What If He Didn't Tell All? (now not very LONG)

[davewitley]

Sigune wrote:

> Dear masterminds,
> 
> I have the audacity of offering up an essay in defence of a theory 
> (my own, *ahem*) that I haven't encountered anywhere else yet - that 
> Snape was loyal, but not entirely truthful. Features lots of canon 
in 
> support. By all means tear it apart.

I really like this analysis, and it's hard not just to do an 
extended 'me too'.  It seems to me to have some remarkable merits:

1) It is (once we find out what Draco's task was) pretty well the 
surface reading of the text, but presented in such a way that it 
becomes a double bluff.  For example, Hagrid's overheard conversation 
leads Harry to come not far from the truth, but we as readers are so 
used to assuming that there is an explanation that exonerates Snape - 
think of the conversation with Qirrell.

Snape AKs Dumbledore in full view of the reader, and the fandom is off 
inventing fanciful theories about fake deaths, being already dead, 
killing according to a plan, and so on.  JKR has got us all assuming 
that when she says 'Yes' she means 'No', or 'Nitwit, Oddment, Blubber, 
Tweak.'  Especially 'tweak'.  So now, when she says 'Yes' and means 
it, none of us believe her.

2) It manages to simultaneously have loyaltothecause!Snape and 
Unforgivable!Snape.  He really did use AK to finish off Dumbledore - 
how will JKR resolve that one?  Yet he still has been working against 
Voldemort, which according to Dumbledore (in GOF) is the thing that 
matters.  The Snape who now enters Book 7 is as interesting as ever he 
was, if not more so, and IMO far more interesting than a Snape who has 
pulled off some complicated trick with Dumbledore's connivance.

Just a couple of points that have been debated since.

I think it would be very risky for Snape to claim to know what Draco's 
mission was if he didn't in fact know it.  All Bella has to do is 
say "Go on, tell us, then.  Whisper it in Cissy's ear if you don't 
trust me."

The other issue is how much choice he had in making the Vow.  Was it 
just the thrill of being able to show his power over Narcissa?  It 
depends, I think, on his assessment of his and Bella's true standing 
with Voldemort.  He may have calculated that to refuse to commit 
himself would fatally weaken his mission - he may well have wondered 
if Voldemort's choice of Draco had been calculated to bring about 
precisely this situation.  Which is more interesting, the spinner who 
turns and twists at the end of his thread, or the gameplayer who 
miscalculates in a fatal moment of hubris?

Finally, I agree that Dumbledore, having survived the ring, can be 
expected to have every hope, if not perhaps expectation, of surviving 
the locket, too.  His instructions to Harry make it plain that he has 
a chance of being killed (as does his plea to the Dursleys), but they 
do not make it a certainty or a definite plan.

David