Dragons, Produced and Tickled, and Other Pleasantries

[pippin_999]

Nora:
> And Pippin, I still want to know if you'd then agree that Snape got 
> what he 'deserved' for snooping around, quite possibly with force (or 
> at least covert magic). :)

Pippin:
Yes, that is the trouble with the whole karma bit. Does anything unjust
happen in the Potterverse, or does it all trace back to original sin? I
think the point is that we can't know, even though we, unlike the
characters, know for certain that nothing in the Potterverse "just
happens."  

Nor are we clear about what the characters themselves believe
about fate, except that Dumbledore believes that free will and love
are stronger. But of course he's very progressive for a wizard. It
wasn't until the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 that the idea that
God ordains natural disasters to punish whole communities for 
their sins really went out of fashion in the West, and that was after
the wizards' retreat from Muggle society.

For us and for the characters, it's easy to ascribe the misfortunes of 
people we don't like to cosmic justice, thus excusing our own schadenfreude. 
I don't see Snape as totally innocent any more than Morfin Gaunt. But whatever 
teenage!Snape was, AFAWK he didn't deserve to be murdered. 

I think even Sirius comes around to that point of view eventually. In OOP, 
he says that he's not proud of the way he and his friends treated Snape, 
and it's underlined with a sharp look from Lupin. 

Snape's life was treated cavalierly, and he became
a person who was careless with the lives of others. Now, I think, he no
longer is, though when confronted with the people who once  held his life so 
cheaply, and whom he thinks are Death Eaters who still have no concept that
human life is valuable, he can't resist taking the mickey out of them a little. 
Still, he doesn't turn Sirius over to the Dementors or leave him unguarded
at the mercy of whatever dangers prowl the grounds at night, including
the werewolf he knows is out there. 

My reading of Rowling is that human life and human souls are too
precious to be damaged deliberately, except in defense of the lives
and souls of the innocent -- and sometimes they must be sacrificed
for this purpose.

 I think Snape has come to this point of view, at least as far as 
thinking that *his* life and soul ought to be protected, and
accepting that Dumbledore's price for that is that  Snape protect the
lives and souls of others, risking his own if need be. But Snape is 
too invested in his own sense of injury to have much feeling for others, so he is
at the mercy of the rules as far as determining what is damaging. If the 
rules allow him to be cruel in the course of his duties, he will be. 

That's how I see it, anyway. If it were proved to him that Harry cared about
justice for Snape, say by solving the attempted murder,  then perhaps 
Snape's old wounds might heal.

Pippin