Snape's Backslide (was Re: Welcome!)

[annemehr]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2"
<carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...> 
> wrote:
> > I'll never believe Smarmy!Snape. The only alternative that leaves,
> > though, is that he was genuinely glad to see her back and nearly
> > herself again.  I'm not a Snape/McGonagall SHIPper, but I do think 
> she
> > is the closest thing he has to a friend.  In OoP she says she'd been
> > teaching at Hogwarts for 39 years; she must have taught Snape.
> 
> Carolyn:
> Ah, no...there is much more to it than that, and no SHIPPY nonsense, 
> either (at least between Minerva and Severus). Indeed, she must have 
> taught Snape, in fact, known him man and boy, but I think the point 
> is she was also at school with Tom Riddle. I think McGonagall 
> understands why Snape became a DE better than anyone, because she 
> also understands where Tom Riddle came from and why he became Lord 
> Voldemort - she understands the attraction only too well. 
> 
> I also think Dumbledore only trusts her as much as he trusts Snape - 
> that there are reasons why he knows he can expect loyalty from both, 
> but they are rather enmeshed in back history, not in any gush of 
> sentiment. 
[...]
I think she may have done 
> some stupid things, maybe hung around with Tom's teenage friends 
> before and after he disappeared, maybe teetered on the brink of 
> something worse. 
> 
> I think it took Dumbledore, with his superior powers to Tom, to bring 
> her back from a dangerous path, and it's her shameful secret. Like 
> many other teachers at Hogwarts, he found her a place there to keep 
> her safe. So, she understands the whole process Snape has been 
> through. It is also possible that she was at school with Snape's 
> parents, and perhaps understands the bitterness of his home life, and 
> was friends with his mother. 

Annemehr:
All right, then -- Snape and McGonagall are friends, *and* there's
more to it. One thing though, it doesn't seem as though Dumbledore
could have found McGonagall a place at Hogwarts since she began
teaching there in 1956, but Dumbledore didn't become Headmaster until
the early '70s (from the Lexicon timeline, based on McG's "inspection"
in OoP and Lupin's comment about not thinking he could go to Hogwarts
until DD became Headmaster). Of course, that doesn't preclude him
"rescuing" her from Riddle's influence.

Still, there's ample room to speculate that Dumbledore knows something
about McGonagall, and it has often been noted that he seems to send
her out of the room at the end of GoF before really getting down to
business, as if to keep certain things from her.  If you're right
about her getting mixed up with Tom Riddle back in the day, then for
it to be significant she must have gone pretty far.  After all, Tom
was Head Boy, had "always been able to charm the people he needed,"
and many, if not most, people must have been taken in by him to some
extent.

McGonagall was not mentioned as being in the original Order. I looked
up the scene where Moody shows Harry the photograph again, though, and
I'm not sure everyone in it was even named. The episode ends abruptly
with Moody pointing out Harry's parents and Wormtail -- was that
because they were indeed the last ones left, or because Harry didn't
want to see any more and Moody didn't want to show any more?

In terms of McGonagall knowing better than anyone just what drew Snape
to Voldemort and what it may have cost to get away, just how do you
think it affected their relationship? In canon, she shows very little
actual affection or special regard for Harry until OoP, though truth
be told, many of us suspected it.  Would a misanthrope like Snape have
noticed anything in her beyond the qualities I listed in my original post?

Annemehr
off to develop a new theory that Caradoc Dearborn is the Heir of
Gryffindor, the HBP, the new DADA teacher, and the guy who looks like
a lion. Oh, and he's also Harry's Great Aunt, lives up the Pillar of
Storge, and knows where Quirrell is.  On second thought, somebody's
probably posted all this somewhere already...