Dragons, Produced and Tickled, and Other Pleasantries

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> You know, it sounds like you're saying Snape preferred to work for
> Dumbledore because he was the more ethical employer. No argument 
> there.  :-)

That's one possible reading.  But, as you've mentioned, it's also the 
case that Dumbledore being the more ethical employer has direct 
benefits for Snape himself: he gets his sense of self-worth 
validated, while still getting to engage in some limited trampling 
and cruelty upon others.

This is operative whether Snape is DDM, OFH, or ESE: there's enough 
benefit in it to apply for all of them.

> Pippin:
> Snape vs a room full of Hermiones? That would be fun! But the most
> we're likely to get is an as-equals encounter in HP7.

I do hope we get some kind of encounter, and I can predict it taking 
any number of forms--which is to say, I make no predictions.  I 
suspect the option that is least attractive to your POV involves the 
same kind of meltdown as near the end of PoA, but then again, that 
wasn't *really* a meltdown, he was just acting, right?  :)

-Nora sits tongue firmly in cheek