Cedric, Snape and carma was re: Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190549

> 
> Alla:
> 

 Cedric wanted to win in the Tournament, which he wanted to do in the most noble way. Snape wanted to do *something* to his fellow student, can we agree on that? 

Pippin:
 Snape wanted  to find out what Lupin and his friends were  up to.  He suspected it was something very bad. Who but Dark Wizards would want a werewolf for a friend?

  He wanted to prove the Marauders weren't as great as everyone thought. But he didn't think he was going to have to *frame* them. He wouldn't think he needed to. James and Sirius were habitual trouble-makers -- if they were sneaking around, it wasn't to do something *nice*. 

 I am sure Snape did not think much beyond the fact that if he could show that Lupin and his friends were   doing something wrong, they would be stopped and punished. That is what is supposed to happen, isn't it? Is that a selfish, evil thing to want? 

Alla:
 Mind you he knew that Remus is officially accepted in school, he saw Remus going there with Madame Pomfrey, so he knew adults are aware of whatever is happening in the Shack. 

Pippin:
First of all, though canon is maddeningly inconsistent on the technicalities of Lupin's condition, we know from PoA that it  caused him to miss classes and meals. That Lupin's absences were sanctioned by the school would have been clear long before Snape saw Lupin going to the willow. By his own admission, Lupin told all kinds of stories to explain his absences. Snape would soon realize that Lupin was lying and that for some reason the adults were letting him get away with it. 

I suppose that Snape, like Harry in HPB, was tired of being treated like a conspiracy theorist for voicing the inconvenient truth.
  
Let's not forget Snape was still friends with Lily at this point. She might not feel Lupin was any danger to her, just as Hermione and Ron didn't feel threatened by Draco.  But I doubt Snape shared that opinion. He could have been only thinking of himself, but it's just as likely that he was thinking of her too. 

That's not to say Snape didn't expect to win anything for himself or didn't know he was breaking rules. But so did Cedric. He was going to get fame, glory and 500 golden galleons, (and Cho was going to be *so* impressed!).  And he knew full well that no one was going to be playing exactly by the rules, cheating being an historically accepted part of the game.  

No one in canon acts with purely selfish motives except Voldemort, and no one in canon is ever purely unselfish, not even Harry.

So I don't buy that Snape had only evil selfish motives for accepting Sirius's challenge, or that Cedric had only pure ones for being in the Tournament. 

Second, there seems to be some confusion about what Snape knew and when he knew it. 

He knew what Lupin was by the time of his conversation about him with Lily, because that was *after* The Prank.  What we see in this scene, IMO, is Snape's debut performance as an actor. The "official" story seems to be that he got into the tunnel on his own, and was rescued by James from something so  dangerous that  he couldn't be told what it was. Snape blurts out angrily that James didn't do anything noble by saving him, that he was trying to keep himself and his friends out of trouble,  but he quickly realizes that he can't tell Lily why he thinks so. 

Anyway, he doesn't persist with his arguments.

Once Lily says that James Potter is a toerag,  he's blissful. Perfectly satisfied.  So we *do* know what he wanted. He didn't want to fight Lupin, or kill him, or even get him kicked out of school. He just wanted Lily to think James was a jerk. If that's an evil, selfish motive, then okay, Snape is guilty as charged. 

Snape didn't say anything about the Shrieking Shack, because the Shack was still supposed to be secret. He didn't know that  the Shrieking Shack was involved with Lupin before the prank.  He may have found out afterwards, but that would be because somebody told him, since Lupin says he didn't get as far as the Shack, and there is no outward indication of where the tunnel leads. 


> >Alla:
> 
> I am not advocating that books have consistent system of carmic payback actually. I am just saying that I see this situation and several others as carmic payback, thats all. It is just too convenient for me to consider where he died and how he died to be a coincidence and I do not quite buy your reasoning of it. After all if we were to follow that path, then every death in the books would have been by monster's hand. Lupin and Tonks just died, no monsters were waiting for them, no monster was waiting for Dumbledore unless you consider Snape to be one, etc, etc.

Pippin:
Every death in the books is by violence, is it not? No, wait, Aragog dies of old age. But for the most part JKR is telling a story about a time when people  really shouldn't expect to die in bed. 

 My point is the books advocate  that we   all choose how to meet death. We will have to face it sooner or later, and it's better to die for a reason than to run away, or be tricked into facing mortal peril before you are ready. 

On the first reading, it seems that Snape is terrified out of his wits that Voldemort has decided to kill him. And then you realize, once you see  that he had complete and superb control of himself all along, that he was only afraid for his mission. And that he could have saved himself if he chose. All he had to say was, "Master, Dumbledore was wandless when he died! Ask the Carrows! Ask Draco -- I didn't defeat his wand!"

Pippin