Harry, Voldemort and Snape

[Jen Reese]

Sigune:
> In HBP, Snape has been carefully set up as a kind of carbon copy
> of Voldemort. He had a Muggle father and a pure-blood mother, just
> like Tom Riddle. We have been led to assume that Eileen Prince's
> marriage was unhappy, like Merope Gaunt's. Snape grew up in 
> straitened circumstances, just like Tom the orphan. From childhood
> onwards, Snape had an inclination towards Dark Arts as is evident
> from the fact that he famously knew a lot of curses when he
> arrived at Hogwarts aged eleven - again a tendency that the future
> Voldemort also possessed. And then there is their shared love of
> fake noble titles: Prince and Lord.

Jen: Personally, I think of Tom and Snape as canon *opposites*. Tom 
was the charming, handsome young man whom everyone trusted except 
Dumbledore. His interest in dark arts was well-hidden once he 
arrived at Hogwarts, and he operated in secrecy. Snape was a greasy 
git, openly 'up to his eyeballs' in the dark arts and hiding it from 
no one. In later years he was trusted by one person, the only person 
who never trusted Riddle.

I'm not certain we can compare Tom's and Snape's childhoods quite 
yet, either. JKR did directly compare the two and say Snape was 
loved, making him very different from Voldemort. Perhaps he was a 
boy only a mother could love <g>. 

I do think JKR brought up his parentage because Snape's defection to 
Dumbledore involved them. Which bring us to the nobility titles.....
The HBP seemed like a joke-title to me, until the end of the book 
when Snape was so serious, claiming it for himself. I thought he was 
poking fun until that moment. 

So here's the story I put together: Snape learned of Voldemort 
through Eileen, who was a Slytherin around the same time as Tom. 
They probably weren't friends, she didn't share his pure-blood mania 
which quite a few Slytherins likely knew about even if the 
professors did not. But perhaps Snape, interested in the dark arts, 
was intrigued by this man he didn't know and christened himself with 
a nobility title, albeit a slightly sarcastic one to match his dry 
wit. He was still proud of his work in the book, whatever cynicism 
was present in the title.

Much later, when Snape was at Hogwarts and the DE's were likely 
recruiting, Voldemort remembered Eileen Prince and was disgusted to 
find out she married a Muggle and had a half-blood son (his own 
hated parentage coming back to him). Much like Fenrir, who chose his 
victims based on revenge toward a parent, Voldemort or an accomplice 
recruited Snape into the DE's as punishment to Eileen. And perhaps 
Voldemort *did* see a likeness with the half-blood child and his 
interest in dark arts. Once Snape was on-board, Voldemort targeted 
Eileen and Tobias and something did happen to them, or was about to 
happen, when Snape learned of the plan and asked Dumbledore for help.


Sigune: 
> In previous books (most notably Chamber of Secrets), Harry has 
> realised how much he has in common with Voldemort. It is not a 
> coincidence that the Sorting Hat would have placed him in
> Slytherin if he had not objected against the fact. There is 
> Parseltongue, and Harry's inclination to ignore rules and be
> economical with the truth; but there is also the start of both
> their stories. Harry and Tom both had unhappy childhoods,
> orphaned, unwanted and unloved as they were. 

Jen:
I feel the comparison between Riddle and Harry ended after COS. The 
similarities seemed mainly there to foreshadow the connection 
between them from Voldemort 'putting a bit of himself' into Harry. 
After that, as you noted, we start to see more and more comparisons 
between Snape/Harry and also start to see evidence of why the 
Sorting Hat said this to Harry: "..a nice thirst to prove yourself...
(Slytherin trait)...Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure, you could be 
great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help 
you on the way to greatness.." (chap. 7, p. 121, Scholastic)

Harry *does* have Slytherin traits and HBP proved that to me. 
Whether they are his, Voldemort's transfer or whatever, he was using 
Slytherin cunning, deception and ambition in HBP to get what he 
wanted, i.e. the memory, top grade in potions, Slughorn's praise, 
information on Malfoy, etc.

Sigune:
> In this, Harry may seem very different from Snape, who is truly 
> passionate about the Dark Arts. And yet: I wonder if he would have 
> felt the same about them if he had been exposed to the kind of
> things Harry experienced. Snape has never, as far as we know, been
> a victim of Dark magic; indeed, it is what has empowered and 
> sustained him. And we may very well ask whether Harry would not
> have enjoyed it just the same if Voldemort hadn't killed his
> parents.

Jen: Oh, LOL. I triple-dog dare you to say that on the main list! I 
did wonder if Dumbledore wasn't curious about how Harry would turn 
out, with a life so similar to Riddle's in certain ways as a child? 
Since he didn't try to shape Harry, or turn him into a super wizard 
or raise him himself <g>, he did take the risk of having another 
Riddle on his hands *except* for the forethought of leaving Harry 
with people he suspected would not allow Harry to do unchecked magic 
as Riddle was able to do.

Sigune:
> Harry is charmed by the boy in the book. He recognises 
> mischievousness and a somewhat nasty sense of humour, and he likes
> it. It is Hermione, not he, who gets upset at the less-than-
> nice side of the Half-Blood Prince; Harry thinks of him as a
> trusted friend and keeps defending him even after his discovery of
> what Sectumsempra actually does. In fact, the reason why the
> Prince appeals to him is because they share this ambiguity of
> character. Harry isn't always nice. He can be quite brutal to
> people who he feels deserve it, and his own sense of humour
> contains its fair share of sarcasm. 

Jen: I thought Hermione didn't like the Prince because it was one of 
those things, like Quidditch, she just didn't get. The HBP *was* 
like Ron and Harry, and many of the boys we've met at Hogwarts. If 
we didn't hear Harry's internal dialogue or know the entire history 
he knows of other characters, his actions in HBP wouldn't look much 
better than the Draco of yore--threatening a classmate's mum, 
throwing Mundungus against the wall, eavesdropping on Draco.....

Sigune:
> Personally I would be very interested to know what Snape would
> have thought if he knew to what extent Harry cherished his book
> and the boy who wrote it...

Jen: Wonder if we'll ever find out? I hope that's why the book 
wasn't destroyed. I could even see the *possibility* of a scene 
where Harry hands it back to him one day, or perhaps Eileen or 
someone else close to Snape if he's gone.

Jen, thinking Sigune's posts are always chock-full of interesting 
connections.