Snapedom

There was something that amazed everyone, a skill unprecedented that caused even Voldemort's enemies to exclaim in admiration. He was a brilliant wizard - the most advanced in decades. He really had power, and advanced magic. He had won awards at school, feared none but Dumbledore. His accomplishments were extraordinary. None of these elicits comment from his enemies, save one. Voldemort could fly.

There is no mention of anyone else flying unaided in the books. This was something remarkable, something he must have developed on his own. He was not a generous man; not one to instruct, to teach, to give; not one to take on protégés, to mentor or aid his followers or recruits. There is no mention of phalanxes of Deatheaters pursuing anyone freely through the air. Yet Voldemort taught Snape to fly.

There are other indications of the esteem in which he was held. Snape speaks of Draco's jealousy that he has replaced his father in the hierarchy surrounding the Dark Lord. At the dinner, over which Charity Burbage is suspended, he is seated at Voldemort's right hand, the place of greatest honour, while Lucius and many others are already seated, including Bellatrix. He is granted Head Mastery of Hogwarts. The only time Voldemort expresses regret for his own actions, rather than raging at the failings of his band of Deatheaters, is when he kills Severus. "You have been a good and faithful servant and I regret what must happen."

All these take place in the seventh book when Voldemort is lashing out at everyone else, no matter how close or loyal.

Among other things, Voldemort was a more than accomplished legilimens. He does not need to speak, let alone use his wand to intrude upon other's thoughts, as with Thorfinn Rowle. Snape used both with Harry. Snape is a brilliant occlumens. Can he be thought to stand up to Voldemort?

I write Severus as being loyal to both Voldemort and Dumbledore, separately and sincerely. I have enjoyed writing about Severs teaching occlumency. The technique is that he masks his emotions and thoughts by presenting others which he genuinely feels, amplifying them, letting these represent genuine weakness, shame, fear, as well as admiration, hunger, desire. All of these can be used to be credible, to mask secrets. Voldemort was not stupid. A mask of nothing, of blankness, would make him suspect one had something to hide. I do not think he would leave that to lie. Similarly, a mask of blind simplistic loyalty would have the same result. He was not a fool. Thus, a complex mask of truth would serve best, would produce a uniquely Slytherin chess game of anticipation of directions of obfuscation, of revelation and counter-revelation. It would be born of ambition and cunning, a vying for supremacy by duplicity and, astonishingly, sincerity.

Voldemorts trust Severus. He grants him honour, tutelage, position, freedom to work, freedom, often, from battle. He is not rejected, but he is neither present at the Battle in the Ministry nor the Battle of Hogwarts. Simply assuming an attitude of shielding and of slavish loyalty is far too much simplicity to expect from complex men either like Snape or Voldemort.

My conclusion is that he was sincere in motivation, working for what seems to have been the only family he had ever known. The only time he is spoken of as having friendship, communion of any kind, was with his fellow Slytherin at school, and no doubt immediately afterward. The Order contained no friends of Severus. No matter what we wish to believe of his mother, he is described as 'neglected.' He believed Dumbledore, and thus the school, had virtually thrown him away over the Shrieking Shack incident. Is it not reasonable that some part of him, some torn part, would maintain loyalty for his childhood friends, for those who had welcomed him, wanted him, for those who had offered him a chance to become great, to fulfil his potential as a genius and wizard, who allowed him to be useful, who gave him a place in the world, pride in himself? Some part of him? How must he have felt at the death of Evan Rossier, about those who had perhaps done no less than him in Azkaban seemingly tortured forever, losing their souls? Wouldn't he have wondered and worried about Regulus, so many dead? Wouldn't some small part of him have wanted to work for, work with those left, even in memoriam?

I believe there was such a part of him, convoluted by his perhaps equal desire to serve Dumbledore, to save his soul, for which he surely expresses concern. I see him as a true double-agent. Voldemort would have known this, used this. Dumbledore would have known this, used this. Both trusted him first and uniquely, adn I do not believe either was deluded. It is not a case of betrayal, of either side. It is a case of deep and conflicting loyalties. Whatever Rowling has written, I just cannot buy Lily as motivation. I can understand her as a representation of a childhood friendship, which would have meant everything to a lonely boy, magnified to fantasy and stalker-creepiness. I can understand sorrow for her loss, but not major adult motivation. His motivation was loyalty, to Dumbledore yes, but to Voldemort and his fellow Deatheaters as well. Deatheaters, after all, not terrorists. The lure and shine of a glorious triumph over mortality, of Death himself. Would they not once have speculated and planned with excitement?

Severus had nothing. Perhaps he would have followed anyone who offered... anything. He had nothing to lose, nothing to gain. Anything, perhaps, to allow him to live without that terrible emptiness devoid of chance or hope, without being cast aside. And there was Voldemort. There were the Deatheaters. Friends. If not purpose, something. Anything is better than nothing. Imagine how Snape's life, how the war, everything, would have been different if, after crawling down the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack, there had been not a cruel deadly trick and a werewolf but a welcome and an Order meeting, glad of a brilliant student, offering him a position, even then, as a spy?

But that did not happen. Voldemort took Snape under his almost literal wings, branded his arm, taught him, used him, valued him. Snape was, in my world, Voldemort's man as surely as he was Dumbledore's. Janus, I named him - the embodiment of contradictions, he who held good and evil, light and darkness, past and future, all simultaneously within himself. With sincerity.