Deathy Hallows Chapter 33
Dec. 22nd, 2009 06:42 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockSorry about getting this posted to late. It’s the holidays. Plus, I had to cut it down—I tended to go on and on in this chapter. I’m sure that surprises no one.
But you’d think this would be my favorite chapter. After all, we’re getting all of Snape’s backstory. Be careful what you ask for...
The Prince’s Tale
Just like the last chapter started with Fred being dead, this one starts with Snape lying lifeless on the floor as Harry stares at him.
Before Harry can actually form a thought, Voldemort’s voice comes echoing with a speech for the Hogwarts’ troops. He starts by praising their bravery—which seems generous, considering that he’s whupping them so badly. He offers mercy to those who stop resisting him and gives everyone an hour to bury their dead.
Then he speaks directly to Harry. Well, he’s still doing the loud voice thing, so everybody gets to eavesdrop, but he tells Harry to come andget killed talk things over. If Harry doesn’t show up, then Voldemort will come out and personally slaughter everyone. Harry has one hour to make up his mind.
As they go across the lawn, Harry notes that it’s about an hour until dawn and that it’s pitch black. Nevertheless, they can see small bundles lying on the grass and a clog the size of a small boat. Okay, you tell me how to reconcile a pitch-black darkness with being able to see small bundles and a giant shoe.
In the Great Hall, the Weasleys are grouped around Fred’s dead body. Harry notes that Ginny’s face is swollen and blotchy. Guess she does occasionally cry. When Harry isn’t around to admire her spunk.
Then Harry sees the bodies of Remus and Tonks “pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.” Now, that’s nice image. It makes me think of those stone effigy things you see in old churchs, with the sculpture of a knight. I think it’s dumb that they died, but I do like the image.
Harry reels back from the hall, overcome with guilt. If only I’d given myself up earlier, he thinks, then Fred might still be alive. Apparently, he doesn’t care about Remus or Tonks. But, of course, Harry didn’t even need to give himself up to prevent this carnage. He could have just stopped gaping at everyone like an idiot and found the Ravenclaw horcrux three hours ago. Or spent two minutes researching the alarm system in Hogsmeade so the Death Eaters didn’t immediately know when he arrived.
But note: Harry’s already thinking he ought to just go let Voldemort kill him in order to spare other people.
Harry gets into Dumbledore’s office by using the password Dumbledore, which is a big clue about Snape’s loyalties, and goes inside.
He notices that all the Headmaster portraits, including Dumbledore’s, have deserted the office in order to watch the fighting. Since the fighting is on hiatus, they’re probably watching Bewitched on Filch’s old black-and-while TV set.
What I notice is that there isn’t any portrait of Snape snoozing in the office. This is either a slap in the face to Snape fans or proof that he’s still alive.
Harry, in possibly the most contrived moment in the entire series, pours Snape’s memories into the Pensieve and decides to watch them in order to escape his guilty torment. Like Snape’s memories are going to be any comfort to Harry. As far as Harry knows, they’re probably just going to be filled with Harry failing potions exams or looking stupid.
Look, I know we have to do this. Even when I first read this, I knew the memories were going to contain key information. But does Harry’s reason for doing this have to be so stupid? Couldn’t he want to look at the memories on the hope that they just might contain something useful? Good or bad, this is Voldemort’s right-hand man, and he just got double-crossed. There’s a good chance he’s giving Harry a clue about defeating the Dark Lord. But nope. That would be too cunning or something. Harry needs a noble reason to watch the memories. And escapism is far more noble than trying to succeed.
So, Harry goes into the memories and finds himself in a park with a tall chimney in the background. We know, although Harry does not, that this must be Snape’s home town.
The Prince’s Tale is basically in three parts. This is the first part, which I will call The Prince and the Witch.
Two girls are swinging and little Snape is watching them from behind a clump of bushes. He’s described as wearing a man’s overcoat, too-short jeans, and a woman’s smock. So, Snape is an awkward, social outcast? Check.
Of course, anyone can guess at this point that the girls are Lily and Petunia. I have to say, though, that I was taken aback to see that they lived in this town. I got the feeling that they had grown up in more middle-class area. But maybe that’s why Petunia is so very status conscious as an adult.
Harry moves closer to little Snape and notes the “undisguised greed” as Snape watches Lily in particular. What a strange description that is. It really makes Snape seem like a creepy stalker here. Was that JKR’s intention? I’m not sure that it is, because she uses “greed” more than once when it comes to describing romantic attraction. She will even use “hungrily” when Lily looks at Harry later on. So, I’m not convinced that JKR intended the stalker vibe.
Or, it could be, as other readers have pointed out, that Harry interprets Snape’s look as “greedy” because he’s still in Snape hate mode. But I don’t think that Harry would have been looking at the memories at all in that case.
It’s kind of a shame that Ron and Hermione didn’t come along on this trip. Hermione could have told us all how to feel.
As Petunia shrieks her disapproval, Lily lets go of her swing at the highest point and flies up into the air, floating down far too lightly not to be using magic.
“Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!” Petunia says, which brings up an interesting point. How is it that Mrs. Evans knows what Lily is doing—and knows that she shouldn’t be doing it publicly? If it were worth creating theories at this point in the series, I would have theorized that Mrs. Evans is actually a squib and thus knows enough about magic to realize what Lily’s up to and what it means.
But in that case, Lily wouldn’t need Snape to tell her about the magical world, so forget that.
Lily then picks up a flower and shows Petunia her ability to make it open and close at will. Petunia tells her to stop it, but asks with obvious envy how Lily does it.
This is Snape’s cue to come forward and tell Lily that she’s a witch. Lily takes this as an insult. Snape gets red in the face from embarrassment and Harry thinks the only reason Snape doesn’t take off his coat is to avoid revealing the smock underneath, which makes me wonder how it is that Harry saw the smock in the first place.
Lily runs to Petunia and Snape runs clumsily after her, trying to explain that he meant a real witch, who can do real magic. Petunia laughs at him, calling him that “Snape boy” and sneering that he lives down on Spinner’s End.
So, now we know that Spinner’s End is a street and not a town. Also that it’s worse than the other streets.
Petunia follows that up by accusing Snape of spying. He retorts that it’s not worth spying on a Muggle, and Petunia gets so mad she pulls Lily away towards their, presumably tonier, home.
At this point, the scene dissolves into another memory. It’s similar to when Dumbledore was storing all his old trial memories in the Pensieve back in GoF, but that seemed a lot more random. There is a definite structure to what Snape put into these memories. I choose to believe that he chose each one for a specific reason and hopefully left out the ones that showed his relationship with Lily in a better light.
Anyway, this memory is of Lily and Snape talking about what happens if you do magic outside of school. Lily wonders if Snape is just trying to impress her with a fantasy about this magical castle and all. Snape assures her that it’s not and that someone will come from Hogwarts to tell her and her parents all about it.
Lily asks if it will make a difference that she’s Muggleborn. Snape hesitates and then says that it won’t, then watches “greedily” as she stretches out on the ground to stare up at the leaves in the trees. Okay, maybe JKR is being deliberate about that stalker thing. Let’s see if he starts salivating.
Lily asks about Dementors and Petunia shows up and we finally learn that the “awful boy” was Snape. Hehe. I figured that one out years earlier.
Snape now accuses Petunia of spying and she retaliates by making fun of his smock. At this point, a branch on one of the trees breaks and strikes Petunia on the shoulder. Petunia runs off crying, Lily accuses Snape of hurting her with magic, and Snape denies it, but JKR is careful to point out that this is a lie—which is one of those key points of argument between Snape supporters and Snape detractors.
The supporters note that kids of that age can’t control their magic, and Snape might not really be lying about doing it. It was spontaneous, like Harry blowing up Aunt Marge. Detractors say this shows that Snape was a big fat liar, just like Voldemort and those invisible Slytherins.
Another dissolve and Snape is on the train platform, watching the Evans family say goodbye to Lily. Harry goes over to listen as Lily tells Petunia she’ll try to talk to Dumbledore and convince him to let Petunia come to the school, too. Petunia denies any desire to attend Hogwarts and calls the children “freaks.”
Lily tells Petunia that she knows about the letter Dumbledore sent her. Petunia is horrified that Lily read a private letter, and Lily sort of blames it on Snape by trying not to blame it on him. Brat.
I notice that in her explanation, Snape didn’t actually open the letter or anything. He just wondered how Petunia could have contacted Dumbledore without an owl and speculated about the postal service intercepting letters from Muggles addressed to wizards.
Heh. I just realized something. Harry spends this memory eavesdropping the Lily and Petuna—but Snape couldn’t possibly have heard them (he’s too far away). So, if Snape did choose this memory for a specific reason, we’ll never know what it is. Maybe he thought the story needed a background shot, the way that every movie about England starts with a shot of Big Ben.
Another dissolve: Snape is on the train and he finds Lily post-crying in a compartment filled with rowdy boys.
She’s mad at Snape because of her fight with Petunia—which she is now blaming completely on Snape. Snape doesn’t see why she’s bothered, since Petunia is only a… Muggle is what he’s most likely going to say, but he doesn’t. This is the second time he’s shown a) that he thinks Muggles are not worth much and b) that he knows this is distressing to Lily and he better not say it in front of her.
We’re also given clues that Snape’s parents fight—but his mother obviously isn’t hexing his Muggle dad, because… well, he’d probably be an orphan by now if she was. And we get the small detail of Snape having changed into his school robes already, as though eager to leave his half-Muggle poverty behind him.
Snape tries to cheer Lily up reminding her that they are off to the magic school! And he hopes that she’ll be in Slytherin, the “brainy” House. At this, little James Potter turns around. Harry notes that he is black-haired, just like Snape, but “with that undefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.” In other words, James is a dark-haired Draco.
To emphasize this, JKR has James echo Draco’s sentiments about House sorting (but with Slytherin instead of Hufflepuff). He directs his statement to Sirius, who points out that his whole family is in Slytherin.
“Blimey,” James says, “and I thought you seemed all right!”
Is this supposed to be cute and funny? Or to demonstrate the other side of the coin in terms of discrimination? James is being as prejudicial than Snape—and he doesn’t even bother to hide it.
(To digress a little, it seems contradictory to me to portray racists as being the ones in power while simultaneously having the people in power object to racist language. Yes, racism still exists even while we would never use the N-word in polite society, but it doesn’t have near as much power as when white people could openly use the word without any fear of offending someone who might be able to do something about it.)
Sirius—who we had always assumed chose Gryffindor out of principle is basing his choice on following this cool kid he just met.
Anyway, James’s stated choice leads to a tiff between Snape and James and Sirius. Lily decides to move, taking Snape with her. James and Sirius then mock him as being obviously pussy-whipped and the nickname “Snivellus” is born.
I kind of foresaw this before DH came out. I figured that James was going to act more like Draco than Harry when he first encountered Snape. I didn’t think that James and Sirius were going to gang up on him from the very start. I thought it might start out a little more ambiguous. But then, this chapter wasn’t written for me. This chapter was written for people who hate Snape.
Now we see the sorting. Lily is sorted into Gryffindor and smiles sadly at Severus, knowing that they won’t be in the same House now. Even the first time I read this, I didn’t think she was all that upset about it. This is when I started to really dislike Lily as a character.
So, Harry watches the whole sorting in the memory, including his father, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. Wow. That must have taken almost the whole hour Voldemort gave him right there. Especially when you consider that there were probably a lot more students in those days—as many of them didn’t survive to have kids.
Finally, Snape is sorted into Slytherin and goes over to the table where Prefect Lucius Malfoy welcomes him and other students cheer. Is this because they don’t know him yet? I mean, he’s not really one of them. He’s a half blood from the bad part of a Muggle town.
Or am I simply invested too much in the idea of an ostracized Snape? Draco told Harry to be careful of associating with the “wrong” type of wizard, yet Eileen Prince went and married a Muggle. That sort of thing gets you blasted off the tapestry in the Black House. Plus he’s poor and he’s funny-looking and he doesn’t have a lot of social skills. Are we to assume that none of that matters to the snobs in Slytherin?
Well, maybe not, considering that sixty-percent of them are carrying troll blood in their veins.
The scene changes. Lily and Snape are walking through the courtyard together. Harry sees that they are taller and reckons that a few years have passed since they were sorted. Try five years, Harry. They are both fifteen—probably sixteen--years old right now.
So, Snape is upset they’re supposed to be best friends. I wonder what Lily is doing (or not doing) that’s making him feel otherwise. Lily replies that they are, but she doesn’t like the people he hangs out with. She mentions Avery and says that Mulciber is creepy. “D’you know what he tried to do to Mary MacDonald the other day?
No. What? Tell us, damnit. Was it as bad and turning her upside-down and taking off her panties?
“That was nothing,” Snape replies. “It was a laugh, that’s all—“
Lily then says that it was Dark Magic. Okay… what spells do we know are Dark Magic? It’s not Sectumsempra, because that’s Snape’s spell and I doubt that even he would call cutting someone to bits “a laugh.”
Obviously, it wasn’t Avada Kadavra, or Crucio Cruciatus. Maybe it was Imperio? Maybe Mulciber made her cluck like a chicken in the courtyard? That would be both Dark Magic and in the neighborhood of funny.
Any other spell that might be described as “a laugh” that we know about has been done by the “good guys.” You know, stuff like making tentacles sprout on someone’s face, or turning them into giant slugs. Or making their heads swell up. Or having their toenails grow, or their tongues stick to the roof of them mouths. I honestly can’t figure out what Mulciber could have done to Mary MacDonald that would be so much worse than those things. That could inspire this indignant reaction in Lily.
Who we know will just smile when her best friend is petrified, made to choke on soap suds, and hung upside down in front of the whole school.
So, Snape tries to turn it around by bringing up “Potter and his gang.” (I guess he doesn’t know about the Marauder moniker.)
Lily asks what’s Potter got to do with anything. She’s got a good point, there. Especially since Snape brings up the lame fact that what Potter is doing is sneaking out at night. Why doesn’t he bring up the head-swelling and bullying stuff that we know happened? Or does Bertram Aubrey not count in Lily Evans’ list of victims?
Snape also mentions that Lupin is weird—which, again, doesn’t really help his argument. But it does let us know that Snape thinks Lupin is a werewolf (actually, Snape knows that Lupin is a werewolf), and that Lily’s heard this theory before. Either she doesn’t believe him, or she’s pretending not to.
Then she blushes under the intensity of Snape’s gaze. Because she knows he’s attracted to her and she’s turned on by it? Or because she’s embarrassed that such a creep likes her?
Lily scolds Snape for being “ungrateful” to James for saving his life from “whatever’s” down under the Whomping Willow. At which point, Snape goes ballistic and starts spluttering with rage about James and how he’s not a hero and he’s not going to let Lily—
“Let me? Let me?” Lily rages back.
This is so alarming to Snape that he starts backtracking immediately. We don’t know what Snape wasn’t going to let Lily do. The most obvious answer to me is that he isn’t going to let her date James. He would have no power to stop her in any case, but Lily’s indignation that he would even try and his fear of her anger shows me that Lily has all the power in this relationship.
Wow. This is sort of like that memory of Eileen cowering while Tobias yelled at her, isn’t it? Raised voices are Snape’s kryptonite. Hehe. My spellchecker knows the word “kryptonite”!
I get the strong feeling in this scene that Lily is fed up with Snape as a friend, and I don’t buy that her objection to his friends is based on principle. While his friends may very well be proto-Nazis, it comes across to me like an excuse to dump Snape.
(Another digression: I think this idea is supported by having Lily meet Snape before they start attending Hogwarts. Had they met later, it would be easier to buy the friendship as them having something in common (like a love of potions). But, in canon, what they have in common is being the only two magical children in their hometown. Once Lily gets to Hogwarts, she meets hundreds of magical children—so what draws her to Snape is no longer there.)
What really convinces me is when she tells Snape that he’s being ungrateful to James for saving his life without being at all concerned about whether Snape is okay after that experience. If she had heard about it from someone else—wouldn’t she be pumping Snape to tell her what happened?
Lily then performs a bit of emotional jujitsu by insulting James and turning Snape back into putty. They go off together and Snape is happy as can be to think Lily hasn’t fallen for James… yet.
The next memory is Snape’s Worst Memory. Harry, unlike many Snape-haters, believes that Snape inadvertently wandered too close to the Marauders (instead of deliberately choosing his spot to eavesdrop on them). That Harry prefers to stay away from the action is clue that he’s beginning to weaken on that Snape-hate he’s been carrying around for nearly seven years.
Then we have a scene outside the Gryffindor common room, where we learn that Snape has staged a sit-in until Lily comes out to receive his apology. And we learn that Lily refuses to accept that apology and calls Snape a future Death Eater.
As a point of interest, she says that Snape calls “everyone of my birth” a Mudblood (except Lily, until SWM). This implies that Snape is more of a bigot than he appears in his memories—which I don’t have trouble believing or reconciling with the Snape I like.
What I do have trouble accepting is that this feisty, spunky Lily who has all the power in their relationship never called him on it before—or that he wouldn’t have internalized it. The implications are that he did know that this was wrong, and that he tried very hard not to appear anti-Muggleborn in front of Lily. So, maybe she never heard him call “everyone” of her birth a Mudblood, but found out that he was doing it behind her back?
Oh hell, maybe I’m just overthinking it.
Anyway, they split up and Lily went and cast obliviate on all her friends so that everyone forgot that she ever liked the weirdo kid from Slytherin and that explains why no one ever mentioned their relationship to Harry. Not even Hagrid, who spilled the beans about everything else under the sun.
Thus ends the first part of the Prince’s Tale. The second part is called The Prince and the Manipulative Bastard.
The next we see of Snape, he’s standing the middle of a storm on a hill, waiting for Dumbledore. A bit melodramatic, aren’t we, Snape? Couldn’t just meet him at a coffee shop? Or a gay bar?
Dumbledore can’t resist making a grand entrance, arriving like a lightning bolt. Snape drops to his knees and cries out, “Don’t kill me!”
So… was Dumbledore that badass in the first war? It’s a pretty far cry from the twinkly guy with the candy dish.
Dumbledore asks what message Snape is bringing from Lord Voldemort. Which implies to me that Snape’s main function as a Death Eater was probably to carry messages between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Which implies a bizarre political dynamic. Was Dumbledore the most powerful opposition to Voldemort? If Snape was carrying messages, then wouldn’t Dumbledore know he was a Death Eater back at the Hog’s Head? Eesh.
So, Snape stammers that he has a request and mentions Trelawney, and Dumbledore asks how much of the prophecy Snape told to Voldemort. Snape replies that he told as much of it as he heard. Dumbledore seems to be jumping awfully quick to conclusions to be surprised here. Either Dumbledore is reading Snape’s mind (in which case he doesn’t need to ask at all), or he’s so incredibly smart that he figures out in a micro-second what happened (in which case, why would he have been so dumb back when Snape heard the prophecy), or Snape telling Voldemort the Prophecy was something Dumbledore was well aware of.
Snape tells Dumbledore that Voldemort thinks the Prophecy refers to Lily Evans and Dumbledore replies that didn’t. It referred to a boy born at the end of July. If Dumbledore didn’t know what Snape told Voldemort, that’s a stupid thing to let slip.
But no harm, Snape explains that Voldemort is targeting a baby boy. He just doesn’t care about that. He’s worried that Voldemort will kill the whole family, which includes Lily.
So, why don’t you just ask Lord Voldemort to spare her? Dumbledore taunts. And when Snape explains that he already did, Dumbledore says, “You disgust me.”
Wow. This is not how I imagined this scene would go. But then again, I always imagined that Snape would be telling Dumbledore something he didn’t know already.
Dumbledore goes on explain that he’s disgusted because Snape cares only about Lily’s life and not about her husband or son. Snape says nothing, but only looks at Dumbledore.
I can’t help thinking that Snape’s wondering how the hell he was supposed to beg Lord Voldemort to spare the very person Voldemort was bent on killing. Especially since Voldemort was worried that person might grow up to kill him.
But Snape merely begs Dumbledore to keep Lily—and the others if he must—safe.
And Dumbledore demands payment. At least, he demands to know what Snape will give him in return for protecting the Potters.
Snape looks as thought he’s about to protest—as well he should. I mean, it’s like Draco going to Harry and begging him to protect Hedwig and Harry replying, “What’ll you give me?”
But Snape doesn’t protest. He simply says, “Anything.”
The next thing we see is Snape in the grips of suicidal depression after Lily’s death.
“I thought… you were going… to keep her… safe,” he moans.
“She and James put their faith in the wrong person,” Dumbledore says, getting in a dig at Sirius Black. Then he twists the knife in Snape: “Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?”
Um. No, Dumbledore. He was pretty sure that Voldemort wouldn’t spare her. That’s why he came to talk to you. Oh wait, was the person Snape put misguided faith into… was that you? Because then it all makes sense.
Dumbledore then tells Snape that Harry survives and that he’s got his mother’s eyes, and if Snape really loved Lily, he’d dedicate his life to protecting her son. Too bad he never says anything about dedicating his life to treating that son decently, but I guess we can’t have everything.
Snape agrees, after Dumbledore declares that Voldemort isn’t really dead, but he asks in return that Dumbledore never tell Harry why he’s protecting him. Dumbledore thinks this is a mistake, but he agrees. Then Dumbledore spends the next ten years trying to figure out which lie will piss Snape off the most when he tells it to Harry instead of the truth.
New scene: Snape complains about what an arrogant toerag Harry is, but Dumbledore disagrees in a bored tone, while reading a magazine and orders Snape to keep an eye on Quirrell. This scene is to show us that Snape really did hate Harry and wasn’t just pretending to impress Draco. It also shows us that Dumbledore is an annoying jerk.
Dumbledore and Snape discuss Karkaoff on the night of the Yule Ball. Dumbledore asks Snape if he plans on fleeing with Karkaroff and Snape replies that he’s not such a coward. Dumbledore agrees that Snape is braver than Karkaroff and says, “I sometimes think we Sort too soon…”
At which, Snape looks stricken. Many readers interpret this to Snape thinking that if he’d been sorted into Gryffindor, he would have never lost Lily. I take it as Snape reacting to the incredibly insulting swipe at Slytherin—the House that he heads!
How I wish that scene had ended with Snape kicking Dumbledore in the ass.
Dumbledore’s office. Snape is trying to heal Dumbledore. He asks why Dumbledore put on an obviously cursed ring. Dumbledore says that he was sorely tempted, but won’t say what tempted him.
They discuss the curse, and Dumbledore “casually” asks how much time he has left. Because Dumbledore isn’t even scared of death, that’s how much of a badass he is. Snape hesitates, then gives Dumbledore a year at the most.
Snape keeps asking curiously about the ring—why Dumbledore put it on, why he broke it with the sword, but Dumbledore brushes aside the questions and starts hatching a plan to thwart Voldemort’s scheme for using Draco to kill Dumbledore by having Snape do it instead.
As an aside, he asks if he has Snape’s word to protect the students once Voldemort takes over the school. Snape nods. Obviously, the word “protect” does not mean the same thing to Dumbledore and to Snape as it means to me.
So, Dumbledore tells Snape to find out what Draco plans to do—since a frightened teenager is often a danger to others as well as to himself. Right, Dumbledore. This is why you don’t allow Draco to order cursed necklaces and poisoned wine from school.
Incidentally, it’s probably why you shouldn’t entrust a teenage boy to hunt down a bunch of Horcruxes on his own, either.
Bwahahaha! Dumbledore is telling Snape to offer Draco help and guidance. The very things he’ll specifically keep people from giving Harry a year later! Adult help and guidance only hinder the young.
Dumbledore then asks Snape to kill him, to avoid damaging Draco’s pure young soul. When Snape sensibly asks what that means about his own soul, Dumbledore brushes him off by saying he’ll just be helping an old man avoid pain and suffering. Then he brings up the image of Fenrir Greyback eating him and Bellatrix Lestrange performing horrible and perverted acts upon him.
These are the choices? It’s either Snape… or Fenrir and Bellatrix? There’s a bunch of other Death Eaters, you know. Or, how about this one? How about Dumbledore just dies a natural (cursed) death?
Well, it wouldn’t be Dumbledore if he weren’t coming up with some stupidly complicated twist.
So, Dumbledore asks again for Snape to kill him, and his eyes pierce Snape as they had frequently pierced Harry, as though the soul they discussed was visible to him. So, while asking Snape to tear his soul for him, Dumbledore is examining that soul for blemishes. Great. Now he’s Petunia and Snape is the neighbor’s garden.
Snape and Dumbledore strolling through the Forbidden Forest. Snape asks “abruptly” why Dumbledore is spending so many evenings with Dumbledore. First—it’s not that many evenings. Second, Snape sounds like he’s been reading the first draft of Rita Skeeter’s biography of Dumbledore, and just got through the chapter about their “sinister” relationship.
Dumbledore makes a joke about how much Snape has been putting Harry in detention—which is a continuity error. Snape didn’t put Harry into a huge number of detentions until long after this conversation took place. (Hagrid mentions overhearing this conversation while coming to see Ron in the Hospital Wing. It was after that that Harry cut open Draco, and that was what caused Snape to assign Harry to multiple detentions.)
Anyway, they continue to argue and, after Snape threatens not to kill Dumbledore, Dumbledore tells him to meet him in the office that night for his final assignment.
Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore tells Snape that Harry contains a piece of Voldemort’s soul. Snape needs to be on the lookout for a time when Voldemort starts protecting Nagini. At that time, and not before, Snape must tell Harry the truth about being a Horcrux and that he must allow Voldemort—and no one else—to kill Harry.
Snape is taken aback by this, since he’s been dedicating his life for the last sixteen years to protecting Lily’s son. Dumbledore goes on to say that it was necessary to protect Harry until he was strong enough to kill himself. With his eyes shut, Dumbledore says that by the time Harry goes to meet his death, he will have “arranged things” so that it will mean the end of Voldemort.
I mention this, because it had occurred to me that a simple way to avoid Legilimency would be to keep your eyes shut when telling a lie. So, I think Dumbledore is trying to keep Snape from suspecting that Harry can survive the encounter with Voldemort.
Snape is now shocked that Dumbledore would raise Harry only to sacrifice him at the proper age. Dumbledore is shocked that Snape is shocked, asking, “How many men and women have you watched die?”
That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?
Snape’s reply is, “Lately, only those I whom could not save.” Oh, what a pathetic line! Complete with the unnecessary “whom” that makes Snape sound like he’s in Lupin’s Melodrama Club. We Snape-lovers can console ourselves that he’s no longer solely focused on protecting Lily’s son—but JKR makes it clear that this is only lately. It wasn’t until last Tuesday that it started to bother Snape when non-Lily’s-son people were dying.
And then Snape goes into asshole mode and complains that Dumbledore has been using him. He has spied for Dumbledore and lied for Dumbledore and put himself in mortal danger! Damn Dumbledore for making him do good things! And the whole thing was supposed to be about saving one kid! And now it turns out that the kid was being raised as Christmas dinner!
See… it’s that Slytherin thing, isn’t it? Lately, Snape has been caring about everyone in danger, but essentially, he only cared about one person: Lily. Harry was just the next best thing to Lily. Maybe the hat Sorted too soon. Maybe it didn’t.
Snape proves his undying attachment to Lily by casting his doe Patronus, which touches Dumbledore to tears. (If I weren’t so bitterly anti-Dumbledore at this point—and if I didn’t find the whole Ariana thing dull—I might even think that Dumbledore realizes how similar he and Snape are at this point. They both would give anything to have a woman they loved back again.)
Now, mind you, I can see this Snape love for Lily as a very knightly, romantic thing. But JKR really seems to be doing her best to make it clear that loving Lily is the only decent impulse Snape has ever had in his life. So, it’s not the enobling emotion we’ve come to think of as love. Or maybe Snape was such piece of crap to begin with that even love for the Sainted Lily only raised him to the level of pitbull.
Now we get into the Third Part of the Tale: The Prince’s and the Portrait (Who Is Still a Manipulative Bastard).
Harry now sees a series of memories dealing with Snape’s role after killing Dumbledore. First, we see him in the Headmaster’s office with the Portrait of Dumbledore. It is not explained how Snape is in the office when he should have been wanted by the aurors for murder—and persona non grata at Hogwarts. But Dumbledore is telling Snape to mess up the Move Harry to Another House scheme. It’s also not explained how Dumbledore would know about this scheme at all. Maybe there’s a big portrait of him in Moody’s bedroom.
Then we see Snape confounding Mundungus to change the plan to include the Seven Potters.
Next we see Snape flying on a broom. I guess he hadn’t learned that solo-flying thing yet. A Death Eater points his wand at Lupin’s back (so is George not riding behind Lupin? Is he riding in front? Or on another broomstick?) and Snape tries to cut the man’s hand off, but misses and cuts off George’s ear instead.
Snape must have really felt bad about that to include this memory. Maybe he does have a soft spot for the twins. (Although, as far as he would probably know, that was Harry up ahead. He’d realize later on that it was George, when George turned up the shop without an ear. He might also be able to distinguish Harry from other people by broom-riding styles.)
I’m sure that Snape haters are astonished that Snape would try to save Lupin’s life. I just say it’s a shout-out to Snupin fans.
Next we see Snape in Sirius’s bedroom. He’s in tears. Perhaps because he just realized that Sirius is straight. According to JKR, Snape came to the Black House before Moody set up the wards, so this scene is out of sequence.
The weeping Snape pockets half a letter that Lily wrote (the half that says, “Love, Lily”), and tears up a photograph with James, Lily, and Harry, so that James is left out. So, we know that Snape is totally focused on Lily and still respects nothing about Harry, including his belongings.
As a Snape fan, it annoys me no end that he’s being such a jerk in this scene—but I have to give JKR props. She’s not going to compromise and make him nice. And she’ll make him both tragic and ridiculous by having his tears drip off the end of his hooked nose.
Next, Snape is in the headmaster’s office and Phineas Nigellus comes in to report that Harry and Hermione are in the Forest of Dean. Nigellus calls Hermione a Mudblood and Snape yells at him for it.
This is another key moment that gets debated ad nauseam. Does this mean that Snape has repented his racist ways, or is it just that he doesn’t like that word because it lost him Lily? I think that if it’s there, you have to acknowledge its importance. But then, you have to acknowledge all the negative moments, too. I’ve done my share of trying to explain away Snape’s nastiness. But in the end, he is what he is. Good and bad. Ecce homo.
Dumbledore gets all excited about passing the sword to Harry. Interestingly, Dumbledore is worried that Voldemort might find out Snape is helping, not from Snape, but from reading Harry’s mind.
To me, this implies that a) Dumbledore probably didn’t mind the Snape/Harry feud and wanted to help it along, and b) when he told Harry that Voldemort had conveniently closed the mind connection, he knew that wouldn’t last, and c) when Dumbledore told Snape that he was worried about Snape spilling stuff to Voldemort, that probably wasn’t completely true, either.
And d) Dumbledore was manipulative as hell.
Anyway, Dumbledore tries to micromanage Snape, telling him that he must not be seen, and then that the Trio probably won’t take kindly to him after the George thing. Like they wouldn’t already be upset by the killing Dumbledore thing.
So, first Dumbledore tells Snape that he mustn’t be seen, or Voldemort will find out that he’s helping Harry, and then he warns Snape that the Trio will be mad at him for cutting George’s ear off. So, is he thinking Snape’s going to interact with the Trio or not? Let’s be charitable and say Dumbledore is flustered.
Snape tells Dumbledore that he has a plan and goes out the door. It isn’t exactly kicking him in the ass, but it’ll do.
And then Harry wakes up on the carpet of the office, having totally gotten over hating Snape.
Fan Service:
Snape was Dumbledore’s man.
Dumbledore treated Snape like crap.
Lily treated Snape like crap.
Fan Slappage:
James was an even worse jerk than we thought. And SWM took place after the Prank, which makes the whole thing worse than the most pro-Snape fanfic ever written.
Lily? Kind of a bitch.
We may have suspected that Dumbledore was a manipulative bastard, but he descends into even lower levels of assholism.
DVD Extras:
TITLE CARD:
The following events take place between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.
INT: Headmaster’s Office.
Harry pours a flask of memories into the Pensieve, takes a deep breath and plunges his face into the silvery liquid.
Cut to:
THE GREAT HALL
Hermione pulls away from hugging Ginny. She moves to Ron, who is standing a little ways away from the family.
HERMIONE
I’m so sorry, Ron.
RON
Did you see where Harry went to? He’s gone missing again.
HERMIONE
No… maybe he’s up in the dorms?
They hurry out and up the stairs.
Neville draws in a few students, including Ernie, Luna, Seamus, and Oliver.
NEVILLE
We have an hour. Red sparks for wounded. Blue for dead. Let’s go.
They all spin off towards the grounds. Ginny, drawing away from her family, wanders after them.
GINNY
Neville? Luna?
She passes by a Madam Pomfrey, who is bandaging Lavender Brown.
LAVENDER
(loudly) What do you mean, I might be a werewolf?!
EXT: HOGWARTS COURTYARD
Ginny wanders down into the dark grounds.
GINNY
What’s going on? Luna?
A dark shape steps behind her. She whirls around.
GINNY
Neville?
Fenrir Greyback, his face covered with blood, steps into the light from a castle window.
FENRIR
Not exactly.
Ginny gasps and turns to run, but he grabs her, clapping one hand on her mouth.
FENRIR
Now, now. Let’s not make a fuss, pretty girl. Come with me over where we won’t be bothered by no one.
He drags her off towards a distant grove of trees.
Cut to:
EXT: HOGSMEADE
Lucius hurries out of the Shrieking Shack to join Narcissa, who is pacing worriedly.
NARCISSA
Where have you been? He was asking about you.
LUCIUS
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
NARCISSA
Our son is still missing.
LUCIUS
Draco may have gone back to the castle.
NARCISSA
How do you—oh. Let’s go, then.
LUCIUS
Right—
Bellatrix appears.
BELLATRIX
Lucius! Narcissa! Come! We’re heading into the woods.
Lucius and Narcissa share a look, then follow her into the trees.
Cut to:
INT: GRYFFINDOR DORMS
Ron and Hermione push the door open. The five beds stand empty, the curtains blowing in the breeze of an open window.
RON
Not here.
He turns to go, but Hermione is blocking the door.
HERMIONE
Ron…
RON
What is it?
HERMIONE
What do you think will happen? What if Voldemort does attack again?
RON
We’ll fight.
HERMIONE
I don’t want to die—
RON
That’s not—
HERMIONE
I don’t want to die without… letting you know how much I love you.
Ron’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to the empty beds.
RON
Are you saying what I think—
She kisses him on the mouth. There’s a brief moment when he almost draws back—as if to rationalize things. Then he gives up and kisses her back. They tumble onto a bed.
The camera moves discretely to the window, picking out a pair of dark figures: One hulkingly large, the other small and struggling desperately, but being pulled toward a grove of dark trees.
Cut to:
FENRIR AND GINNY
She struggles desperately as he half-carries her to the darkness under the trees. As they move, he feels in her pockets, finally pulling out her wand.
FENRIR
Don’t need that now, do we?
He throws it off into the distance.
GINNY
Please. Let me go.
FENRIR
Now, now. It’ll be over soon. Such soft skin…
He throws her on the ground. As she lands, she rolls over to kick him—but he suddenly freezes with a strangled cry. He falls down, nearly landed on Ginny, who throws herself out of the way and looks up to see a WOMAN in a dark mask, holding a wand. The woman pulls off her mask, revealing a line of pustules, spelling out the word SNEAK across her face.
GINNY
Marietta Edgecombe? What are you doing here?
Marietta blinks uncertainly.
MARIETTA
I’m not sure. I was hoping you could tell me.
Cut to:
ANOTHER PART OF THE GROUNDS.
Neville kneels by Colin Creevey, who is covered with blood and delirious.
COLIN
I read about him in the papers, you see. They said he had been studying at Hogwarts. He was the first hero I ever knew.
Colin struggles a little to get up.
NEVILLE
Lie still. Help is coming.
Oliver Wood arrives, his eyes questioning Neville. Neville shakes his head slightly.
COLIN
I was in love with him.
NEVILLE
Still are, I imagine.
COLIN
Not for long.
He leans his head back and the light goes out of his eyes. Neville nods to Oliver, who bends down. Together, they lift the body.
Cut to:
A PATH IN THE FOREST
Lupin trudges down it, his shoulders hunched. Tonks runs after him.
TONKS
Remus! Wait for me!
LUPIN
Dora? I told you to stay with Teddy.
Tonks stops, her wand drooping.
TONKS
I came to be with you.
LUPIN
(shaking his head)
That’s over. It never should have been in the first place.
TONKS
Never should have been? Are you saying you never loved me?
LUPIN
Not the way you wanted me to.
TONKS
And Teddy? Was that a mistake, too? Was our son a mistake?
LUPIN
(running one hand through his hair)
I don’t know. It’s not fair, I know that. I told you to stay with him.
TONKS
But I couldn’t bear to live without you.
LUPIN
Now you’ll be dead without me. Can you bear that?
He turns and walks down the path.
Cut to:
HOGWARTS GROUNDS
Ginny and Marietta search through the grass.
GINNY
Found it.
She holds up her wand.
MARIETTA
I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I left school before my N.E.W.T.s. Everyone hated me and I could never tell why.
GINNY
I’m sure they—it probably wasn’t—it doesn’t matter now.
MARIETTA
It mattered to me. Mother wanted me to go into the Ministry, but you can’t without N.E.W.T.s. And, if you have a face like mine, you can’t even work in a shop.
GINNY
So, why did you come back?
MARIETTA
I felt something burning in my pocket.
She pulls a galleon out of her robes and lights the end of her wand. They both lean over the coin.
MARIETTA (cont’d)
See? There’s writing on it. It says, “Get to Hogwarts as soon as you can.”
GINNY
Oh. (quietly) I’m glad you did.
A bellow pierces the night. They both turn, Marietta’s wand illuminating their terrified faces.
Fenrir runs towards them. It’s hard to tell if he’s a man or a wolf, but he seems to be running on all fours.
Ginny screams and Marietta pushes her to the side as Fenrir leaps at them. He lands on Marietta, a knife flashing in his hand.
Ginny lands and rolls back on her feet. She points her wand at Fenrir.
GINNY
REDUCTO!
He flies into the air from the force of the spell, impaling himself on the sharpened stump of a tree branch. He struggles for a moment to free himself, but finally slumps down, dead.
Ginny, still holding her wand up defensively, sidles over to where Marietta is lying on the ground. She kneels down.
Marietta, holding her side, is bleeding from a deep wound.
GINNY
No, no. Marietta…
MARIETTA
Mother… Mother wanted me to go into the Ministry. She’s going to be angry.
GINNY
It’s all right. It’s okay. We’re going to get you inside…
MARIETTA
But I want to go home. I don’t want to fight anymore!
GINNY
I know. (her voice breaking) It’s going to be all right.
A rustle in the grass makes her turn her head. Her eyes search the darkness.
GINNY (cont’d)
Is anyone there? Please. Please help us.
The footsteps of an invisible person move away from her and towards the blackness of the forest.
GINNY (cont’d)
I can’t move her by myself. Please….
FADE TO BLACK
But you’d think this would be my favorite chapter. After all, we’re getting all of Snape’s backstory. Be careful what you ask for...
The Prince’s Tale
Just like the last chapter started with Fred being dead, this one starts with Snape lying lifeless on the floor as Harry stares at him.
Before Harry can actually form a thought, Voldemort’s voice comes echoing with a speech for the Hogwarts’ troops. He starts by praising their bravery—which seems generous, considering that he’s whupping them so badly. He offers mercy to those who stop resisting him and gives everyone an hour to bury their dead.
Then he speaks directly to Harry. Well, he’s still doing the loud voice thing, so everybody gets to eavesdrop, but he tells Harry to come and
As they go across the lawn, Harry notes that it’s about an hour until dawn and that it’s pitch black. Nevertheless, they can see small bundles lying on the grass and a clog the size of a small boat. Okay, you tell me how to reconcile a pitch-black darkness with being able to see small bundles and a giant shoe.
In the Great Hall, the Weasleys are grouped around Fred’s dead body. Harry notes that Ginny’s face is swollen and blotchy. Guess she does occasionally cry. When Harry isn’t around to admire her spunk.
Then Harry sees the bodies of Remus and Tonks “pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.” Now, that’s nice image. It makes me think of those stone effigy things you see in old churchs, with the sculpture of a knight. I think it’s dumb that they died, but I do like the image.
Harry reels back from the hall, overcome with guilt. If only I’d given myself up earlier, he thinks, then Fred might still be alive. Apparently, he doesn’t care about Remus or Tonks. But, of course, Harry didn’t even need to give himself up to prevent this carnage. He could have just stopped gaping at everyone like an idiot and found the Ravenclaw horcrux three hours ago. Or spent two minutes researching the alarm system in Hogsmeade so the Death Eaters didn’t immediately know when he arrived.
But note: Harry’s already thinking he ought to just go let Voldemort kill him in order to spare other people.
Harry gets into Dumbledore’s office by using the password Dumbledore, which is a big clue about Snape’s loyalties, and goes inside.
He notices that all the Headmaster portraits, including Dumbledore’s, have deserted the office in order to watch the fighting. Since the fighting is on hiatus, they’re probably watching Bewitched on Filch’s old black-and-while TV set.
What I notice is that there isn’t any portrait of Snape snoozing in the office. This is either a slap in the face to Snape fans or proof that he’s still alive.
Harry, in possibly the most contrived moment in the entire series, pours Snape’s memories into the Pensieve and decides to watch them in order to escape his guilty torment. Like Snape’s memories are going to be any comfort to Harry. As far as Harry knows, they’re probably just going to be filled with Harry failing potions exams or looking stupid.
Look, I know we have to do this. Even when I first read this, I knew the memories were going to contain key information. But does Harry’s reason for doing this have to be so stupid? Couldn’t he want to look at the memories on the hope that they just might contain something useful? Good or bad, this is Voldemort’s right-hand man, and he just got double-crossed. There’s a good chance he’s giving Harry a clue about defeating the Dark Lord. But nope. That would be too cunning or something. Harry needs a noble reason to watch the memories. And escapism is far more noble than trying to succeed.
So, Harry goes into the memories and finds himself in a park with a tall chimney in the background. We know, although Harry does not, that this must be Snape’s home town.
The Prince’s Tale is basically in three parts. This is the first part, which I will call The Prince and the Witch.
Two girls are swinging and little Snape is watching them from behind a clump of bushes. He’s described as wearing a man’s overcoat, too-short jeans, and a woman’s smock. So, Snape is an awkward, social outcast? Check.
Of course, anyone can guess at this point that the girls are Lily and Petunia. I have to say, though, that I was taken aback to see that they lived in this town. I got the feeling that they had grown up in more middle-class area. But maybe that’s why Petunia is so very status conscious as an adult.
Harry moves closer to little Snape and notes the “undisguised greed” as Snape watches Lily in particular. What a strange description that is. It really makes Snape seem like a creepy stalker here. Was that JKR’s intention? I’m not sure that it is, because she uses “greed” more than once when it comes to describing romantic attraction. She will even use “hungrily” when Lily looks at Harry later on. So, I’m not convinced that JKR intended the stalker vibe.
Or, it could be, as other readers have pointed out, that Harry interprets Snape’s look as “greedy” because he’s still in Snape hate mode. But I don’t think that Harry would have been looking at the memories at all in that case.
It’s kind of a shame that Ron and Hermione didn’t come along on this trip. Hermione could have told us all how to feel.
As Petunia shrieks her disapproval, Lily lets go of her swing at the highest point and flies up into the air, floating down far too lightly not to be using magic.
“Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!” Petunia says, which brings up an interesting point. How is it that Mrs. Evans knows what Lily is doing—and knows that she shouldn’t be doing it publicly? If it were worth creating theories at this point in the series, I would have theorized that Mrs. Evans is actually a squib and thus knows enough about magic to realize what Lily’s up to and what it means.
But in that case, Lily wouldn’t need Snape to tell her about the magical world, so forget that.
Lily then picks up a flower and shows Petunia her ability to make it open and close at will. Petunia tells her to stop it, but asks with obvious envy how Lily does it.
This is Snape’s cue to come forward and tell Lily that she’s a witch. Lily takes this as an insult. Snape gets red in the face from embarrassment and Harry thinks the only reason Snape doesn’t take off his coat is to avoid revealing the smock underneath, which makes me wonder how it is that Harry saw the smock in the first place.
Lily runs to Petunia and Snape runs clumsily after her, trying to explain that he meant a real witch, who can do real magic. Petunia laughs at him, calling him that “Snape boy” and sneering that he lives down on Spinner’s End.
So, now we know that Spinner’s End is a street and not a town. Also that it’s worse than the other streets.
Petunia follows that up by accusing Snape of spying. He retorts that it’s not worth spying on a Muggle, and Petunia gets so mad she pulls Lily away towards their, presumably tonier, home.
At this point, the scene dissolves into another memory. It’s similar to when Dumbledore was storing all his old trial memories in the Pensieve back in GoF, but that seemed a lot more random. There is a definite structure to what Snape put into these memories. I choose to believe that he chose each one for a specific reason and hopefully left out the ones that showed his relationship with Lily in a better light.
Anyway, this memory is of Lily and Snape talking about what happens if you do magic outside of school. Lily wonders if Snape is just trying to impress her with a fantasy about this magical castle and all. Snape assures her that it’s not and that someone will come from Hogwarts to tell her and her parents all about it.
Lily asks if it will make a difference that she’s Muggleborn. Snape hesitates and then says that it won’t, then watches “greedily” as she stretches out on the ground to stare up at the leaves in the trees. Okay, maybe JKR is being deliberate about that stalker thing. Let’s see if he starts salivating.
Lily asks about Dementors and Petunia shows up and we finally learn that the “awful boy” was Snape. Hehe. I figured that one out years earlier.
Snape now accuses Petunia of spying and she retaliates by making fun of his smock. At this point, a branch on one of the trees breaks and strikes Petunia on the shoulder. Petunia runs off crying, Lily accuses Snape of hurting her with magic, and Snape denies it, but JKR is careful to point out that this is a lie—which is one of those key points of argument between Snape supporters and Snape detractors.
The supporters note that kids of that age can’t control their magic, and Snape might not really be lying about doing it. It was spontaneous, like Harry blowing up Aunt Marge. Detractors say this shows that Snape was a big fat liar, just like Voldemort and those invisible Slytherins.
Another dissolve and Snape is on the train platform, watching the Evans family say goodbye to Lily. Harry goes over to listen as Lily tells Petunia she’ll try to talk to Dumbledore and convince him to let Petunia come to the school, too. Petunia denies any desire to attend Hogwarts and calls the children “freaks.”
Lily tells Petunia that she knows about the letter Dumbledore sent her. Petunia is horrified that Lily read a private letter, and Lily sort of blames it on Snape by trying not to blame it on him. Brat.
I notice that in her explanation, Snape didn’t actually open the letter or anything. He just wondered how Petunia could have contacted Dumbledore without an owl and speculated about the postal service intercepting letters from Muggles addressed to wizards.
Heh. I just realized something. Harry spends this memory eavesdropping the Lily and Petuna—but Snape couldn’t possibly have heard them (he’s too far away). So, if Snape did choose this memory for a specific reason, we’ll never know what it is. Maybe he thought the story needed a background shot, the way that every movie about England starts with a shot of Big Ben.
Another dissolve: Snape is on the train and he finds Lily post-crying in a compartment filled with rowdy boys.
She’s mad at Snape because of her fight with Petunia—which she is now blaming completely on Snape. Snape doesn’t see why she’s bothered, since Petunia is only a… Muggle is what he’s most likely going to say, but he doesn’t. This is the second time he’s shown a) that he thinks Muggles are not worth much and b) that he knows this is distressing to Lily and he better not say it in front of her.
We’re also given clues that Snape’s parents fight—but his mother obviously isn’t hexing his Muggle dad, because… well, he’d probably be an orphan by now if she was. And we get the small detail of Snape having changed into his school robes already, as though eager to leave his half-Muggle poverty behind him.
Snape tries to cheer Lily up reminding her that they are off to the magic school! And he hopes that she’ll be in Slytherin, the “brainy” House. At this, little James Potter turns around. Harry notes that he is black-haired, just like Snape, but “with that undefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.” In other words, James is a dark-haired Draco.
To emphasize this, JKR has James echo Draco’s sentiments about House sorting (but with Slytherin instead of Hufflepuff). He directs his statement to Sirius, who points out that his whole family is in Slytherin.
“Blimey,” James says, “and I thought you seemed all right!”
Is this supposed to be cute and funny? Or to demonstrate the other side of the coin in terms of discrimination? James is being as prejudicial than Snape—and he doesn’t even bother to hide it.
(To digress a little, it seems contradictory to me to portray racists as being the ones in power while simultaneously having the people in power object to racist language. Yes, racism still exists even while we would never use the N-word in polite society, but it doesn’t have near as much power as when white people could openly use the word without any fear of offending someone who might be able to do something about it.)
Sirius—who we had always assumed chose Gryffindor out of principle is basing his choice on following this cool kid he just met.
Anyway, James’s stated choice leads to a tiff between Snape and James and Sirius. Lily decides to move, taking Snape with her. James and Sirius then mock him as being obviously pussy-whipped and the nickname “Snivellus” is born.
I kind of foresaw this before DH came out. I figured that James was going to act more like Draco than Harry when he first encountered Snape. I didn’t think that James and Sirius were going to gang up on him from the very start. I thought it might start out a little more ambiguous. But then, this chapter wasn’t written for me. This chapter was written for people who hate Snape.
Now we see the sorting. Lily is sorted into Gryffindor and smiles sadly at Severus, knowing that they won’t be in the same House now. Even the first time I read this, I didn’t think she was all that upset about it. This is when I started to really dislike Lily as a character.
So, Harry watches the whole sorting in the memory, including his father, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. Wow. That must have taken almost the whole hour Voldemort gave him right there. Especially when you consider that there were probably a lot more students in those days—as many of them didn’t survive to have kids.
Finally, Snape is sorted into Slytherin and goes over to the table where Prefect Lucius Malfoy welcomes him and other students cheer. Is this because they don’t know him yet? I mean, he’s not really one of them. He’s a half blood from the bad part of a Muggle town.
Or am I simply invested too much in the idea of an ostracized Snape? Draco told Harry to be careful of associating with the “wrong” type of wizard, yet Eileen Prince went and married a Muggle. That sort of thing gets you blasted off the tapestry in the Black House. Plus he’s poor and he’s funny-looking and he doesn’t have a lot of social skills. Are we to assume that none of that matters to the snobs in Slytherin?
Well, maybe not, considering that sixty-percent of them are carrying troll blood in their veins.
The scene changes. Lily and Snape are walking through the courtyard together. Harry sees that they are taller and reckons that a few years have passed since they were sorted. Try five years, Harry. They are both fifteen—probably sixteen--years old right now.
So, Snape is upset they’re supposed to be best friends. I wonder what Lily is doing (or not doing) that’s making him feel otherwise. Lily replies that they are, but she doesn’t like the people he hangs out with. She mentions Avery and says that Mulciber is creepy. “D’you know what he tried to do to Mary MacDonald the other day?
No. What? Tell us, damnit. Was it as bad and turning her upside-down and taking off her panties?
“That was nothing,” Snape replies. “It was a laugh, that’s all—“
Lily then says that it was Dark Magic. Okay… what spells do we know are Dark Magic? It’s not Sectumsempra, because that’s Snape’s spell and I doubt that even he would call cutting someone to bits “a laugh.”
Obviously, it wasn’t Avada Kadavra, or Crucio Cruciatus. Maybe it was Imperio? Maybe Mulciber made her cluck like a chicken in the courtyard? That would be both Dark Magic and in the neighborhood of funny.
Any other spell that might be described as “a laugh” that we know about has been done by the “good guys.” You know, stuff like making tentacles sprout on someone’s face, or turning them into giant slugs. Or making their heads swell up. Or having their toenails grow, or their tongues stick to the roof of them mouths. I honestly can’t figure out what Mulciber could have done to Mary MacDonald that would be so much worse than those things. That could inspire this indignant reaction in Lily.
Who we know will just smile when her best friend is petrified, made to choke on soap suds, and hung upside down in front of the whole school.
So, Snape tries to turn it around by bringing up “Potter and his gang.” (I guess he doesn’t know about the Marauder moniker.)
Lily asks what’s Potter got to do with anything. She’s got a good point, there. Especially since Snape brings up the lame fact that what Potter is doing is sneaking out at night. Why doesn’t he bring up the head-swelling and bullying stuff that we know happened? Or does Bertram Aubrey not count in Lily Evans’ list of victims?
Snape also mentions that Lupin is weird—which, again, doesn’t really help his argument. But it does let us know that Snape thinks Lupin is a werewolf (actually, Snape knows that Lupin is a werewolf), and that Lily’s heard this theory before. Either she doesn’t believe him, or she’s pretending not to.
Then she blushes under the intensity of Snape’s gaze. Because she knows he’s attracted to her and she’s turned on by it? Or because she’s embarrassed that such a creep likes her?
Lily scolds Snape for being “ungrateful” to James for saving his life from “whatever’s” down under the Whomping Willow. At which point, Snape goes ballistic and starts spluttering with rage about James and how he’s not a hero and he’s not going to let Lily—
“Let me? Let me?” Lily rages back.
This is so alarming to Snape that he starts backtracking immediately. We don’t know what Snape wasn’t going to let Lily do. The most obvious answer to me is that he isn’t going to let her date James. He would have no power to stop her in any case, but Lily’s indignation that he would even try and his fear of her anger shows me that Lily has all the power in this relationship.
Wow. This is sort of like that memory of Eileen cowering while Tobias yelled at her, isn’t it? Raised voices are Snape’s kryptonite. Hehe. My spellchecker knows the word “kryptonite”!
I get the strong feeling in this scene that Lily is fed up with Snape as a friend, and I don’t buy that her objection to his friends is based on principle. While his friends may very well be proto-Nazis, it comes across to me like an excuse to dump Snape.
(Another digression: I think this idea is supported by having Lily meet Snape before they start attending Hogwarts. Had they met later, it would be easier to buy the friendship as them having something in common (like a love of potions). But, in canon, what they have in common is being the only two magical children in their hometown. Once Lily gets to Hogwarts, she meets hundreds of magical children—so what draws her to Snape is no longer there.)
What really convinces me is when she tells Snape that he’s being ungrateful to James for saving his life without being at all concerned about whether Snape is okay after that experience. If she had heard about it from someone else—wouldn’t she be pumping Snape to tell her what happened?
Lily then performs a bit of emotional jujitsu by insulting James and turning Snape back into putty. They go off together and Snape is happy as can be to think Lily hasn’t fallen for James… yet.
The next memory is Snape’s Worst Memory. Harry, unlike many Snape-haters, believes that Snape inadvertently wandered too close to the Marauders (instead of deliberately choosing his spot to eavesdrop on them). That Harry prefers to stay away from the action is clue that he’s beginning to weaken on that Snape-hate he’s been carrying around for nearly seven years.
Then we have a scene outside the Gryffindor common room, where we learn that Snape has staged a sit-in until Lily comes out to receive his apology. And we learn that Lily refuses to accept that apology and calls Snape a future Death Eater.
As a point of interest, she says that Snape calls “everyone of my birth” a Mudblood (except Lily, until SWM). This implies that Snape is more of a bigot than he appears in his memories—which I don’t have trouble believing or reconciling with the Snape I like.
What I do have trouble accepting is that this feisty, spunky Lily who has all the power in their relationship never called him on it before—or that he wouldn’t have internalized it. The implications are that he did know that this was wrong, and that he tried very hard not to appear anti-Muggleborn in front of Lily. So, maybe she never heard him call “everyone” of her birth a Mudblood, but found out that he was doing it behind her back?
Oh hell, maybe I’m just overthinking it.
Anyway, they split up and Lily went and cast obliviate on all her friends so that everyone forgot that she ever liked the weirdo kid from Slytherin and that explains why no one ever mentioned their relationship to Harry. Not even Hagrid, who spilled the beans about everything else under the sun.
Thus ends the first part of the Prince’s Tale. The second part is called The Prince and the Manipulative Bastard.
The next we see of Snape, he’s standing the middle of a storm on a hill, waiting for Dumbledore. A bit melodramatic, aren’t we, Snape? Couldn’t just meet him at a coffee shop? Or a gay bar?
Dumbledore can’t resist making a grand entrance, arriving like a lightning bolt. Snape drops to his knees and cries out, “Don’t kill me!”
So… was Dumbledore that badass in the first war? It’s a pretty far cry from the twinkly guy with the candy dish.
Dumbledore asks what message Snape is bringing from Lord Voldemort. Which implies to me that Snape’s main function as a Death Eater was probably to carry messages between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Which implies a bizarre political dynamic. Was Dumbledore the most powerful opposition to Voldemort? If Snape was carrying messages, then wouldn’t Dumbledore know he was a Death Eater back at the Hog’s Head? Eesh.
So, Snape stammers that he has a request and mentions Trelawney, and Dumbledore asks how much of the prophecy Snape told to Voldemort. Snape replies that he told as much of it as he heard. Dumbledore seems to be jumping awfully quick to conclusions to be surprised here. Either Dumbledore is reading Snape’s mind (in which case he doesn’t need to ask at all), or he’s so incredibly smart that he figures out in a micro-second what happened (in which case, why would he have been so dumb back when Snape heard the prophecy), or Snape telling Voldemort the Prophecy was something Dumbledore was well aware of.
Snape tells Dumbledore that Voldemort thinks the Prophecy refers to Lily Evans and Dumbledore replies that didn’t. It referred to a boy born at the end of July. If Dumbledore didn’t know what Snape told Voldemort, that’s a stupid thing to let slip.
But no harm, Snape explains that Voldemort is targeting a baby boy. He just doesn’t care about that. He’s worried that Voldemort will kill the whole family, which includes Lily.
So, why don’t you just ask Lord Voldemort to spare her? Dumbledore taunts. And when Snape explains that he already did, Dumbledore says, “You disgust me.”
Wow. This is not how I imagined this scene would go. But then again, I always imagined that Snape would be telling Dumbledore something he didn’t know already.
Dumbledore goes on explain that he’s disgusted because Snape cares only about Lily’s life and not about her husband or son. Snape says nothing, but only looks at Dumbledore.
I can’t help thinking that Snape’s wondering how the hell he was supposed to beg Lord Voldemort to spare the very person Voldemort was bent on killing. Especially since Voldemort was worried that person might grow up to kill him.
But Snape merely begs Dumbledore to keep Lily—and the others if he must—safe.
And Dumbledore demands payment. At least, he demands to know what Snape will give him in return for protecting the Potters.
Snape looks as thought he’s about to protest—as well he should. I mean, it’s like Draco going to Harry and begging him to protect Hedwig and Harry replying, “What’ll you give me?”
But Snape doesn’t protest. He simply says, “Anything.”
The next thing we see is Snape in the grips of suicidal depression after Lily’s death.
“I thought… you were going… to keep her… safe,” he moans.
“She and James put their faith in the wrong person,” Dumbledore says, getting in a dig at Sirius Black. Then he twists the knife in Snape: “Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?”
Um. No, Dumbledore. He was pretty sure that Voldemort wouldn’t spare her. That’s why he came to talk to you. Oh wait, was the person Snape put misguided faith into… was that you? Because then it all makes sense.
Dumbledore then tells Snape that Harry survives and that he’s got his mother’s eyes, and if Snape really loved Lily, he’d dedicate his life to protecting her son. Too bad he never says anything about dedicating his life to treating that son decently, but I guess we can’t have everything.
Snape agrees, after Dumbledore declares that Voldemort isn’t really dead, but he asks in return that Dumbledore never tell Harry why he’s protecting him. Dumbledore thinks this is a mistake, but he agrees. Then Dumbledore spends the next ten years trying to figure out which lie will piss Snape off the most when he tells it to Harry instead of the truth.
New scene: Snape complains about what an arrogant toerag Harry is, but Dumbledore disagrees in a bored tone, while reading a magazine and orders Snape to keep an eye on Quirrell. This scene is to show us that Snape really did hate Harry and wasn’t just pretending to impress Draco. It also shows us that Dumbledore is an annoying jerk.
Dumbledore and Snape discuss Karkaoff on the night of the Yule Ball. Dumbledore asks Snape if he plans on fleeing with Karkaroff and Snape replies that he’s not such a coward. Dumbledore agrees that Snape is braver than Karkaroff and says, “I sometimes think we Sort too soon…”
At which, Snape looks stricken. Many readers interpret this to Snape thinking that if he’d been sorted into Gryffindor, he would have never lost Lily. I take it as Snape reacting to the incredibly insulting swipe at Slytherin—the House that he heads!
How I wish that scene had ended with Snape kicking Dumbledore in the ass.
Dumbledore’s office. Snape is trying to heal Dumbledore. He asks why Dumbledore put on an obviously cursed ring. Dumbledore says that he was sorely tempted, but won’t say what tempted him.
They discuss the curse, and Dumbledore “casually” asks how much time he has left. Because Dumbledore isn’t even scared of death, that’s how much of a badass he is. Snape hesitates, then gives Dumbledore a year at the most.
Snape keeps asking curiously about the ring—why Dumbledore put it on, why he broke it with the sword, but Dumbledore brushes aside the questions and starts hatching a plan to thwart Voldemort’s scheme for using Draco to kill Dumbledore by having Snape do it instead.
As an aside, he asks if he has Snape’s word to protect the students once Voldemort takes over the school. Snape nods. Obviously, the word “protect” does not mean the same thing to Dumbledore and to Snape as it means to me.
So, Dumbledore tells Snape to find out what Draco plans to do—since a frightened teenager is often a danger to others as well as to himself. Right, Dumbledore. This is why you don’t allow Draco to order cursed necklaces and poisoned wine from school.
Incidentally, it’s probably why you shouldn’t entrust a teenage boy to hunt down a bunch of Horcruxes on his own, either.
Bwahahaha! Dumbledore is telling Snape to offer Draco help and guidance. The very things he’ll specifically keep people from giving Harry a year later! Adult help and guidance only hinder the young.
Dumbledore then asks Snape to kill him, to avoid damaging Draco’s pure young soul. When Snape sensibly asks what that means about his own soul, Dumbledore brushes him off by saying he’ll just be helping an old man avoid pain and suffering. Then he brings up the image of Fenrir Greyback eating him and Bellatrix Lestrange performing horrible and perverted acts upon him.
These are the choices? It’s either Snape… or Fenrir and Bellatrix? There’s a bunch of other Death Eaters, you know. Or, how about this one? How about Dumbledore just dies a natural (cursed) death?
Well, it wouldn’t be Dumbledore if he weren’t coming up with some stupidly complicated twist.
So, Dumbledore asks again for Snape to kill him, and his eyes pierce Snape as they had frequently pierced Harry, as though the soul they discussed was visible to him. So, while asking Snape to tear his soul for him, Dumbledore is examining that soul for blemishes. Great. Now he’s Petunia and Snape is the neighbor’s garden.
Snape and Dumbledore strolling through the Forbidden Forest. Snape asks “abruptly” why Dumbledore is spending so many evenings with Dumbledore. First—it’s not that many evenings. Second, Snape sounds like he’s been reading the first draft of Rita Skeeter’s biography of Dumbledore, and just got through the chapter about their “sinister” relationship.
Dumbledore makes a joke about how much Snape has been putting Harry in detention—which is a continuity error. Snape didn’t put Harry into a huge number of detentions until long after this conversation took place. (Hagrid mentions overhearing this conversation while coming to see Ron in the Hospital Wing. It was after that that Harry cut open Draco, and that was what caused Snape to assign Harry to multiple detentions.)
Anyway, they continue to argue and, after Snape threatens not to kill Dumbledore, Dumbledore tells him to meet him in the office that night for his final assignment.
Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore tells Snape that Harry contains a piece of Voldemort’s soul. Snape needs to be on the lookout for a time when Voldemort starts protecting Nagini. At that time, and not before, Snape must tell Harry the truth about being a Horcrux and that he must allow Voldemort—and no one else—to kill Harry.
Snape is taken aback by this, since he’s been dedicating his life for the last sixteen years to protecting Lily’s son. Dumbledore goes on to say that it was necessary to protect Harry until he was strong enough to kill himself. With his eyes shut, Dumbledore says that by the time Harry goes to meet his death, he will have “arranged things” so that it will mean the end of Voldemort.
I mention this, because it had occurred to me that a simple way to avoid Legilimency would be to keep your eyes shut when telling a lie. So, I think Dumbledore is trying to keep Snape from suspecting that Harry can survive the encounter with Voldemort.
Snape is now shocked that Dumbledore would raise Harry only to sacrifice him at the proper age. Dumbledore is shocked that Snape is shocked, asking, “How many men and women have you watched die?”
That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?
Snape’s reply is, “Lately, only those I whom could not save.” Oh, what a pathetic line! Complete with the unnecessary “whom” that makes Snape sound like he’s in Lupin’s Melodrama Club. We Snape-lovers can console ourselves that he’s no longer solely focused on protecting Lily’s son—but JKR makes it clear that this is only lately. It wasn’t until last Tuesday that it started to bother Snape when non-Lily’s-son people were dying.
And then Snape goes into asshole mode and complains that Dumbledore has been using him. He has spied for Dumbledore and lied for Dumbledore and put himself in mortal danger! Damn Dumbledore for making him do good things! And the whole thing was supposed to be about saving one kid! And now it turns out that the kid was being raised as Christmas dinner!
See… it’s that Slytherin thing, isn’t it? Lately, Snape has been caring about everyone in danger, but essentially, he only cared about one person: Lily. Harry was just the next best thing to Lily. Maybe the hat Sorted too soon. Maybe it didn’t.
Snape proves his undying attachment to Lily by casting his doe Patronus, which touches Dumbledore to tears. (If I weren’t so bitterly anti-Dumbledore at this point—and if I didn’t find the whole Ariana thing dull—I might even think that Dumbledore realizes how similar he and Snape are at this point. They both would give anything to have a woman they loved back again.)
Now, mind you, I can see this Snape love for Lily as a very knightly, romantic thing. But JKR really seems to be doing her best to make it clear that loving Lily is the only decent impulse Snape has ever had in his life. So, it’s not the enobling emotion we’ve come to think of as love. Or maybe Snape was such piece of crap to begin with that even love for the Sainted Lily only raised him to the level of pitbull.
Now we get into the Third Part of the Tale: The Prince’s and the Portrait (Who Is Still a Manipulative Bastard).
Harry now sees a series of memories dealing with Snape’s role after killing Dumbledore. First, we see him in the Headmaster’s office with the Portrait of Dumbledore. It is not explained how Snape is in the office when he should have been wanted by the aurors for murder—and persona non grata at Hogwarts. But Dumbledore is telling Snape to mess up the Move Harry to Another House scheme. It’s also not explained how Dumbledore would know about this scheme at all. Maybe there’s a big portrait of him in Moody’s bedroom.
Then we see Snape confounding Mundungus to change the plan to include the Seven Potters.
Next we see Snape flying on a broom. I guess he hadn’t learned that solo-flying thing yet. A Death Eater points his wand at Lupin’s back (so is George not riding behind Lupin? Is he riding in front? Or on another broomstick?) and Snape tries to cut the man’s hand off, but misses and cuts off George’s ear instead.
Snape must have really felt bad about that to include this memory. Maybe he does have a soft spot for the twins. (Although, as far as he would probably know, that was Harry up ahead. He’d realize later on that it was George, when George turned up the shop without an ear. He might also be able to distinguish Harry from other people by broom-riding styles.)
I’m sure that Snape haters are astonished that Snape would try to save Lupin’s life. I just say it’s a shout-out to Snupin fans.
Next we see Snape in Sirius’s bedroom. He’s in tears. Perhaps because he just realized that Sirius is straight. According to JKR, Snape came to the Black House before Moody set up the wards, so this scene is out of sequence.
The weeping Snape pockets half a letter that Lily wrote (the half that says, “Love, Lily”), and tears up a photograph with James, Lily, and Harry, so that James is left out. So, we know that Snape is totally focused on Lily and still respects nothing about Harry, including his belongings.
As a Snape fan, it annoys me no end that he’s being such a jerk in this scene—but I have to give JKR props. She’s not going to compromise and make him nice. And she’ll make him both tragic and ridiculous by having his tears drip off the end of his hooked nose.
Next, Snape is in the headmaster’s office and Phineas Nigellus comes in to report that Harry and Hermione are in the Forest of Dean. Nigellus calls Hermione a Mudblood and Snape yells at him for it.
This is another key moment that gets debated ad nauseam. Does this mean that Snape has repented his racist ways, or is it just that he doesn’t like that word because it lost him Lily? I think that if it’s there, you have to acknowledge its importance. But then, you have to acknowledge all the negative moments, too. I’ve done my share of trying to explain away Snape’s nastiness. But in the end, he is what he is. Good and bad. Ecce homo.
Dumbledore gets all excited about passing the sword to Harry. Interestingly, Dumbledore is worried that Voldemort might find out Snape is helping, not from Snape, but from reading Harry’s mind.
To me, this implies that a) Dumbledore probably didn’t mind the Snape/Harry feud and wanted to help it along, and b) when he told Harry that Voldemort had conveniently closed the mind connection, he knew that wouldn’t last, and c) when Dumbledore told Snape that he was worried about Snape spilling stuff to Voldemort, that probably wasn’t completely true, either.
And d) Dumbledore was manipulative as hell.
Anyway, Dumbledore tries to micromanage Snape, telling him that he must not be seen, and then that the Trio probably won’t take kindly to him after the George thing. Like they wouldn’t already be upset by the killing Dumbledore thing.
So, first Dumbledore tells Snape that he mustn’t be seen, or Voldemort will find out that he’s helping Harry, and then he warns Snape that the Trio will be mad at him for cutting George’s ear off. So, is he thinking Snape’s going to interact with the Trio or not? Let’s be charitable and say Dumbledore is flustered.
Snape tells Dumbledore that he has a plan and goes out the door. It isn’t exactly kicking him in the ass, but it’ll do.
And then Harry wakes up on the carpet of the office, having totally gotten over hating Snape.
Fan Service:
Snape was Dumbledore’s man.
Dumbledore treated Snape like crap.
Lily treated Snape like crap.
Fan Slappage:
James was an even worse jerk than we thought. And SWM took place after the Prank, which makes the whole thing worse than the most pro-Snape fanfic ever written.
Lily? Kind of a bitch.
We may have suspected that Dumbledore was a manipulative bastard, but he descends into even lower levels of assholism.
DVD Extras:
TITLE CARD:
The following events take place between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.
INT: Headmaster’s Office.
Harry pours a flask of memories into the Pensieve, takes a deep breath and plunges his face into the silvery liquid.
Cut to:
THE GREAT HALL
Hermione pulls away from hugging Ginny. She moves to Ron, who is standing a little ways away from the family.
HERMIONE
I’m so sorry, Ron.
RON
Did you see where Harry went to? He’s gone missing again.
HERMIONE
No… maybe he’s up in the dorms?
They hurry out and up the stairs.
Neville draws in a few students, including Ernie, Luna, Seamus, and Oliver.
NEVILLE
We have an hour. Red sparks for wounded. Blue for dead. Let’s go.
They all spin off towards the grounds. Ginny, drawing away from her family, wanders after them.
GINNY
Neville? Luna?
She passes by a Madam Pomfrey, who is bandaging Lavender Brown.
LAVENDER
(loudly) What do you mean, I might be a werewolf?!
EXT: HOGWARTS COURTYARD
Ginny wanders down into the dark grounds.
GINNY
What’s going on? Luna?
A dark shape steps behind her. She whirls around.
GINNY
Neville?
Fenrir Greyback, his face covered with blood, steps into the light from a castle window.
FENRIR
Not exactly.
Ginny gasps and turns to run, but he grabs her, clapping one hand on her mouth.
FENRIR
Now, now. Let’s not make a fuss, pretty girl. Come with me over where we won’t be bothered by no one.
He drags her off towards a distant grove of trees.
Cut to:
EXT: HOGSMEADE
Lucius hurries out of the Shrieking Shack to join Narcissa, who is pacing worriedly.
NARCISSA
Where have you been? He was asking about you.
LUCIUS
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
NARCISSA
Our son is still missing.
LUCIUS
Draco may have gone back to the castle.
NARCISSA
How do you—oh. Let’s go, then.
LUCIUS
Right—
Bellatrix appears.
BELLATRIX
Lucius! Narcissa! Come! We’re heading into the woods.
Lucius and Narcissa share a look, then follow her into the trees.
Cut to:
INT: GRYFFINDOR DORMS
Ron and Hermione push the door open. The five beds stand empty, the curtains blowing in the breeze of an open window.
RON
Not here.
He turns to go, but Hermione is blocking the door.
HERMIONE
Ron…
RON
What is it?
HERMIONE
What do you think will happen? What if Voldemort does attack again?
RON
We’ll fight.
HERMIONE
I don’t want to die—
RON
That’s not—
HERMIONE
I don’t want to die without… letting you know how much I love you.
Ron’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to the empty beds.
RON
Are you saying what I think—
She kisses him on the mouth. There’s a brief moment when he almost draws back—as if to rationalize things. Then he gives up and kisses her back. They tumble onto a bed.
The camera moves discretely to the window, picking out a pair of dark figures: One hulkingly large, the other small and struggling desperately, but being pulled toward a grove of dark trees.
Cut to:
FENRIR AND GINNY
She struggles desperately as he half-carries her to the darkness under the trees. As they move, he feels in her pockets, finally pulling out her wand.
FENRIR
Don’t need that now, do we?
He throws it off into the distance.
GINNY
Please. Let me go.
FENRIR
Now, now. It’ll be over soon. Such soft skin…
He throws her on the ground. As she lands, she rolls over to kick him—but he suddenly freezes with a strangled cry. He falls down, nearly landed on Ginny, who throws herself out of the way and looks up to see a WOMAN in a dark mask, holding a wand. The woman pulls off her mask, revealing a line of pustules, spelling out the word SNEAK across her face.
GINNY
Marietta Edgecombe? What are you doing here?
Marietta blinks uncertainly.
MARIETTA
I’m not sure. I was hoping you could tell me.
Cut to:
ANOTHER PART OF THE GROUNDS.
Neville kneels by Colin Creevey, who is covered with blood and delirious.
COLIN
I read about him in the papers, you see. They said he had been studying at Hogwarts. He was the first hero I ever knew.
Colin struggles a little to get up.
NEVILLE
Lie still. Help is coming.
Oliver Wood arrives, his eyes questioning Neville. Neville shakes his head slightly.
COLIN
I was in love with him.
NEVILLE
Still are, I imagine.
COLIN
Not for long.
He leans his head back and the light goes out of his eyes. Neville nods to Oliver, who bends down. Together, they lift the body.
Cut to:
A PATH IN THE FOREST
Lupin trudges down it, his shoulders hunched. Tonks runs after him.
TONKS
Remus! Wait for me!
LUPIN
Dora? I told you to stay with Teddy.
Tonks stops, her wand drooping.
TONKS
I came to be with you.
LUPIN
(shaking his head)
That’s over. It never should have been in the first place.
TONKS
Never should have been? Are you saying you never loved me?
LUPIN
Not the way you wanted me to.
TONKS
And Teddy? Was that a mistake, too? Was our son a mistake?
LUPIN
(running one hand through his hair)
I don’t know. It’s not fair, I know that. I told you to stay with him.
TONKS
But I couldn’t bear to live without you.
LUPIN
Now you’ll be dead without me. Can you bear that?
He turns and walks down the path.
Cut to:
HOGWARTS GROUNDS
Ginny and Marietta search through the grass.
GINNY
Found it.
She holds up her wand.
MARIETTA
I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I left school before my N.E.W.T.s. Everyone hated me and I could never tell why.
GINNY
I’m sure they—it probably wasn’t—it doesn’t matter now.
MARIETTA
It mattered to me. Mother wanted me to go into the Ministry, but you can’t without N.E.W.T.s. And, if you have a face like mine, you can’t even work in a shop.
GINNY
So, why did you come back?
MARIETTA
I felt something burning in my pocket.
She pulls a galleon out of her robes and lights the end of her wand. They both lean over the coin.
MARIETTA (cont’d)
See? There’s writing on it. It says, “Get to Hogwarts as soon as you can.”
GINNY
Oh. (quietly) I’m glad you did.
A bellow pierces the night. They both turn, Marietta’s wand illuminating their terrified faces.
Fenrir runs towards them. It’s hard to tell if he’s a man or a wolf, but he seems to be running on all fours.
Ginny screams and Marietta pushes her to the side as Fenrir leaps at them. He lands on Marietta, a knife flashing in his hand.
Ginny lands and rolls back on her feet. She points her wand at Fenrir.
GINNY
REDUCTO!
He flies into the air from the force of the spell, impaling himself on the sharpened stump of a tree branch. He struggles for a moment to free himself, but finally slumps down, dead.
Ginny, still holding her wand up defensively, sidles over to where Marietta is lying on the ground. She kneels down.
Marietta, holding her side, is bleeding from a deep wound.
GINNY
No, no. Marietta…
MARIETTA
Mother… Mother wanted me to go into the Ministry. She’s going to be angry.
GINNY
It’s all right. It’s okay. We’re going to get you inside…
MARIETTA
But I want to go home. I don’t want to fight anymore!
GINNY
I know. (her voice breaking) It’s going to be all right.
A rustle in the grass makes her turn her head. Her eyes search the darkness.
GINNY (cont’d)
Is anyone there? Please. Please help us.
The footsteps of an invisible person move away from her and towards the blackness of the forest.
GINNY (cont’d)
I can’t move her by myself. Please….
FADE TO BLACK
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Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-24 10:58 pm (UTC)It's interview canon. Ergo: it's totally optional as to whether one chooses to accept it. For that matter, given that the rest of the Horcruxes (apart from the Harrycrux) have no connection with Tom unless he intitiates one, *I* suspect that the Diary wasn't the first one at all.
We can probably all agree that he enchanted the diary, and created a memory storage device from it, at the age of 16. Because it functioned *exactly* like a Pensieve*, but was completely portable, without spilling any of the memories he put into it. So the revenant is being perfectly truthful that *he* was put into the book when Tom was 16. But I suspect that the memory was as unaware of who was looking in as any other Pensieve memory until the Diary was turned into a Horcrux. And we have no canon-established information as to when that took place.
But, frankly, the Diary revenant just plain knows too much about the later career of Lord Voldemort for the soul fragment that drives it to be that of the ignorant 16-year-old whose form it has taken. And as much as you try to fudge and say that Ginny filled him in on the interviening events, I don't think *Ginny* knows so much about the rise and operations of Lord Voldemort to have done it either.
What works for me is that he turned it into a Horcrux just before he gave it to Lucius Malfoy. Because at that point he had one of his Byzanytine plans in position to *use* it. Meaning that rather than being the 1st Horcrux, it is more like the 5th. And Harry was to be the last.
*Upon any closer examination Tom Riddle seems to have had an ongoing facination with the uses and abuses of memories. The diary/Pensieve was created shortly after his obliviation of and implantation of his own memories of the Riddle murder into his uncle Morfin Gaunt. He self-trained himself as one of the ww's foremost legilimens in order to get at other people's thoughts and memories. And, in an e-mail exchange with Swythyv recently, she suggested that, based upon his boast that they would tell anyone who asked that he did *nothing* to them, what he probably did to the two kids that went into the cave with him, and were never quite the same afterwards, was to botch an Obliviation (although he didn't yet know that there was an actual *spell* for that).
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-24 11:49 pm (UTC)Okay, thanks for the information. I myself don't count the interviews as canon, but as long as the sources are distinguished - 'book' canon, 'interview' canon - then everyone knows what ground they're on.
But, frankly, the Diary revenant just plain knows too much about the later career of Lord Voldemort for the soul fragment that drives it to be that of the ignorant 16-year-old whose form it has taken. And as much as you try to fudge and say that Ginny filled him in on the interviening events ...
I've never thought about it, but I can accept the Diary being what Rowling intended, with Tom Junior knowing everything up to when the diary was created with some updates from Ginny. I dimly recall the Tom's dialogue emphasising his uncertainty about what ultimately happened to his adult persona and so forth, and don't remember his divulging 'future' details of which Ginny would have reasonably had no knowledge. I'd have to go back to the book to double-check.
What works for me is that he turned it into a Horcrux just before he gave it to Lucius Malfoy.
Was Malfoy's slipping it to Ginny part of Riddle's plan? Or is the fanon - Lucius did it out of personal enmity for the Weasleys - correct?
He self-trained himself as one of the ww's foremost legilimens in order to get at other people's thoughts and memories.
And yet he left himself wide-open to Harry so his nemesis could be fed instant updates as to the dark lord's every movement via the Dark Lord Mental Broadcast Network. Thanks; your thoughts about Riddle's mental mastery reinforces even more my contempt for Rowling's plot contrivance!
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-25 01:40 am (UTC)Now, what would have made sense would have been for Tom not to have discovered the blunder until *after* Lucius had bunged himself into Azkaban (where Tom couldn't get at him) after the raid on the DoM, which would amply have explained why Tom seemed to have it in for the Malfoys as of the opening of HBP, setting Draco up with a do-or-die mission he had no expectation the kid would fulfill, and probably setting Bella to watch and report Narcissa's statements and actions.
Instead, we are expected to believe that Lucius was walking on eggs all of Year 5 after having been discovered to have royally screwed up one of his Master's plans. And we just do not really get that impression.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 01:10 am (UTC)Can you point me to where that is in the canon? I've done a bit of a text search (using words like 'diary' or 'terrible' on books 5 & 6) but came up dry.
Plus we have this contradictory accounting in HBP from Dumbledore:
"... The diary had been a Horcrux. But this raised as many questions as it answered. What intrigued and alarmed me most was that that diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard."
"I still don't understand," said Harry.
"Well, it worked as a Horcrux is supposed to work - in other words, the fragment of soul concealed inside it was kept safe and had undoubtedly played its part in preventing the death of its owner. But there could be no doubt that Riddle really wanted that diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Slytherin's monster would be unleashed again."
"Well, he didn't want his hard work to be wasted," said Harry. "He wanted people to know he was Slytherin's heir, because he couldn't take credit at the time."
"Quite correct," said Dumbledore, nodding. "But don't you see, Harry, that if he intended the diary to be passed to, or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being remarkably blase about that precious fragment of his soul concealed within it. The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Slughorn explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy it - as indeed happened: That particular fragment of soul is no more; you saw to that.
"The careless way in which Voldemort regarded this Horcrux seemed most ominous to me. It suggested that he must have made - or had been planning to make - more Horcruxes ..."
So, in fact, Dumbledore uses the 'fact' that Riddle *intended* for his diary to be used 'as a weapon' as a basis for his deduction that he had made more than the one.
M'eh. The entire horcrux thing is just horribly fuzzy in Rowling's text - and deliberately so, turn, so that her series could be saved. Otherwise the whole plot would have collapsed in a heap. If they'd had spells or instruments by which they could have properly determined or proven the number of horcruxes and their identities ... well, the whole big secret of Harry being a horcrux would have been discovered in five seconds. So she had to make horcrux detection a deliberately nebulous affair ... which really cast all of them in doubt. Until Book 7 and Rowling's deciding that she needed Voldemort - that acknowledged expert of Legilimency and Occlumency - to leak every last detail of what he was doing to his most bitter foe, Harry - there was no *proof* of anything horcrux related. There could have been seven, eight or seventy-seven horcruxes. They'd only guessed that Nagini could be one. And so forth.
It all made for a very unsatisfactory and wobbly premise; and the whole series was supposed to be founded on it! It's no wonder the last two books really do stand as a separate (and vastly inferior) sub-set of the series. That's when Rowling had to stop working on Harry's yearly episodic, standalone adventures, and instead focus on the overall story arc. Which we all found was terribly threadbare and so, so full of fail. :-(
Merry Christmas!
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 02:41 am (UTC)What you are looking for is:
>>‘Does Voldemort know when a Horcrux is destroyed, sir? Can he feel it?’ Harry asked, ignoring the portraits.
‘A very interesting question, Harry. I believe not. I believe that Voldemort is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of himself have been detached for so long, he does not feel as we do. Perhaps, at the point of death, he might be aware of his loss ... but he was not aware, for instance, that the diary had been destroyed until he forced the truth out of Lucius Malfoy. When Voldemort discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that his anger was terrible to behold.’
‘But I thought he meant Lucius Malfoy to smuggle it into Hogwarts?’
‘Yes he did, years ago, when he was sure he would be able to create more Horcruxes, but still Lucius was supposed to wait for Voldemort’s say-so, and he never received it, for Voldemort vanished shortly after giving him the diary. No doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but he was counting too much upon Lucius’s fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead. Of course, Lucius did not know what the diary really was. I understand that Voldemort had told him the diary would cause the Chamber of Secrets to reopen, because it was cleverly enchanted. Had Lucius known he held a portion of his master’s soul in his hands he would undoubtedly have treated it with more reverence – but instead he went ahead and carried out the old plan for his own ends: by planting the diary upon Arthur Weasley’s daughter, he hoped to discredit Arthur, have me thrown out of Hogwarts and get rid of a highly incriminating object in one stroke. Ah, poor Lucius ... what with Voldemort’s fury about the fact that he threw away the Horcrux for his own gain, and the fiasco at the Ministry last year, I would not be surprised if he is secretly glad to be safe in Azkaban at the moment.’
<<
Right there. Tom gave the Diary to Malfoy *shortly before* he disappeared, i.e., some time in '81. Although how Albus knows *that* isn't explained.
So Tom got the story of what happened to it out of Lucius at some point after his return in the summer of '95. Furthermore, he got the story put of Lucius at a time that Snape was around to witness it, for otherwise Albus would have had no way of knowing about it, unless he has another spy in Tom's ranks.
I still think it would have worked better if he had demanded that Snape retrieve the Diary from the Malfoys after Lucius was caught in the raid -- he hadn't entrusted it to *Narcissa*, after all, and Draco was just a kid. Finding out that Lucius had lost it *then* would have made ample reason for why he is suddenly trying to destroy the Malfoys, root and branch, whereas Bella, who also took part in that failed raid he is merely "not speaking" to.
But what we are now supposed to believe is that he wanted it back almost as soon as *he* got back -- which *ought* to imply that he wanted to deploy it in Year 5. (Which might have been an more interesting story.) And that he felt forced to spare Malfoy because at that point he *really needed* Malfoy's contacts and resources.
As you say: Meh.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 04:00 am (UTC)Heh. :-)
In contrast with all the canon lore you and oryx_leucoryx are citing I'm revealing my shortcomings in my own recall of the text. Thank you for the quote!
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 04:16 am (UTC)After all, what was the point of Dobby's warning at the Dursleys if the threat was to someone that Dobby hadn't even met, and certainly knew nothing about? That whole "terrible plot" needed to be targeted at *Harry* for any of that rigamarole to make any sense. What's more, Dobby needed to have been ordered to *watch* Harry, so that the book could be got to him at the best possible time. Otherwise how did he manage to lurk there without arousing his Masters' suspicions? Didn't one of the Malfoys *ever* notice that he wasn't at the Manor doing his work? Much better if Lucius had *ordered* him off to watch Potter in the first place.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 06:02 am (UTC)Well, wasn't Dobby concerned that Harry might be collateral damage? One of the students killed by the monster set free by Tom!Ginny?
Voldemort, pre-bouncing-AK, would never have thought that Harry would survive, and so wouldn't have left instructions to Lucius to target the Boy Who Would Live. So Lucius was left free to allow his more personal vendetta against the Weasleys take hold.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 06:07 am (UTC)So why wasn't Lucius concerned that Draco might become collateral damage? I don't think he was all that informed about what the outcome of releasing the diary might be.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 06:26 am (UTC)What I thought had happened for quite a while is that QuirrellMort had managed to get an owl out to Lucius at some point during Year 1, *telling* him to give the Diary to Potter. No such luck, however.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 02:52 am (UTC)That's what he claims to Harry. But he did not start seeking the other Horcrux(es) until Harry returned from the graveyard with the news that Voldemort made the claim that he had gone further than anyone else in search for immortality. So I think he was misleading a bit.
If they'd had spells or instruments by which they could have properly determined or proven the number of horcruxes and their identities ... well, the whole big secret of Harry being a horcrux would have been discovered in five seconds.
And indeed in OOTP we see Dumbledore using one of his silver instruments to find or verify that Nagini was a Horcrux ('in essence divided'). So I'm positive he knew early on about Harry's Horcrux status. But while he gave the trio the deluminator he did not give them said instrument, despite the fact that at least one Horcrux was an unknown object, so a Horcrux-identifier would have come in handy.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 04:08 am (UTC)So such gadgets - horcrux detectors - *did* exist in the Rowling universe! Or at least 'horcrux calculators', confirming suspicious, if not leading one to each and every horcrux. Yet Dumbledore deliberately left the Trio in the dark.
It really would be impossible for a fan, even the most enthusiastic pro-Jo advocate, to make sense of the series, wouldn't it? Other than saying "well, it all worked out in the end, so it must have been a good plot after all". :-) Back when Dumbledore died there was no hint that Voldemort would suddenly forget his occlumency and, indeed, start *pushing* everything he knew to Harry, just when he needed it. So how else was the Trio supposed to find them all?
I think the Hermione we know would have cast a 'accio Horcrux detectors' spell right after her 'accio horcrux books'. That would have been in character for her. But then she would have got them working, wondered why they kept screaming every time Harry got near them, and put two and two together ... and we had to keep the big secret for the very end.
So much better, I think, for the Trio to have been given that 'Horcrux-identifier' of yours, they find out Harry's a horcrux, and then the dram of DH would have been magnified heaps while Harry's best friends angst over how they might keep him alive ... it would have made fatalistic!Harry more believable in his march into the forest, too, I think.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 04:35 am (UTC)Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 06:18 am (UTC)While SS/HG is not my cup of tea, I've read one or two stories of that nature which have had me quite happily accepting that pairing for the purposes of the story. Particularly if Hermione's friendship with Harry (and, uh, Ron too) was still rock solid.
if there is a contradiction in canon then someone is lying
Well, the sad reality is that Rowling just wasn't able to write a good, consistent series and the contradiction just is. :-( But yes, I totally understand your enjoyment with these stories and agree that all of this theorising can be good fun.
It's just frustrating, occasionally - like for me here with you, forgetting some of the finer points of canon - when I find myself wanting to reach for one of the books and do some research and then suddenly snapping out of the fandom back into real life and recalling that we're all looking for meaning which Rowling just never wrote, nor even comprehended. That we're spending this time on a mediocre work which isn't really worthy of the attention.
I enjoy the theorising, even these days, but I tend to tackle it from another direction, just having fun in counting all the ways in which Rowling failed, and how she's attempted backflips in trying to wave them away in the interviews; that's how I'm getting my money's worth from the books. :-) It's easier than your goal of building a whole deeper level to the canon in order to make sense of the senseless, build something out of nothing. My hat's off to you.
Maybe these SS/HG stories to which you've referred me comprise the grand Unified Theory of HP, work which eliminates all the errors and explains everything!!! :-) I'll give them a gander, thanks for the referrals!
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 04:46 am (UTC)Of course, it being only a single night's play, the angsting over Harry's Horcrux status can only last about five seconds. But that's five seconds longer than it lasted in the books. :)
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 06:29 am (UTC)Found torrent ... will download! Thanks for the referral!
Oh, I should ask - any good?
I don't suppose that it ends up with Harry marrying Hermione by any chance?Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-28 03:04 am (UTC)Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-25 01:43 am (UTC)The diary had the following capabilities:
- It contained a bit of Tom's soul and served as his Horcrux.
- It contained his memories, at least of age 16.
- It could acquire new information from people who wrote into it.
- It could converse with such people with Tom's persona
- It could possess people who wrote into it and formed an attachment to it, forcing them to act on Tom's will (including being forced to speak Parseltongue and control the basilisk)
- It could use the life-force of such a possessed individual to create a physical representation of 16-year old Tom.
I take Tom's claim that he put his 16 year old *self* in the diary as an admission that it was Horcruxified at that time. Also the fact that the body that came out of the diary was of a schoolboy supports that the soul it contained was of teenage Tom.
It isn't clear to me how many of the diary's capabilities required magic separate from the placing of Tom's soul-bit within it. If one of the kids had worn the locket constantly would s/he have become possessed with Tom eventually? If given the right interface would any Horcrux be capable of communication? The locket certainly learned Ron's personality.
Since we do not know if separate enchantments were added to the diary we do not know if Tom originally made it simply as a Horcrux or if at any time he intended it for other purposes such as reopening the Chamber of Secrets or making himself another body. So option one is that the diary was an accident - he was trying to Horcruxify the ring, got his soul into the diary by accident and then had to go to Slughorn to ask about multiple Horcruces. Option two is that he made the diary after the ring as a new-improved Horcrux with extra functions.
When Dumbledore explained it to Harry he had to say the diary was intended as a disposable weapon because he needed to explain why he expected Voldemort to still be around and capable of returning despite the destruction of the Horcrux without revealing that he knew of the existence of Harrycrux. Which means it is possible Dumbledore was lying and the diary was not intended as a weapon but simply ended up as such because of Ginny's emotional dependence on it.
And regardless of whether Tom had intended the diary as a weapon or not, we do not know if Lucius knew it had those capabilities and was planning the Chamber of Secrets affair or was merely trying to incriminate Ginny with a cursed Muggle artifact to avoid being caught in a raid and to give Arthur trouble. Evidence against Dumbledore's version: The fact that Lucius did not withdraw Draco while a basilisk was roaming the castle and the fact that Lucius became paler than usual when Dumbledore told him the governors reinstated him upon hearing Ginny had died. Evidence supporting Dumbledore's version: Dobby's warning to Harry on his birthday that someone is plotting to make terrible things happen at Hogwarts, which have nothing to do with You-Know-Who (after the fact explained as a hint to Tom Riddle). Clear as mud?
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 01:41 am (UTC)Pretty much. :-) :-(
See, the sad thing is, at times like this, after reading an analysis like yours, my primary thought is something like this:
Isn't it so, so sad, that so many clever and intelligent people have spent so much time analysing the words of an author whose work simply doesn't merit such attention!?
I remember the man-millennia that was spent by the fans in the interstices between the publication of the books, pondering the 'clues' that Rowling had left us, *knowing* that there was a 'master plan' that would make sense of everything, given her promises of same in all those interviews ... only to discover that the final story was vastly inferior to anything we could have desired, that 'Jo' had lied, she just wasn't the brilliant author we'd all assumed/hoped she was.
It might be sloppy working-backwards thinking, but the many errors and flaws and failures of the series - all confirmed now, with the publication of book 7 - show that Rowling's text just isn't worthy of such studied scrutiny. She just wasn't as clever as we all hoped/thought.
The problem is our sources are diaryTom in COS ...
No, I think the problem is that you're trying to make sense out of the words of an author who simply didn't have the discipline or inclination or talent to write a uniform, logically consistent series. Rowling was making it up as she went along in several respects. I doubt she'd ever sat down and said to herself "right, the diary is a horcrux, I've got to set out the 'rules' of horcruxes' now, here at the beginning" back when she was penning CoS. Nuh uh. She just tossed in whatever took her fancy. The diary could suck souls and manifest a new corporeal body for the soul fragment. The Ring horcrux had its soul fragment destroyed even though the ring itself still functioned (belying Hermione's instructions that the soul container must be destroyed beyond 'magical repair'). The locket horcrux corrupted those who wore it, a' la' the One Ring of the Lord of the Rings ... but the bit of Riddle's soul in Harry never, ever corrupted him, even though he'd sustained it *inside himself* for 16 years. Nagini was a horcrux even though she was mortal and would eventually die, automatically destroying the soul fragment she held. Gah.
I do appreciate the detail and industry you've put into this particular question - you've said it's a topic you've researched before - but I admit, at times like this, I really do think you and your colleagues eclipse Rowling's own abilities and talent ... and certainly the content she write into her books. You're not going to come up with a grand theory that makes sense of this particular question because Rowling herself didn't care and/or didn't have the talent/discipline to put it there in the first place! It's just not there! And I can say that by pointing at all the other failures of the series (certainly the last book) and stating "any author who can bollux those things up that badly probably, almost certainly, didn't take the time to write just this one issue/theme any better!".
:-(
Merry Christmas!
Re: Part Two
Date: 2009-12-26 03:16 am (UTC)And I'm sure she never intended her readers to doubt Dumbledore's reasoning, we were supposed to accept all his explanations as he gave them - Lucius knew exactly what would happen if Ginny got the diary, he must have mentioned it within Dobby's hearing, and the diary worked the way it did because 16-year-old Riddle designed it that way. But after catching Dumbledore lying time and again, and knowing he had motivation (more than one, in fact) to lie to Harry in this conversation I don't trust him. Once the possibility arises that he was lying in part of the conversation, why not in other parts? So if there is an alternate scenario that is consistent with canon facts I don't have to accept Dumbledore's version. Somehow there is pleasure in being able to say 'it ain't necessarily so'.
One other curious bit: In this very conversation it appears that Voldemort believed he was no longer capable of making additional Horcruxes and Dumbledore was aware that this was what Voldemort believed. Yet it seems Severus didn't know about the Horcruxes? So how did Voldemort find out and how did Dumbledore know about this? Especially when nobody else ever made more than one Horcrux.