EDIT: This is Tharkun. Eo is not reponsible for this post.
bgryph wrote:
Tharkun wrote:
Do you honestly expect me to believe that Dumbledore would give up his life, which he knows to be instrumental to the cause, so that the Order can be protected by a man whom any of them would gladly kill on sight? It makes the denialism from my own wing of the fandom look restrained.
I don't think it's all that farfetched. For one thing, Dumbledore's behavior in the cave makes it clear that he regards himself as expendable.
In comparison to Harry, certainly.
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Certainly he's very important as the leader and organizer, but sometimes leaders can be even more effective as martyrs.
But not this time. Does the phrase "greater and more terrible than ever before" mean anything to you? He's the only one who stopped Voldemort, who struck fear into his heart, up till the prophecy, anyway. His strategy may have had holes, but it staved off Voldemort for eleven years, and I refuse to believe he could have made the gigantic misjudgment you assume he'd made.
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It seems inevitable that Voldemort is going to place a great deal of trust in Snape from this day forward. (One might almost think that was one of the points of the exercise -- to force Snape to do something that Voldemort thinks is irrefutable proof that Snape is loyal.) Assuming Snape wasn't an important man in the orgainzation before, he's likely to be one now -- both as a reward for having killed Voldemort's great opponent, and because, frankly, he seems more competent than the run-of-the-mill Death Eater.
I think that Dumbledore might possibly consider having a talented wizard and agent in a position of importance and trust in the Death Eaters more important than his own life. Yes, Dumbledore is more powerful than Snape, but all that power doesn't mean anything if you're not in the position to use it. Dumbledore wasn't in such a position; Snape is.
It will certainly be harder for Snape to get information to the Order now, but not impossible. He'd just have to be creative about the channels he went through (letting people who the Order does trust "discover" vital bits of information, for instance). He'd have to be very sneaky about it, but Snape clearly excells at sneaky. And he's certainly in a marvelous position to sabatoge the Death Eaters, if so inclined... probably better than he was before, since he's no longer under suspicion.
All right, point taken, if he
is Order-loyal. If not, well then, it's just the opposite, isn't it?
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Dumbledore never told Harry what happened to his hand, for example. A person walking around with a strangely withered limb that seems impossible to heal even by magic isn't exactly a well man. Not to mention the potion... it was pointedly mentioned in at least two places in the book that not all poisons have antidotes, and if Voldemort were going to protect his Horcrux with a deadly potion, you'd think he'd make it a good one, not something Snape was likely to have the antidote to laying around his office. If Dumbledore was already dying then certainly he'd prefer to do so in a fashion that wouldn't take Snape with him.
Fine, but I think it couldn't be plainer that Dumbledore didn't know he was going into a trap. Also, I doubt he knew what Draco's mission was, or he would have taken preventive measures
before he was forced into that position.
Now, that's not to say the theory doesn't hold water. Chapter Two shows that Snape is hesitant. However, as he doesn't know Draco's mission yet, and his only other traces of emotion involve Draco, he may simply be trying not to sympathize with Narcissa.
It could go either way, really, but consider this: Snape is very, very cagey about his knowledge. He's been teaching substandard Potions classes on purpose for years. The indignity of James Potter using one of his inventions is enough to overpower the Prank on the worst memory scale. Nonetheless, the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup knew Levicorpus.