Snape's original defection, a question
Oct. 21st, 2013 09:07 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockSomething I think canon is silent on--I'd like opinions, informed or otherwise.
When we saw Albus send a white-faced Severus to Tom's side at the end of GoF with that "if you are prepared" comment, it was as a double-triple-quadruple-(to the nth) agent. Snape's life then balanced on his persuading a paranoid and enraged Dark Lord that he was really still loyal (or loyal again) to the Death Eater cause, but that Albus falsely believed Snape to have turned his loyalty irrevocably to him, and to now be only pretending to be a Death Eater in order to spy for Albus.
A very perilous position, particularly when both masters are expert Legilimens and know the other to be the same. The more one master trusts Snape, the less the other ought to, eh?
What does he see in your mind that I do not? What do you show him, and hide from me?
So--was this fiendishly difficult and demanding position the same as the one Severus was placed in when he originally obtained a place at Dumbledore's right hand as a supposedly repentant DE?
Or was the original assignment a little less complicated: that Severus was to approach Dumbledore as a remorseful Death Eater begging him for sanctuary at Hogwarts, the only stronghold still firm against Voldemort? In exchange for a pre-agreed--with the Dark Lord--flood of information on the Death Eaters?
And then stay there as a sleeper until Tom activated him?
If Tom had ordered Severus to do nothing but cement Dumbledore's trust until he explicitly told him otherwise, if Severus didn't regularly have to face Tom's interrogations and report satisfactorily on Dumbledore's doings, his position (both then and in GoF) was, while precarious, not as immediately lethal as we had thought.
Opinions?
When we saw Albus send a white-faced Severus to Tom's side at the end of GoF with that "if you are prepared" comment, it was as a double-triple-quadruple-(to the nth) agent. Snape's life then balanced on his persuading a paranoid and enraged Dark Lord that he was really still loyal (or loyal again) to the Death Eater cause, but that Albus falsely believed Snape to have turned his loyalty irrevocably to him, and to now be only pretending to be a Death Eater in order to spy for Albus.
A very perilous position, particularly when both masters are expert Legilimens and know the other to be the same. The more one master trusts Snape, the less the other ought to, eh?
What does he see in your mind that I do not? What do you show him, and hide from me?
So--was this fiendishly difficult and demanding position the same as the one Severus was placed in when he originally obtained a place at Dumbledore's right hand as a supposedly repentant DE?
Or was the original assignment a little less complicated: that Severus was to approach Dumbledore as a remorseful Death Eater begging him for sanctuary at Hogwarts, the only stronghold still firm against Voldemort? In exchange for a pre-agreed--with the Dark Lord--flood of information on the Death Eaters?
And then stay there as a sleeper until Tom activated him?
If Tom had ordered Severus to do nothing but cement Dumbledore's trust until he explicitly told him otherwise, if Severus didn't regularly have to face Tom's interrogations and report satisfactorily on Dumbledore's doings, his position (both then and in GoF) was, while precarious, not as immediately lethal as we had thought.
Opinions?
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-23 03:41 pm (UTC)However, what I'm wondering is whether he really was, from Tom's point of view, in Draco's position--with the caveat that the first young man was actually intended to succeed. (And if he didn't, well, he was disposable anyhow....)
Sent to Dumbledore with that tale of remorse and secret instructions, and left to discover to the old fool what a viper he'd nourished when he struck....
Rather than, as I've always assumed, entering Hogwarts already in the agent-doubled-to-the-nth position we saw in OotP, with each of his masters knowing full well that he's reporting to the other regularly, each giving the other enough information to make Snape look good to the other (and pretending for the time not to know the things Snape's told beyond what the other master authorized...), and each convinced Snape's true loyalty is to him.
The idea that the Hogwarts infiltrator's original mission might have been to to steal the final founder's heirloom for Tom (the sword, I've always assumed) adds an interesting twist, though..
Tom might have expected Snape to fail in his attempt. He almost certainly wouldn't have expected Severus to pull off such a theft without betraying his actual loyalties to Albus and making himself Azkaban-bait. But again, Snape was disposable. (In fact, is one of the most disposable of Tom's DE's--he has talents, but no connections, no one who will care if his life is carelessly thrown away.)
So if Snape apparently did pull that off, getting Tom the object while still retaining the old fool's trust, surely that unexpected competence would have raised Snape in Tom's estimation?
no subject
Date: 2013-10-23 04:10 pm (UTC)And how much of a difference would that make? Remember Barty. (And Bella, for that matter.)
Yes, if the boy succeeds all it means is that he gets additional assignments.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-24 01:40 pm (UTC)I do think Chuck and Lance, the Random Death Eaters, had the right idea of it--stay at the back of the herd and try to go unnoticed!
Not just additional assignments--more lethal ones. I'm sure part of the point of the Death Eaters was for Tom to collect, evaluate, and eliminate potential rivals.