people's memories, especially if they're Muggles, that they'd object to the invasion of someone's mind via the Imperius Curse, but if it can be used to make people commit murder and other horrific acts, I can see why they'd want to regulate it, rather like gun control in the U.S. Maybe they think that making its mere use a crime punishable by life imprisonment in Azkaban will prevent its misuse. In any case, Sectumsempra doesn't fit the same picture since it *can* be healed, at least by Severus Snape.

> Beatrice: 
> okay, but let's be blunt here.  What if LV decided that it was Neville Longbottom who was the true threat?   Would there even be a story?  Would Snape be simply indifferent to their plight?  Their suffering?  Would he ever have turned from his Death Eater ideology? <big snip>

Carol responds:

The whole point of the Snape subplot is that he loved Lily, not Alice Longbottom or anyone else. And no other DE loved either of them. So if LV had gone after the Longbottoms first (or chosen Neville over Harry and left the Potters alone), Neville would have died with his parents because there would have been no request to spare her, no chance for her to live, no choice between her life and her son's, and no love magic. All three Longbottoms would have died. By the same token, if some other DE had reported the Prophecy to LV, that DE would not have begged him to spare Lily (or Alice), so, again, there would have been no Love Magic and no Boy Who Lived (with a Horcrux in his scar).

As for Snape, I'm afraid that, yes, he'd have been indifferent to the Longbottoms' plight and would have remained a Death Eater. But the fact that *his* reporting the Prophecy endangered the woman he loved made him go first to LV and then, quite understandably distrusting LV, to Dumbledore. His remorse and his desperate fear prompted him to do "anything" to keep her from being killed, and, once she actually died, "anything" to protect her son to keep Lily from having died in vain. (No doubt there was an element of vengeance against those responsible for killing her, as well, which we see in his violent hatred of Sirius Black, the supposed betrayer of the Potters in PoA, but his vengeance toward LV is more controlled and confined to repeatedly risking his own life to lie to him and spy on him, and his vengeance against the weak and cowardly Wormtail seems to be confined to sneering at him, insulting him, and ordering him around.

I don't know whether Snape ever really swallowed the DE ideology. After all, he was a Half-Blood, not a Pure-Blood snob like the Malfoys, and his nickname, the Half-Blood Prince, seems to reflect mixed feelings about Pure-blood supremacy. But he was ambitious; he wanted a chance to use his many talents and his intelligence; and he wanted, I think, to feel a sense of belonging. He certainly wanted to be admired (but I still find it hard to swallow that he thought he could make Lily admire him by becoming a DE; he must have had very unclear notions about what the DEs actually did if he thought that). But I do think that if he'd stayed with them long enough and had done more than spying (he clearly hasn't killed anybody), he would have become hardened to suffering. Instead, he fears for the safety of one person, experiences unbearable remorse for his part in that person's death even though he did his best to prevent it (not just going to LV and DD but spying for DD "at great personal risk"), and after Lily's death worked to protect Harry and to subvert LV in every way (more so, of course, after Harry entered Hogwarts and particularly after LV returned to his body). And by HBP, perhaps sooner, he's no longer able to watch people die without doing something about it if he can. (It must have been excruciating for him to watch Charity Burbage die without being able to save her.)

In short, a brilliant young man made the mistake of joining the Death Eaters and could have become no better than Lucius Malfoy or Travers or Yaxley, if not quite so horrible as Fenrir Greyback. Instead, love and remorse turned him into Dumbledore's most valuable spy and, in HBP and DH, his trusted lieutenant who could do what no one else could do, from agreeing to kill Dumbledore to protect Draco's soul and prevent DD from suffering at the hands (or teeth) of LV's true supporters to becoming headmaster and protecting the students as best he could (imagine Yaxley as headmaster; he'd have sacked all the teachers and hired an all-DE staff) and secretly helping Harry in DH.

Snape is one of a kind, a DE turned to the good side by love and remorse. Neither DD nor Harry could have succeeded without his help. (Snape is the reason that DD knows LV's plans in OoP and HBP, for example.)

> > Montavilla47:
> > But DD doesn't not order Snape to swear an Unbreakable Vow.  By making that vow, Snape is endangering his cover--if Voldemort were to find out, then it could cause Snape problems.  
> 
> Beatrice:  Actually, I think he is deepening his cover here.  Snape indicates to DD that LV intends Snape to be the one to kill DD in the end.  Snape makes the unbreakable vow because it is essentially the same promise he has already made to DD AND because it helps Bellatrix to trust him more.  Bellatrix doubts Snapes loyalty and his willingness to make the unbreakable vow puts paid to many of her doubts.  Also, I thought that perhaps this is another way for LV to test Snape's loyalty.  As he trusts no one, perhaps he would be pleased to have Narcissa swear to this as her ends are also LV's ends.

<snipping stuff on who's worthier to wield the Elder Wand, which, IMO, no one should wield>

Carol responds:

Yes and no. Snape must have had multiple reasons for deciding to take the Unbreakable Vow (which did not originally include the provision about "doing the deed"--Narcissa only asked him if he'd swear to protect and watch over Draco). Yes, both DD and LV wanted him to kill Dumbledore, but he himself didn't want to do it, as we see in at least three different scenes. He resists the original request, accepting only reluctantly when DD has persuaded him that saving Draco's soul won't harm his if he's doing it to give an old man a painless and dignified death. (He also knows that DD needs him to stay under cover though he probably doesn't know at that point that DD wants him to become headmaster.) He objects again even after he's taken the UV, saying that maybe he doesn't want to do it any more. And we see his "hatred and revulsion" (surely, self-hatred and revulsion similar to Harry's as he force-fed DD that horrible potion) just before he kills him on the tower. Even knowing all but one of DD's reasons for wanting  Snape to kill him, Snape doesn't want to do it, and we see his torment in his face when Harry calls him a coward. (Whether Pippin is right that he's also thinking about James, I don't know, but he's certainly not happy about what DD has just insisted that he do.)

Yes, he wants to persuade Bellatrix of his loyalty to LV, but if she doesn't believe his earlier arguments, she probably won't believe him now. After all, Narcissa has gone behind LV's back in coming to Snape for help, so none of them is likely to report the UV to LV. (Bellatrix seems to conclude that Snape is after Draco's "glory" and convince him of the same motive.) And he certainly wants to aid the tearful and desperate Narcissa, possibly to keep her from doing something drastic that will result in her death as well as Draco's. (We see Snape's chivalric side here, coming to Narcissa's aid and not only asking nothing in return, in contrast to DD, but putting himself in an intolerable position, the ultimate "binding magical contract" in which he must literally do or die. He intends to watch over and protect Draco, anyway, so accepting those two provisions seems like only a small risk (had he not been on the spot to save Draco from Sectumsempra, though, the UV might have killed him then). And the third provision, terrible though it is, is inescapable at that point. He wants Bellatrix to think that he'd loyal to LV, but more important, he's bound to Narcissa with rings of fire; there's no telling what would happen if he refused the third provision. And Narcissa is counting on him; he can't let her down or she'll do something desperate. He can't let Dumbledore down; DD would expect him to take the vow. For all their sakes (Draco's and DD's especially, I think), he puts himself at greater personal risk than ever. Unless DD dies from the ring curse before Draco can find a way to kill him (presumably with DE back-up; he's not going to confront DD alone), Snape is in the intolerable position of killing DD or dying himself. Just wanting to keep his cover is not sufficient motive. It's a terrible decision (and extremely heartless and selfish of Narcissa to request it of him), but he's promised to do "anything," and he keeps his promise.

Carol, almost hating Narcissa and DD for placing that burden on him and wishing that DD had burnt the Elder Wand, his real motive for asking Snape to kill him