Voldemort's Intentions & Snape's Expectations

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 189828

Shelley wrote:
> > We don't know if he was a "genius" per se, because a lot of mistaken genius to other people isn't so much a high IQ or high natural talent as much as a "fair amount" of IQ or raw talent coupled with a STRONG drive and desire to use one's talents.
> 
Bart responded:
> 
>      And, frankly, if we were concerned with textbook definitions here, that would be highly relevant. The question, however, is whether or not Morty considered Snape to be sufficiently useful as to be worth making a genuine offer of a reward as a way of increasing Snape's loyalty. The fact that he did makes the question kind of moot, although many seem to feel it worth arguing that Morty, totally against character, made an effort to reward someone of little importance.

Carol adds:

I agree with Shelley on one point: Severus Snape's strong drive to succeed (the ambition which, along with his belief that Slytherin was the House for "brains" and his desire to be placed there) landed him in Slytherin. But, as I stated in an earlier post, I also believe that he was a genius.

But I also agree with Bart that LV would not reward a follower of little importance. Snape had just proven his worth, if LV had been disposed to doubt it, by revealing the partial prophecy. We're always hearing the phrase "rewarded above all others" from LV or the DEs or Snape himself. Snape's reward (the promise to spare Lily's life) and the secretly cursed reward of Wormtail's silver hand are the only examples I recall from canon, but they can't be the only real examples or the phrase itself would have become meaningless. (Maybe we should count his placing sufficient trust in Bellatrix and Lucius, placing Horcruxes in their protection--though without telling them the real worth of those treasures--as rewards for loyalty. That he later regretted doing so is beside the point.) At any rate, the silver hand, bestowed in front of a circle of DEs, demonstrated that he did indeed keep his promise to reward Wormtail and compensate him for his sacrifice with something "better" than his human hand (though Wormtail could not know the double meaning behind LV's words). Was there some double meaning behind his promise to spare Lily? I think not. Wormtail had demonstrated weakness, cowardliness, and wavering loyalty. Snape had not and did not. LV never knew that Snape was working against him. Who else could have pulled that off?

Both LV and Dumbledore assign critical tasks to Snape that they assign--and can assign--to no one else (see DD's comments in HBP). Who besides the young Snape could LV have assigned to apply for a teaching position at Hogwarts? Snape's ability to hide the fact that he was a DE from most of the WW was reason enough to send *him* rather than, say, Travers or Yaxley. LV must have expected Snape to actually convince DD to hire him (as he did not hire LV himself) to teach DADA (for which LV must have known that Snape had a gift). That DD actually hired him to teach Potions (for which he also had a gift) would not have mattered to LV, who only wanted him there to spy without detection on Dumbledore and convince the old man that he had changed his ways and was loyal to him, not to LV. (Of course, Snape's other great talent, his superb Occlumency, prevented LV from knowing that the "lie" he expected Snape to tell without detection by the great Dumbledore was actually the truth.

Carol, who suspects that LV could tell a Snape from a Yaxley just as he could tell a Lucius Malfoy from a Fenrir Greyback and that he set them all tasks for which they were suited