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Reviews for Snape Dialogues

morgaine_dulac 2008.04.05 - 09:29AM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
"Only because I don't need to see your faces to remember." Wow, that was like a fist right into the solar plexus. Must have hurt hearing this. Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed it very much.

Author's Response: Personally, I'm not convinced Lupin's that easy to hurt. He's never valued Snape's good opinion (or his life, judging by PoA), so why would he care that Snape still suffers?

testingt 2008.01.01 - 02:28PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
I don't have to see your faces to remember...? It occurs to me James would have had a great future as an interrogator for Bush's military; at the age of 16, he'd independently invented two of the torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib. James was brilliant, in his way: using a common household spell like Scourgify to create a form of waterboarding, and using Levicorpus to strip and humiliate an enemy (James knew damn well that Snape was too poor to have trousers or decent underwear). Aside from that, I don't care if it's AU now, you did excellent work with minimal words.

Author's Response: Thanks. I loathe all the Marauders, even Lupin. The more we see of them the nastier they appear. James was pulling a "Naboth's vineyard" when he bullied Snape; the king of the schoolyard destroying the loser to steal his one precious possession. (Except that Lily wasn't precious, was she, except in his eyes? She's a poor friend.)

Cuccussette 2007.08.30 - 06:17PM 1: Snape Dialogues Anonymous
Hi, I'm Italian webmaster . I keep a web made on blogs. I have translated your fic and I'm asking permission to add it to the Colection. May I please? I'd like to send you the text in Italian, and you can always use it. thank you

Author's Response: Just received your Italian text in my inbox. It's always fun to be translated :)) Yes, go ahead and archive it, thanks for asking.

Sumire 2007.08.05 - 12:53PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
This is very good, and very Snape-like.I like it a lot:)

Author's Response: Thanks. It was a very early work, my first posted story, in fact (sometime in 2004 at ffnet).

MithLuin 2006.03.06 - 11:01PM 1: Snape Dialogues Anonymous
For all Albus' manipulations, I have trouble seeing him as a puppet-master or chess-player. He seems fairly willing to take the brunt of the risk himself - as a Gryffindor. Of course, he also allows others to take risks, but does he _demand_ it of them? Voldemort ordered Severus to turn spy - I have to imagine that Dumbledore *offered* him that position. That being said, the Lucius dialogue is brilliant: "Do tell Him that." I imagine the Death Eaters refer to the Dark Lord with Capital pronouns ;). And I also think that Lucius is fairly disillusioned in his old age.... Hermione's was really funny!

Author's Response: I'm not so sure Albus is a Gryffindor, despite his favoritism (which might stem from personal rather than house considerations). He could be a Ravenclaw; one of his biggest failings is his wait-and-see attitude, which prevents him from acting or sharing information till it's too late. Or he could even be a disaffected Slytherin, punishing his own house for the sickness stemming from one bad apple. Until OotP, we never saw Dumbledore take a risk to himself. There he takes the fall for the DA, in full knowledge that he can escape the ministry and perhaps act more freely outside the confines of Hogwarts, and he also duels Voldemort. Yet he interposes Snape for Harry's Occlumency lessons and you have to wonder what Voldemort thought of his py's behaviour as he watched through Harry's eyes (for example, Snape's frequent admonitions NOT to invite the dream that Voldemort kept sending). It's quite clearfrom Dumbledore's own admission that the risks he takes are all for love of Harry and that he'll subordinate everyone else's interests to Harry's. So I stand by my interpretation, despite HBP canon-shafting some of the details.

winna 2005.09.21 - 12:07PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
I liked the Sixth Year drabble the best, when Snape points out Sirius never faced him one on one. In fact, for a group of brave, noble Gryffindors, it seems odd that the Marauders always ganged up on the lone Slytherin boy. Makes you wonder what JKR was thinking.

Author's Response: The only time we know of that Sirius and Snape faced each other one on one was in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place after Snape announced the Occlumency lessons. (Yet, was it really? Both Snape and Sirius may have expected Harry, as in PoA, to join in on Sirius's side.) It does seem to me that Sirius wouldn't have used werewolf-Lupin against Snape if he could have beaten him in a fair fight. The Marauders were bullies, simple as that.

Trickie Woo 2005.09.20 - 09:16PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
The best one is the very last, finally he can be his own man. I think you see Dumbledore exactly as I do, the puppetmaster. I like the one from 6th Year too, I think severus would have been the best man. The one from 2nd Year between Snape and Lucius takes third place for me, I'd love to see what happend to Lucius if Volemort found that out.

Author's Response: Voldemort may not have found out Lucius's words but we know from HBP that he was furious when he found out that Lucius had wasted his avatar like that. That's partly why he co-opted Draco to a no-win task as punishment. Dumbledore is a puppet-master, definitely, though his aim is not world-domination but world-saving. That doesn't make it any easier on his human weapons, eg Harry and Snape, whom he uses with little regard for their well-being, whether or not he feels affection for them. The only time we ever see Sirius and Snape one on one is in Grimmauld Place after Snape has announced the Occlumency lessons. It never comes to a fight but Snape seemed much more alert and in control. The original Shrieking Shack incident suggests to me that Snape is the superior fighter. Why would Sirius involve Lupin if he was able to defeat him one on one?

Verity Brown 2005.09.20 - 11:44AM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
Wow. "Only because I don't need to see your faces to remember." That line just stabbed to the heart. It's amazing what 55 words can accomplish in the right hands. Well done!

Author's Response: I think you're the first reader ever to comment on that line, which for me was second in importance only to the Albus section. Thanks. The complicity and lack of outrage from the witnesses in the pensieve scene made me suspect that it was no unusual occurrnce. Victims of prolonged and heavy bullying, especially in the presence of complicit witnesses, may be scarred for life. I've read that torture victims have identified humiliation as the worst form of torture.

whitehound 2005.09.19 - 10:59PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
Yo - but he claims to love Harry, and look at the way he treats *him*! Being insensitive, bossy, riding roughshod over people's feelings etc. seems to be pretty standard for Dumbledore, so I don't think it's any measure of his affection, or lack of it. And I still think getting Snape to manage the Wolfsbane was about the only sensible and psychologically sensitive thing Dumbledore has done, because it gave Snape back power over something that had terrified him.

Author's Response: Snape probably wanted to manage the Wolfsbane because that made him feel safer. However a better choice would have been to have Remus off the premises entirely during a full moon. The safety of the students really should be a paramount concern. When AD got a bit shirty with Harry in HBP on the subject of his concern for student safety I had a rather sarcastic giggle... Dumbledore's decisions are mostly governed by the course and strategy of the war. I used to find his twinkle endearing but now I find it a sign of his detachment from real human interaction.

whitehound 2005.09.19 - 07:28PM 1: Snape Dialogues Signed
I didn't get the impression Dumbledore knew what hat was in the cracker (though I suppose he might have done) - it seemed to be coincidence that Snape got something rather upsetting out of it, which I agree was very nasty on fate's part - if it was fate. The poor lad couldn't even get to enjoy Christmas dinner without being made to feel sick and humiliated. I was thinking of the way Snape pushes the offending hat across the table with his fingertips, rather than passing it over or just ignoring it - that sort of "Well, go on then, *you* have the damned thing" gesture - which implies considerable familiarity between them, and I was thinking of it as Snape being slightly teasing towards Dumbledore, not vice versa (we know he's a terrible tease because McGonagall is always complaining that he's been winding her up about house-points).

Of course, if Dumbledore was responsible for the vulture hat being in the cracker in the first place that's seriously unkind - unforgiveable, even - but I didn't see any evidence there that he *was* responsible.

I think Dumbledore is genuinely *fond* of Snape - that doesn't mean I think he's sensible. He certainly should never have left the management of an inexperienced teenage werewolf in the hands of a psychopath, a giggling sycophant and a brainless Quidditch jock, and he should have considered adult Lupin's psychological position vis-a-vis Sirius - although he doesn't know how deep the dog thing goes, of course, because he doesn't know at that point that Sirius is also more canine than human. It's possible, of course, he already had a suspicion Sirius was innocent (ish), since we've seen some evidence that he is clairvoyant (e.g. his self in the past at Hagrid's cottage looks at the time-turned trio as if he knows they are there, although within his subjective timeline he hasn't sent them back yet), and was willing to take the risk of Lupin collaborating for that reason - but in that case, of course, he *really* ought to have filled Snape in on his suspicions, instead of keeping everything to himself again.

[It's possible that he doesn't tell Snape things because of the risk of him being captured. And Lupin, of course, *has* to be subservient to Sirius and James, because their ability to control him when he's in were form depends on him being the lowest-ranking member of the pack - again, something Dumbledore should have figured out, but wizards don't seem to have much familiarity with dogs.]

I agree btw that when they were all boys young Severus definitely *wasn't* the favoured son - Dumbledore was far, far too prone to house-prejudice, and he wanted to see James as a hero for saving Severus from Lupin, and ignored the years of concentrated cruelty which had led up to his needing to be saved. It's not surprizing that Snape himself is awkward and antisocial, since his own parents seem to have been a disaster and his substitute-father is obviously *not* a good person from whom to learn "people skills." But I do think that setting Snape to manage Lupin's lycanthropy was actually a rare example of sound psychology on Dumbledore's part - since it gave Snape control over the thing he feared.

And yes, of course Lupin was being horrendously irresponsible - but one of the recurring themes of the books is maturity, and the lack of it. Snape can be pretty childish himself - insulting the kids as if he was a kid himself, and then pulling rank if they answer back, and setting all those ridiculous, puerile detention tasks - but he's maturity itself compared to Sirius. And Lupin, here, is acting exactly like Harry (and therefore like a fourteen-year-old) - since Harry also knows about the secret passages and the map, if not about the animagi, and tends to keep vital information to himself even in the midst of a war. In fact Snape seems to be almost the only one who ever bothers to keep anybody else informed - in his own distinctive, surly way. And another recurring theme is people (other than Snape) not taking responsibility for their own actions - so *of course* Lupin would far rather call Snape's anger a mere schoolboy grudge than tell Harry "We put an already abused and traumatized child through seven years of living hell, including at least one serious attempted murder, drove him into the arms of the Death Eaters because he was so desperate for some sort of backup, and thereby wrecked his entire life." :¬(

Author's Response: LOL We've written hundreds more words in the reviews and responses each than went into the story. You could be right that Dumbledore didn't know what was in the cracker and his twinkle was only habitual. I don't think he's "fond" of Snape in PoA, not the way he is of Harry. Every time Snape tries to say anything he cuts him off and the way he responds to Snape's anger when Sirius is gone is quite disrespectful in my book. He trusts him and he pities him but he doesn't love or understand him. Dumbledore expected Lupin to be alone as a teen werewolf, not to be "managed" by his friends. Unless he's lying, he didn't even know they were getting together on full moon nights until the end of PoA. Furthermore, none of that excuses his inherently flawed decision to appoint Lupin in the very year his friend escapes (a friend that D knows he's always been subservient to) nor to allow him to stay on the prtemises during a full moon (after the teenage incident should have warned him of the danger) nor to make Snape responsible for his Wolfsbane-ingestion. I agree that Snape can be very immature. He's still fighting his childhood battles, without noticing that now he's the one with the power and authority.


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