Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower: A Defense of Snape

It's simplistic to think of a character as complex as Snape as "friend" or "foe," as the Border's Books quiz asks readers to do. What matters with regard to the death of Dumbledore is where Snape's loyalties lie, and evidence ranging from Snape's saving Harry's life in Philosopher's Stone to his image in the fake Moody's Foe Glass in Goblet of Fire and his sending the Order to the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix strongly suggests that he's Dumbledore's man through and through. Nor is "Snape killed Dumbledore; therefore, he's evil" the clinch-all argument that those readers who neglect to look below the surface think it is.

For one thing, it's not even certain that the spell Snape cast on the Astronomy Tower was an Avada Kedavra. Other spells, such as the one that injured Tonks in the Department of Mysteries, send out jets of green light like the one the narrator describes coming from Snape's wand in "The Lightning-Struck Tower." Avada Kedavra, in contrast, is described three times in Goblet of Fire, always accompanied with a blinding flash of green light and twice with a rushing sound, neither of which is described in relation to Snape's spell. (The "blast" of green light when Cedric Diggory is killed is so bright that Harry can see it through closed eyelids.) All the Avada Kedavra victims we've seen (notably Cedric and the three Riddles) have died with their eyes open and a surprised or terrified expression. Dumbledore dies with his eyes closed, as if he had time to come to terms with his death, and his "wise old face" looks as if he's asleep, very much like the "peacefully sleeping" portrait in a later chapter. However he died, Dumbledore was neither surprised nor afraid. Snape is quite capable, as we know, of casting nonverbal spells. If anyone could cast a nonverbal spell disguised as an Avada Kedavra, he could.

And there's that exchanged glance between two men we know to be Legilimens (Legilimentes?). The "lumpy" Death Eater, Amycus (Carrow?),  tells Snape that "the boy [Draco] can't do it," meaning that the third provision of the Unbreakable Vow is now in effect. Snape has to "do the deed" or die. At the same time, Dumbledore, who surely knows the terrible choice that Snape is facing, speaks his name softly. They exchange glances, and only then does Snape's expression change to one reflecting emotions remarkably like the repulsion and self-hatred that Harry felt when he force-fed poison to Dumbledore in the cave. Can Snape's look of hatred reflect self-hatred or, perhaps, fury at Dumbledore for making him keep his promise, foreshadowed by the argument in the forest? Can the revulsion be revulsion at the deed he has to do?

Even at this point, Snape doesn't raise his wand. Only when Dumbledore says "Severus, please" (obviously not a cowardly plea to spare his life, whatever it may mean) does Snape lift his wand and speak the words "Avada Kedavra"--not "screaming them into the night" like Wormtail murdering Cedric in the graveyard--simply speaking them. And yet, instead of falling backward with his eyes open, like Cedric and Frank Bryce and (apparently) the Riddles (even the spider simply falls onto its back with its legs in the air), Dumbledore rises into the air and floats "like a rag doll" over the battlements. What kind of Avada Kedavra is this? Is it an Avada Kedavra disguised as something else to allow Dumbledore to die peacefully from the poison as he floats to the ground? Or is it an Avada Kedavra combined with another spell to send him over the battlements and perhaps slow his fall? (He lands oddly sprawled, but there's no indication of broken bones.)

Sending Dumbledore over the battlements, surely a deliberate choice on Snape's part, prevents the horrible Fenrir Greyback from having Dumbledore for "afters" and allows Snape to get the Death Eaters and Draco (whom he grabs by the scruff of the neck like a kitten) off the tower and on their way out of Hogwarts. It also prevents Harry, whom Snape surely knows is hiding under the Invisibility Cloak (even Draco saw the two brooms but is not as good as Snape as "putting two and two together"), from rushing out to fight the Death Eaters. By the time that Harry is released from the freezing spell (another hint that Dumbledore didn't die instantly?), the Death Eaters are running down the stairs under Snape's orders. Harry hits one in the back with a Petrificus Totalus, but if he'd fought them in the confined space of the tower, four on one (six on one, in his view), he'd surely have been killed.

There is no saving Dumbledore, who would have been killed by the Death Eaters if Snape or the poison (or Draco under coercion) hadn't killed him. Snape has no time to figure out what's wrong with Dumbledore and rush out for the proper antidote, even if it were already prepared. (No Bezoar would work against such Dark magic, and some poisons have no antidote.) And with the Death Eaters there, Snape can't  even attempt to save his life. If he does, the Death Eaters or the Unbreakable Vow will kill him. He has to conceal his loyalties (surely what Dumbledore wants him to do so that he can keep his cover and subvert Voldemort from within the ranks of the Death Eaters) or die. And if Snape dies, the boys will die, too, or be captured and turned over to Voldemort to be tortured and killed, one for failing to kill Dumbledore as ordered, the other for being the Prophecy Boy.

Unable to save Dumbledore on the tower despite his newly revealed skills as a Healer (he's saved Dumbledore from the ring Horcrux, Katie Bell from the cursed necklace, and Draco from Sectumsempra), Snape can only choose to die from breaking the vow, accomplishing nothing and leaving the boys to the nonexistent mercies of the Death Eaters, or kill Dumbledore himself. Snape and only Snape can get Harry safely off the tower and the Death Eaters and Draco off the Hogwarts grounds. If Dumbledore dies in any other way, Fenrir Greyback will ravage Dumbledore's body and mayhem will ensue (as the bloodred rubies of the shattered Gryffindor hourglass and Hagrid's burning house suggest).

Snape's first concern is for Draco, whom he gets safely to the gates. Snape shouts, "Run, Draco!"  and then turns to contend with Harry, who has followed him. If Snape were evil, he would either have killed Harry on the spot or Stunned him and taken him as a captive to the Dark Lord without wasting time talking. Instead, he saves him from a Crucio and easily deflects all his spells, having ordered the three Death Eaters who have not been killed or Petrified off the grounds, and delivers some last, typically sarcastic advice, coupled with reasons that make him sound like a loyal Death Eater but which probably are not his real reasons: "No Unforgiveable Curses from you!" (sound advice, considering that Harry has to defeat Voldemort through the power Voldemort knows not: Love) and "Again and again and again until you learn to keep your mind closed and your mouth shut!" In other words, "If you're going to duel a Death Eater as skilled as I am, you'd better learn Occlumency and nonverbal spells." And he's right.

Draco to the contrary, Dumbledore is not a "stupid old man." Nor has a wizard as old and wise as Dumbledore, one who saw through Tom Riddle from age eleven, been fooled all these years by Severus Snape, whom he knows much better than Harry does. I confidently predict that his complete trust in Snape will prove to be fully justified in Deathly Hallows.