The Spoily Harry Potter Thread

[Nan]

I imagine it's something of a red herring. The Evanses would be Petunia's side of the family. They would warrant more of a mention if it was important, and JKR is fond of misdirection. She usually drops subtler hints than that anyway.

As for Snape, he actively protected Harry from Voldemort and/or his minions on at least three explicit occasions: the Quidditch match at which Quirrell/Voldemort tried to jinx him off his broom to his death; the subsequent match where he reffed; and the confrontation with Sirius Black--granted Sirus wasn't evil, but everyone thought he was.

Other "Light Side" acts include outing himself as a Death Eater to Fudge in #4, heading off Quirrell/Voldemort in #1 (and getting mauled by Fluffy), attempting to teach Harry to protect his mind with Occlumency, etc.

Indeed, his favouring of Malfoy and antipathy toward Harry makes a good cover. Malfoy would likely pass it on to his parents if Snape openly showed any kind of good will toward Harry.

Snape is a bit of a question. His occlumency protects him from both Dumbledore's and Voldemort's legilimency, therefore he can lie to or deceive by omission both. He shares resentment for muggle family or treatment with Voldemort and Harry. He bullies Neville, although his motivations aren't entirely clear--he may believe he's doing good, trying to help Neville grow a backbone, or he may pick on him because Neville won't call him on it. He is callous to pain students suffer in the course of rivalry (think Hermione's teeth), but won't leave them to severe injury (bearing the group to the hospital wing on stretchers in #3, and protecting Harry from the broom jinx in #1). He lacks manners and empathy, and has a distinct inferiority complex.

Few of his aggressive acts against Harry can't be explained by the "cover"--or not--of fascist sympathizer. The outburst in Phoenix when Harry looked into his penseive relates more to his own issues of humiliation and resentment toward Harry's father, his "outing" as a brilliant-but-unstable freak as a youth.

If he's really a double agent for the good guys, it likely stems from the rational realization that Voldemort's society would be a paranoid, violent dictatorship in which he would likely be a second class citizen due to his own parentage, and also at risk of the same secret police and loyalty trials that most all other fascist societies develop.

Going by the example of many in fascist and communist societies, it's likely that as an angry, disaffected youth he fell in with the "screw the establishment" crowd, seeing current "integrated" societies as being weak, biased toward muggles, decadent, etc etc. Eventually, he would come to the realization that under the rule of a sociopath with no qualms about torture and murder was no better a place to live.

Just my theory, anyhow.