Snape's culpability again (was Re: Get Fuzzy comic & RAB)

[eloise_herisson]

> Pippin:
> 
> If the green goo is fatal, it takes the UV out of the equation. 
> Then whatever Snape did doesn't *have* to have killed Dumbledore, 
> because the vow says, "Should it prove necessary." There's no
> necessity to kill somebody who's dying already and can't be saved.

Eloise:
The UV hadn't even come into my consideration.

Actually (this is a different issue, but something that occurred to 
me yesterday) I don't actually understand why Cissa thought that 
having Snape *do* the deed if necessary would help Draco. Draco still 
failed to do the task. 

<shrug>

I'm sure you'll explain. <g>

Anyway....
There's no necessity, etc..
No, there isn't. Assuming the fatality of the green goo, he didn't 
need to do anything to fulfil the UV.  So that wasn't the motivation
(assuming again that he *knows* it's fatal).

All he needs to do is to point out what he knows. He doesn't need to 
*do* anything. But he does.


Pippin:
> And if we know that Snape didn't *have* to kill Dumbledore, then
> we have no reason to suppose the AK was effective when it acted like
> no AK we've ever seen. 

Eloise:
You accept that it *was* an AK, then? (I'm only asking because I have 
the impression some people think it wasn't.)

Not effective meaning he was play acting, I presume. The green goo is 
irrelevant if we're talking about it's being not effective because he 
was incapable of truly wishing Dumbledore dead (which seems to me a 
better defence in moral, rather than legal terms).

Pippin:
I will invoke one of Lexicon Steve's Laws here,
> and say that the only events that occur in the Potterverse are the
> ones that Jo has written about. We cannot extrapolate that there 
are 
> lots of times when an AK behaves like the one that apparently killed
> Dumbledore, because Jo has never written about them.

Eloise:
Nor did I. I shall invoke the rule of it being impossible to prove a 
negative, merely pointing out that there is one time we know about in 
canon where under unique circumstances an AK had the most unexpected 
effects.

Under another, possibly unique, set of circumstances it is possible 
that another unexpected outcome may happen. Given the evidence of one 
exception, we cannot extrapolate the impossibility of others.


Pippin: 
> Ergo, Dumbledore was killed by falling off the tower, or by the 
> poison. Now, no doubt whatever Snape did caused him to fall 
> from the tower. But should he have believed that would prove fatal
 
> This is no Muggle we're talking about, this is Albus Dumbledore,
> greatest wizard who ever lived. Under ordinary circumstances,
> even without a wand there are ways he could have saved himself.
> Even a non-animagus can transfigure  into a bat (see
> FBAWTFT), he could have called Fawkes, he might have enough
> inborn magic to bounce the way Neville did. 
> 
> 
> So for it to be murder, Snape would have to have believed that
> Dumbledore was so injured that he couldn't have saved himself,
> but not so injured that he was going to die anyway, because then
> it would be pardonable as a ruse de guerre.

Eloise:
I'm not sure that we have any evidence that the WW would pardon 
anyone on a defence of ruse de guerre. You've pointed out what their 
legal system is like. Nor am I sure that any Muggle understanding of 
law has any relevance.

If Dumbledore was going to die anyway, then no ruse of any kind was 
needed. Snape's doing nothing to save him (which, of course is also 
tantamount to killing him if he *were* curable) was enough to ensure 
he appeared to perform his role as a DE, keeping his inside position 
with Voldemort which, if loyal, he will need in order to aid Harry. 
All he needed to say was that Dumbledore was finished anyway, as 
Amycus surmised.

And if he realised the effects of the potion as well as you suggest, 
then yes, I think it was careless in the extreme for Snape to think 
that Dumbledore, who had already allowed himself to be disarmed (and 
Snape didn't know how that happened - yes there's legilimeny, but 
just how much time was there for that detailed a communication of the 
situation) was capable of saving himself.

Of course, the mercy killing argument may be invoked here, but 
personally I can't see Dumbledore begging for mercy in that way and I 
don't think that was what he was asking him to do.
(He may have been asking him to kill him, but I don't think he was 
begging to be put out of his misery).

By intervening, Snape not only saved Draco from killing (not that I 
think he was up to it) but prevented any of the others on the tower 
from doing the deed. That *does* suggest that there was some reason 
for *him* to do it. But what the intent was, I don't think we can 
know. Did he think he could do something in the guise of an AK to 
help Dumbledore? Was it a case of bowing to the inevitable? Was it a 
case of Snape Triumphant, getting his revenge at last?

Pippin:
> We know that Snape can do wandless, non-verbal legilimency,
> (that's how he saw the image of the potion book in Harry's mind)
> so Dumbledore could have conveyed to him a clear image of the
> green goo and its effects. We know that finding the antidote for
> an unknown combination of poisons is a timeconsuming process
> that even Hermione found difficult. It is at least logical that
> Snape could have realized that Dumbledore was doomed.

Eloise:
Particularly if it were he who concocted the thing in the first 
place, which is quite possible. Although, of course in this case he 
might well know the antidote if there were one.

It is perfectly logical he knew he was doomed. In which case, as I 
say there was no need to do anything unless he wanted to end his 
suffering quickly. And hot shot wizard as he is, he should know that 
if his intent wasn't up to it, the AK wouldn't work properly.

Pippin:
> The ruse de guerre is not a technicality or a legal nicety from
> Harry's point of view. We want Harry to prove himself as a hero 
> by doing something really difficult, right? Well, which do you 
think 
> would be harder for him? Forgiving Snape for murder
> because Snape did some dazzlingly repentant act? Or realizing that 
> there was no murder, that his quarrel with Snape has always been 
> purely personal, and that Snape has been, since his return to the 
> good side, no more a  Death Eater than Harry?


Eloise:
Well, it certainly will be difficult and he'd better do a hell of a 
lot of growing up over the holidays, because for Harry to realise 
that there was no murder on Snape's part will mean that he realises 
that it was *he* who caused Dumbledore's death by force feeding him 
the fatal potion, or at the very best it was a combined effort by him 
feeding him the potion and by Snape blasting him off the tower (and 
personally I don't believe that JKT will make the death as 
complicated as that). Yes, he was acting under orders, but would that 
do anything to assuage his feelings of guilt? Would he be in any 
frame of mind by the end of the next book to forgive Snape? 

Finally, your argument doesn't take into account the possibility 
that, dare I say it, Snape may not be loyal. I know we Muggles seem 
to have this insane law that says you can't be convicted for trying 
to murder someone who's already fatally injured (though again I'd 
suggest that's irrelevant in the WW), but I'm talking about moral 
guilt, not legal guilt and if Snape wasn't loyal and didn't *know* 
that Dumbledore was already beyond help, or if he did and just wanted 
the job finished quickly ("It's over, time to go!"), then by my book, 
he's guilty as sin.

For me the greatest grounds for hope in this is that he didn't do 
what one might expect he would as Draco's teacher and as one with an 
obligation to his mother, viz. stand next to him and perform the 
curse *with* him (as Sirius and Remus wanted to with Peter). That, I 
would have thought, would have sat better with Voldemort and keeping 
him out of it implies a concern for the state of Draco's soul.

~Eloise