Dragons, Produced and Tickled, and Other Pleasantries

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "severelysigune" 
<severelysigune at y...> wrote:

> Sigune pipes up:
> 
> I'm not sure I have that much to add to this, but I did want to say 
> that I wholeheartedly agree. I think it would be hard to explain 
> why Snape remained at Hogwarts once Voldemort was out of the 
> picture, if he had only turned to Dumbledore to save his butt. The 
> Order members certainly got on with their lives, and did not need 
> to reside at Hogwarts in order to be stand-by.

See, I actually think it's become a little easier post-HBP.  When we 
had visions of Snape the pureblood living at Snape Manor, keeping the 
teaching job doesn't make much sense.  But Snape's probably not well-
off (guessing by the house), he probably doesn't have powerful family 
connections to fall back on (although the number of Prince!Sues out 
there has been what you'd expect, in the scary wide world of fic), 
and although we don't have too much information about the status or 
pay of Hogwarts teachers, I'd say it's not a stretch to call it a 
pretty good job.

So Snape is in a position where he can still see what things are 
going on, and it's a reasonably comfortable position.  Sure, he has 
to behave in some ways, but as Pippin pointed out, he's also free to 
indulge his cruelty when the rules will let him.  And Dumbledore puts 
up with his foibles where other people might not.

If you postulate a Snape who is more interested and engaged in the 
course of events than disinterested (the whole Ice King "I just want 
my books and a potions lab" idea), staying at Hogwarts has a good 
number of benefits.  And some demerits.

-Nora would still love to see Snape try to run something like a 
graduate seminar, where students can draw blood just as well