That Riddle, Snape...

That Riddle, Snape...

by Sigune

(September 2005)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hogwarts

I was amazed at the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince: they must have a very special meaning if JKR felt it necessary to include no less than TWO chapters that are not from Harry's point of view. She has done this only once before, in Goblet of Fire, where her integrity as a storyteller required her to reveal to her readers that Voldemort, whose present-day self we had last seen in his vaporous form in Philosopher's Stone, was no longer a vapour. She could not spring the graveyard scene on us without warning and have Foetus!Mort appear out of the blue with Wormtail. There was vital information she had to impart to us, but to which Harry was not privy. It is therefore worth taking an extra close look at what is to my mind one of the most fascinating parts of the whole book: the beginning.

"The Other Minister" feels, to me at least, like the introduction to the entirety of books Six and Seven (- two books which, as JKR has announced, are really the halves of one mammoth-sized tome). The situation with Voldemort has now become so serious that even the Muggles cannot ignore it, and the end of a period of relative innocence is symbolised by the replacement of the slightly ridiculous figure of Cornelius Fudge, the man in the lime-green bowler hat, by the hard-liner Rufus Scrimgeour, whom Harry significantly compares with Barty Crouch Sr. The second chapter, then, is the real beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and includes revelations of the kind we had in GoF's Frank Bryce chapter. It is here that the clues to the book's plot will be found.

Ah, Spinner's End. You can't believe how intensely happy I was to find Snape living in a small worker's house in the shadow of a cotton mill. Actually (and this is really true), it was here, even before the annotated Advanced Potions book had turned up (the description of the handwriting and, on top of that, the bezoar confirmed my suspicions), that I guessed Snape must be the Half-Blood Prince from the title. We had no idea in what form the mysterious Prince was going to make his appearance in the story, and as soon as Bella Lestrange said, "He lives here? Here?", my spontaneous assumption was that this must be the home of the Prince - the prince on the dunghill, it was too wonderful. And then Snape opened the door.

"Spinner's End" shows us Snape in his natural surroundings, in an ancestral home far removed from the one fandom has often liked to allot to him. But it fits perfectly. It is also the clue to much of what is to come.

Part the First: Sevvie and Cissy

Severus Snape, Death Eater and Order member, Slytherin and half-blood, receives a visit from Narcissa Malfoy, wife of one and mother of another Death Eater. She is accompanied by her sister Bellatrix, who considers herself the Dark Lord's most faithful minion. Narcissa - so beautiful, so blonde and so alone - is desperate. Her husband Lucius is in prison and her sixteen-year-old son Draco, the apple of her eye, has been assigned a most dangerous task which she does not think he can possibly carry out: killing Albus Dumbledore, the only wizard whose magical power equals Lord Voldemort's. The Dark Lord, she guesses, doesn't believe in Draco's success either but has given him the job with the almost sole purpose of killing the boy when he fails to deliver. What is Narcissa to do? Lucius is in prison and out of favour; he cannot protect their son with his own hands and his name does not mean much anymore. But another Death Eater has taken his place in the Dark Lord's good graces - another Death Eater with whom Narcissa is also on first name terms: the slippery Severus Snape. Snape is a member of Dumbledore's staff and a wizard of some talent; he would be perfect both to watch over Draco and, if necessary, carry out the dirty deed himself. In order to save her son, Narcissa will have to plead with Snape - he really is the only one who can help her.

Severus Snape is a very cautious man. He has to be, if he values his own life. Both Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort believe to have him on their side as a spy so that, in order to keep his balance between the two of them and maintain credibility, Snape has to watch his words and actions at all times and keep both satisfied. When Narcissa arrives in Spinner's End, Snape's position as a servant of two masters is the following: he has Albus Dumbledore's complete trust; and the Dark Lord has welcomed him back into the fold. Voldemort, however, had referred to him in GoF's Graveyard Scene as "the one who has left me forever; he will be killed, of course" (confirmed by JKR in an interview as referring to Snape) - which makes you wonder just how welcoming the Dark Lord really was when Snape turned up on his doorstep; it was probably not nearly as cosy as Snape makes it out to be in front of Bellatrix. Voldemort, we know, isn't quite as nice to his employees as Dumbledore, and it is highly likely that Snape is still skating on thin ice with him. He has, after all, only risen in rank because Lucius Malfoy's last enterprise was a complete and utter fiasco and several of his trusted men have been rounded up as a result as well. If Voldemort really feels he can rely on Snape, would he send Peter Pettigrew, the Rat Who Listens At Doors, to Spinner's End? Snape may well say Wormtail is there to assist him; the truth is that he is being watched in his own house.

Snape, Bellatrix is eager to point out, has a reputation for public non-committal. We have seen that in the Order; apparently he does the same among the Death Eaters. It is, frankly, the sensible way to act for a spy; but it does mean that others find it difficult to trust him. When Narcissa comes to appeal to him for her son's protection, Snape tries to slither out of the deep by his stock answer: "I will try." It is, as Bellatrix says, an empty promise, and Narcissa wants more. If Snape really means to help, will he not consent to making an Unbreakable Vow?

The Unbreakable Vow is the kind of narrative device that alerts the reader of fairy tales to impending doom. Remember Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltkin and many other stories, in which a man or woman is saved from a disaster in return for an indefinite reward along the lines of, "Give me the first thing you see when you come home." Those people always expect the 'first thing' to be their dog or something they are prepared to part with, but it invariably turns out to be their own child or someone/something so precious that they would gladly have forsaken the offered help in the first place rather than giving this precious thing or person up as payment.

The Unbreakable Vow Narcissa asks Snape to make is a spell that kills the 'bondee' when they break their promise. A clever and cautious man like Snape should (and, one expects, does) realise the finality and great danger of such a move. The sensible answer to Narcissa's request would be "no".

But Snape says yes.

To agree to anything like an Unbreakable Vow seems incredibly naïve - there is bound to be a Nagini-sized snake in the grass. And hey presto, there certainly is. Narcissa cleverly forces a third clause on Snape: to carry out the mission in case Draco fails. And let's be honest: if she hadn't included that, what would have been the ultimate good of the protection Snape promised? Failure of the mission means death for Draco in any case.

I have to admit that it is perhaps a bit unfair calling Snape naïve. I don't think he is. It is just that he has allowed himself to be seduced by the admittedly formidable combined forces of the Black sisters, which wouldn't have worked with me - I'm impervious to female charm :o).

Snape and Bellatrix obviously dislike each other, and yet there is a seduction going on: she coaxes him into making a mistake. Bella doesn't trust Snape, and they both know that his claims on the Dark Lord's trust are in part poker-faced bluff. Bellatrix may have lost some of her former standing after the Department of Mysteries debacle, but one imagines that her (fanatically loyal) voice still counts for something with Voldemort, and as an adversary she is not to be underestimated. Convincing her of his loyalty is not a simple luxury for Snape. Making a solemn magical vow to help bring Draco's murder mission to a successful end will certainly do much to quell her doubts and is a serious argument in favour of the ritual.

However, the most compelling pressure issues not from Bella, but from her sister, whose tears flow freely, who clutches at Snape's robes, holds his hands and throws herself at his feet. She strokes his ego: "you could do it," she says, "you are the Dark Lord's favourite", "you are Draco's favourite teacher", "you would succeed". All pretty transparent to this sceptical observer - but Narcissa has touched a nerve. Consider who she is, where she is and with whom she is pleading. Narcissa Black Malfoy, an elegant, beautiful and upper-class pure-blood has alighted on a "Muggle dunghill" to humbly beg the help of the ugly, frustrated and unpopular son of a spinner - a half-blood wizard who craves recognition, whose only pathetic claim to nobility lies in the sound of his mother's name, who has painstakingly eradicated any sign of his origins in his diction and dress but somehow never found the acceptance and admiration he considers his due. If Narcissa is used to calling him Severus, it is probably because she has never needed to accord him the privilege of being addressed as Mr Snape. No doubt a portion of his brain tells him that he finds himself in a danger zone (mark his unease at the sight of her tears); but his vanity and pride send signals that are too strong for so weak a man to resist. Snape is deeply enjoying his power over Pretty Cissy. He says yes, not out of the goodness of his heart, but because it is his moment of triumph over all he has wanted to be but has not been able to reach. He has finally come to the point where he can bow down to pick up a pure-blooded aristocratic beauty from where she is grovelling in the dust.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The trap closes, and Narcissa has him where she wants him: on his knees and firmly bound by a powerful spell. When she slips in her third clause it is too late for Snape to do anything else than twitch and endure - he has already declared, rather rashly I should say, that he expects eventually to be asked to carry out the task. He is forced to condemn himself three times.

Here endeth the story's setup.

Part the Second: Black Wizard, White Wizard - or, Dumbledore's Fatal Mistake

As soon as Narcissa has removed herself, her tears, her perfume and her breeding from Snape's hovel, there probably ensues a scene which we have not had the doubtful pleasure of witnessing - one in which Snape might or might not have displayed his old knack for stringing together those remarkable obscenities which JKR's editors had already deleted from the Worst Memory. He has been tricked and he knows it. Although he had not originally agreed to it, he has magically pledged himself to kill Albus Dumbledore. Dear dear, he is in deep - you know.

There is no way he can extricate himself from this mess. From now on, it is either his life or Dumbledore's. This is the point at which my conjectures differ from those I have read so far. The Snape apologists whose theories I have read assume that after the catastrophic Vow he hastens to Dumbledore in order to inform the headmaster of what happened. I don't. I think Snape did not tell Dumbledore the whole truth of what happened that night - because he doesn't dare to. He is ashamed of having been tricked like a novice. He has made an elementary mistake; and where in canon have we ever caught Snape admitting a mistake? Dumbledore, yes. Sirius, yes. Remus, yes. Snape? No way. He makes errors and he is aware of them, but he does not admit them. He tries to solve his problems on his own, in silence. So he does what he is good at: the telling of partial truths. He informs Dumbledore of the assassination plot and of the fact that he has made a Vow to protect Draco, but he never mentions the full pledge. Only he, Narcissa and Bellatrix (and Peter?) know of that.

What Harry overhears is Snape telling Draco he took an Unbreakable Vow to protect him (Bb ed. 302). This is what Harry repeats to Dumbledore, who has already heard it from Snape and is thus not concerned. When he says he understands better than Harry, he is referring to the fact that he is aware of Draco's purpose as well as of Snape's collaboration (Bb ed. 336-7); but he does not, and neither does Harry, know of Snape's real predicament.

The argument overheard by Hagrid (Bb ed. 379-80) is, in my opinion, the result of the incredible pressure Snape is under and which he, in his vanity, cannot relieve through owning up. The reluctance he is heard to display is not what Harry interprets it to be, namely, a sign of allegiance to Voldemort, because that would be too stupid when coming from a man on the point of defection; but neither, I am sorry to say, do I believe it to be caused by any request of Dumbledore's to kill him if necessary. Snape has been driven into a corner by his own frailty and is as a result beginning to behave in an unruly manner. Hagrid reports him as saying that Dumbledore is taking too much for granted - and indeed Dumbledore is. It is not Snape's loyalty that should be questioned, but his strength.

The argument takes place after Ron has been poisoned. Snape is called to task: Draco's desperate murder attempts are not only endangering random students; they may well result in Hogwarts being closed. Hagrid hears Dumbledore order Snape to keep Slytherin House - actually meaning Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle - under closer surveillance and as such to put a stop to these loose canons. But Snape cannot stop Draco's attempts. Rather, he is sworn to support them. The best he has been able to do, without endangering his own life, is to put Crabbe and Goyle in detention. If Dumbledore knew the full terms of the Vow, would he ask the impossible of Snape? I don't think he has any idea about the extent to which Snape is bound.

Dumbledore, as JKR has pointed out in her last interview, has no equals, no confidantes. No one is up to his standard. But Dumbledore's greatest mistake is that he does not realise so. Because he can forgive and forget, he assumes that Snape and Harry can, too. Because he is not afraid to die, he thinks other people shouldn't be either. Because he sees the good in others, he thinks it is a natural thing and evident to everyone. Because he is willing to sacrifice himself, he thinks that Snape must be, too. But Snape is, unlike Dumbledore, not "a great man". He is not hero material. He is brainy, yes; but in terms of personality he is small and petty and weak. Snape is all too human, and I suspect he knows it; but he cannot explain this to Dumbledore because the grand old man simply would not understand, and Snape hates to disappoint. This is the tragedy of Snape and Dumbledore's relationship. Snape's mind is destined for greatness, but the rest of him isn't, and Dumbledore is constantly demanding everything, kindly for starters, and firmly if kindness does not yield the desired result. Look at how he - admittedly very politely and without raising his voice - pesters Harry about his failure to retrieve Slughorn's memory in "Lord Voldemort's Request". It is Harry's first experience of what it is like to work under Dumbledore's orders; Snape has been under this kind of pressure ever since Voldemort's resurrection.

There are things Snape can do really well, such as analysing, working and battling Dark Arts. He is also a good healer - if he knows poisons, he also masters their antidotes; and if he is the inventor of Sectumsempra, he also knows how to undo its damage. He can be relied on to lend an expert's help in things he is good at. When Dumbledore returns from his first Horcrux hunt, suffering under the curse of Marvolo's ring and too weak to heal himself, Snape saves his life (Bb ed. 470-1). Dumbledore trusts Snape to repeat this action as often as may prove necessary. I do not believe in some pre-arranged plan to stage, or otherwise effect, Dumbledore's death, if only because I cannot see what the use of that would be. Of course it may turn out in Book 7 to trigger an enchantment of some kind, but I find it hard to believe that Dumbledore should order anyone at all to cast an Unforgivable Curse, seeing how he knows it damages the caster's soul.

The implications of my assumptions suggest this scenario for the fateful night:

Dumbledore goes Horcrux-hunting with Harry, fully expecting to incur damage just like the first time with the ring; but he counts on being healed in time by his Dark Arts expert, who also saved him the first time. He will send Harry for Snape when he arrives back at Hogwarts.

However: when he gets back to Hogwarts, poisoned, weakened and unwell, a few unexpected things have happened. Draco Malfoy, suspecting that his teacher (now rival) wants to steal his glory, has on his own initiative and unbeknownst to Snape smuggled Death Eaters into the school and a battle is raging. Dumbledore freezes Harry to keep him from harm at the hands of Malfoy and the adult Death Eaters; but this also means that precious time is lost for himself, because who will be alarming Snape now? McGonagall sends Flitwick, who doesn't know about Dumbledore's return and only mentions the Death Eaters, leaving Snape to figure out where Dumbledore is - because he isn't there to fight with the others; his task is to assist the Headmaster. By the time Snape reaches Dumbledore, the old man is one inch away from death and surrounded by Death Eaters to boot. To make things worse, Draco Malfoy is there too, so the scene is fully set for the accomplishment of Dumbledore's murder. Snape is trapped.

What is Snape to do? He didn't know about the Death Eaters, who now make four very unwanted witnesses. There is neither the time nor the occasion to heal Dumbledore, and there is that infernal nuisance, the Unbreakable Vow. Snape does some quick thinking and sees that there are two options.

1) He openly declares his allegiance to Dumbledore. This means that he has to put up a fight against four skilled Death Eaters plus Draco. Assuming that he can defeat them,

- Draco's mission fails and the brat is killed by the Dark Lord in punishment.

- Snape himself dies too, because he has failed to honour his Unbreakable Vow.

- There is no chance of saving Dumbledore, who is too far gone to begin with, and who is going to heal him if Snape is dead?

Result: the Order is one leader and one spy short and a young life is destroyed in a pointless battle. But at least Harry will be convinced that Snape, God rest his soul, was on the side of the angels after all.

2) He kills Dumbledore. This means that

- He saves Draco's life, because the mission has been successful even if not carried out by Draco and the Dark Lord cannot be all that displeased. On top of that, Draco isn't a murderer at sixteen.

- He saves his own life because he honours his Vow.

- He extremely convincingly maintains his cover as a spy.

Result: By sacrificing the already lost life of a dying 150-year-old wizard, he saves a sixteen-year-old (buying him time to think things over), himself, and safeguards one of the Order's most significant pawns in the coming confrontation with the Dark Lord. Drawback is that nobody on the 'good' side trusts him anymore; but judging by people's reactions, nobody except Dumbledore and Hagrid did trust him to begin with.

Snape is a Slytherin who'll save his own neck first. His predicament is so bad that he cannot escape from it without a loss of some kind. Snape, who is calculating and rational rather than heroic, chooses the way which, though hardly a win-win situation, is in his opinion the least of two evils. It is an amoral decision which, however terrible, had to be taken and, I daresay, may prove of best advantage to Harry and the Order in Book 7.

The look Snape and Dumbledore exchange on the battlement is to me the most chilling moment of Half-Blood Prince. If my assumption is correct and Snape has kept the third clause of the Unbreakable Vow from Dumbledore, then those few seconds are even more heart-breaking than I found them at first sight. When Dumbledore whispers "Severus ... please ..." he is not pleading for his life, because he is not afraid to die; neither is he asking Snape to kill him as arranged, because there was no such arrangement. What he means is, "please don't tell me I was wrong about you all the time - that I have confided in you when you were not worthy of my faith - that I have defended you against others when they were right in their suspicions." Snape's revulsion is the result of his hurt pride, as he realises even Dumbledore doubts his allegiance at that moment. No doubt it helped him perform a convincing Killing Curse.

Dumbledore's death is the lamentable outcome of a number of circumstances - Draco's efforts certainly helped cause it, but Snape's foolishly accepted Unbreakable Vow is at least equally important. There was, for once, no malicious intent on Snape's side, and yet he has, one could say, committed what is possibly his worst crime. Both he and Dumbledore have become victims of his human weakness, of character flaws combined with the vulnerabilities connected to his social and intellectual background, childhood events and poor choices made in the past. Dumbledore's trust has been justified, but he has overestimated Snape's capacities.

Severus Snape will not be on the side of the Dark forces in Book 7. He has not killed Dumbledore because he wanted to, but out of what he felt as necessity. He is not proud of it and it gives him no pleasure - quite the contrary. He has personally destroyed his only ally. Voldemort cannot replace Dumbledore in Snape's life: for that, he has too little sympathy and too little inclination to share, whether it be knowledge or power. He is too fickle to offer any sense of security, and too tyrannical to give freedom. Snape will help destroy him, if only because he clings passionately to his own life. But, I fear, despite his essential allegiance to Dumbledore he is highly unlikely to survive Book 7 - the story's logic may well demand his demise for killing the thing he loves.

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