[the_old_crowd] Snape's Remorse

[Magda Grantwich]

--- pippin_999 <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> "Coward, did you call me, Potter?" shouted Snape. "Your
> father would never attack me unless it was four on one,
> what would you call him, I wonder?"
> 
> Translation: I've got you outnumbered five to one, you
> idiot, and you think it's cowardice that keeps me from
> attacking you? 


I don't view it that way.  I think Snape's sentence is the same kind
of coded sentence he used at the end of OOTP when he told Crabbe not
to strangle Neville as it would involve paperwork.  It was a coded
message to Harry (that Harry missed, natch) that he would intervene
to save a Gryffindor (Sirius/Neville) from a Slytherin
(Voldemort/Crabbe).  Neville isn't really in danger of dying at
Crabbe's hand but Sirius, if he's caught, is in danger of death from
Voldemort.  It's a sentence that makes the reader think "Huh?" and
then the light goes on.

The sentence above is designed the same way.  We (and Harry, who
again misses it by a mile) know because we saw the pensieve scene
that it was NEVER 4 on 1, that Lupin was an unwilling bystander, that
Pettigrew would never risk his neck, that at most it was 2 on 1.  And
Snape knows Harry saw the pensieve scene too.  We're supposed to say
"Huh?  What did he mean by that?"

I think Snape means that this is all an act, that just as the 4>1
never happened, that all of this isn't "really" what it seems either.
 It's another coded message.

> 
> But then Harry says, "Kill me like you killed him, you 
> coward--" and we get a reaction we've *never* seen
> before...
> 
> "DON'T--" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly
> demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain
> as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house
> behind them --"CALL ME COWARD!"
> 
> Now, Harry is only thinking of Dumbledore when he
> says "like you killed him," but Snape has been talking
> of James. Could it be that the "DON'T--" is our first glimpse of
> Snape's remorse for his part in James's death, an interpretation
> reinforced  by the hellish image of the dog burning alive, and the 
> word 'demented' which calls up worst memories?


No, if Harry had said "..like you killed *them*...", then it might
imply James and Lily to Snape.

But I don't think that Snape thinks he did kill James, and from his
furious line in POA I think he actually tried to warn him and thus
save him.  So I don't buy the James-guilt-for-death argument.

No, Snape knows that Harry is referring to Dumbledore here.  And it's
a raw open wound and he lashes out - kid, you don't know what it cost
me to do what I did on the Astronomy Tower. Don't you dare call me a
coward about it.

Snape couldn't give a damn about what Harry thinks of him but he
cares deeply that he killed Dumbledore.  It shows here.  

Magda

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