Tharkun wrote:
Do you honestly expect me to believe that Dumbledore would give up his life, which he knows to be instrumental to the cause, so that the Order can be protected by a man whom any of them would gladly kill on sight? It makes the denialism from my own wing of the fandom look restrained.
I don't think it's all that farfetched. For one thing, Dumbledore's behavior in the cave makes it clear that he regards himself as expendable.
Yes, Dumbledore is important to the cause, but is he
vital to the cause? I'd say not. I mean, does anyone really think that the fact that Dumbledore died in book 6 means that Voldemort is going to win at the end of book 7? :-)
Certainly he's very important as the leader and organizer, but sometimes leaders can be even more effective as martyrs.
We may not know much about Snape's motives or loyalties, but there are a few things that seem clear. One, Snape may not be the equal of Dumbledore or Voldemort, but the fact that he was making up spells -- good ones -- in the margin of his textbooks at the age of 16 suggests that's he's nonetheless an extremely gifted wizard. Two, whichever side he's on, he's obviously also an extremely gifted liar and dissembler.
It seems inevitable that Voldemort is going to place a great deal of trust in Snape from this day forward. (One might almost think that was one of the points of the exercise -- to force Snape to do something that Voldemort thinks is irrefutable proof that Snape is loyal.) Assuming Snape wasn't an important man in the orgainzation before, he's likely to be one now -- both as a reward for having killed Voldemort's great opponent, and because, frankly, he seems more competent than the run-of-the-mill Death Eater.
I think that Dumbledore might possibly consider having a talented wizard and agent in a position of importance and trust in the Death Eaters more important than his own life. Yes, Dumbledore is more powerful than Snape, but all that power doesn't mean anything if you're not in the position to use it. Dumbledore wasn't in such a position; Snape is.
It will certainly be harder for Snape to get information to the Order now, but not impossible. He'd just have to be creative about the channels he went through (letting people who the Order does trust "discover" vital bits of information, for instance). He'd have to be very sneaky about it, but Snape clearly excells at sneaky. And he's certainly in a marvelous position to sabatoge the Death Eaters, if so inclined... probably better than he was before, since he's no longer under suspicion.
And, of course, there are almost certainly things going on that we know nothing about. Dumbledore never told Harry what happened to his hand, for example. A person walking around with a strangely withered limb that seems impossible to heal even by magic isn't exactly a well man. Not to mention the potion... it was pointedly mentioned in at least two places in the book that not all poisons have antidotes, and if Voldemort were going to protect his Horcrux with a deadly potion, you'd think he'd make it a good one, not something Snape was likely to have the antidote to laying around his office. If Dumbledore was already dying then certainly he'd prefer to do so in a fashion that wouldn't take Snape with him.
I think the theory could turn out to be wrong, but I don't think it's denial. I think there's plenty of evidence in the text to support this reading.
I mean, look at it this way: Harry fed Dumbledore a potion that had a terrible effect on him and could well have killed him, despite the fact that Dumbledore was begging him to stop. Does that make Harry a Death Eater?
The difference is that we know that Harry was under orders from Dumbledore when he gave Dumbledore the potion. We know that Snape was under
some sort of orders from Dumbledore -- orders he apparently didn't like -- but we don't yet know exactly what they were.
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And the gnome on top of the christmas tree...made me spent a whole minute looking at the picture at the front of the beginning of that chapter. I agree with whoever said this earlier, what's with the new Gryffindor password being "Abstinence?" I found that hilarious.
