Muggle Breath (spoiler alert!)

I've been avidly reading the posts speculating on Snape's actions at the end of the Half Blood Prince. Snape (and surprisingly, Draco Malfoy!) has certainly turned out to be the most interesting of the characters in the Harry Potter lineup. Here are two of my favorite essays thus far: Corporate Mofo's snipey rendition of the overall series, and Tracie Rubeck's "Snape is Evil." I especially like the Rubeck article for its poignant explication of the logic behind the morality and values of the books:

Dumbledore mentions that to commit murder is to destroy one's own soul. We have ample evidence within canon that this is a basic, if not the basic, understanding of the difference between which choices are "good" and which are "evil." Those who are evil disregard this cost. For example, another testament of Harry's ability to love is that he is as frightened by the prospect of committing murder as he is by the prospect of his own death.

Rubeck's logic and fine literary analysis are impeccable. Even so, I'm not sure I agree with her ultimate conclusion--that Snape must be evil, because murder, according to Rowling, splits the soul irrevocably. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong, and that Rowling does finally insist that there are no exceptions to the murder rule, but somehow I think that Corporate Mofo's ace-in-the-cap is probably the better predictor of what will happen in the next book:

In every previous Harry Potter book, there’s been an elaborate plot, and things were never the way Harry and his friends thought they were: Snape wasn’t trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone; Hagrid didn’t open the Chamber of Secrets; Sirius Black wasn’t evil; Mad-Eye Moony didn't rape sheep, etc. The attentive reader always found out that Rowling had dropped clues throughout the book that only made sense in retrospect—Herminone’s cat trying to get Scabbers the Rat, for instance. Yet, in Half-Blood Prince, the nefarious plot was EXACTLY what it seemed. Instead of the plot being revealed in the course of one book (it was getting pretty repetitive...), Rowling threw us a for a loop by stretching it to two books.

Or was it? Dumbledore knew of Malfoy’s plan, and therefore Snape’s oath to help him—after all, he (inexplicably to us at least), completely trusted Snape. Dumbledore, doubtlessly, had something up his sleeve—something that involved his own death as part of the plan. His pleading on the roof was not asking Snape not to kill him, but rather to not break his Unbreakable Vow and follow through with the plan; why else would he paralyze Harry in order to keep him from interfering? He knew what was going to happen.

Okay! So here, for what it's worth, is my own assessment of Snape's inner demons, as well as my prediction of what will happen in the final book:

Yes, Snape is self-motivated, consumed with old resentments, and ultimately driven by his extreme envy to destroy those who outshine him in any way. This would include destroying even Dumbledore, the single man who trusted Snape despite all the evidence against him. And why DOES Dumbledore trust Snape? I think Dumbledore realized that the only way Snape might be saved from himself would be for someone to love, trust, and believe in him. Dumbledore is, of course, the only wizard to make this huge leap of faith, but he does it, knowing the risks, because that belief in the inner goodness of all people is the only thing that can prevail against Voldemort. And so Dumbledore dies.

However, it is precisely this trust and belief that will finally transform Snape in Book Seven, stretching even beyond Dumbledore's grave to effect Snape's redemption. I believe that Snape's actions at the end of the Half Blood Prince were indeed motivated by his own overwhelmingly dark preoccupations. But I predict that Snape will, at the very end of the series, do an about-face. Inosofar as Snape is the only one powerful enough to counter Voldemort, he simply has to be involved in Voldemort's vanquishing. It can't be Harry alone (Harry, let's face it, just basically dropped out of high school. Where's he going to get the know-how?). In order to sustain the murder-is-bad theme, it should really be Snape who finally does in Voldemort, but of course plot demands will probably mean that Harry is the one who gets to do it. (I hope he doesn't...it would be so much more satisfying to have our expectations foiled there.) Either way, though, Snape is inextricably involved.