by Suzanne Wesley

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: May 10, 2007

One of the beautiful things about the character of Severus Snape is that we don't know whether to trust him or not. Personally, I like to think that perhaps he is a double-agent but I have my hopes that Dumbledore saw something about Snape that we did not and felt he could trust the good side of Snape to win out in the end. After all, we've only seen Snape through the eyes of Harry in each book. We don't know the story of why Dumbledore trusted Snape with such conviction.

What we don't know about Snape is one of the things that keeps us reading. I don't really feel that Snape had a choice in the death of Dumbledore. If he did not kill him he was 'unmasked' and no longer useful to the Order of the Pheonix if Voldemort knew of it. As long as Voldemort believes him to be a Death Eater he can pass useful information to the Order of the Phoenix - though this will be harder now that Dumbledore is gone. Just how hard we will see in the last book I am sure.

We all know how good Snape is at blocking his mind - after all Dumbledore assigned him to teach Harry that art for that very reason....However, did it not seem to anyone else that Dumbledore himself seemed to be very good at that as well? He always seemed to know when someone wasn't quite telling him everything... For example, in the Chamber of Secrets he asks both Harry and Tom Riddle if there is something else they wish to tell him about (and we all know that they both were hiding things - Harry was hiding that he heard voices and Tom was hiding that he was the heir of Slytherin)?

I look forward to the next book and hope that it will reveal just why Dumbledore trusted Snape so implicitly! I for one, will be very disappointed if it turns out that Dumbledore was really duped by someone on the side of Voldemort!

We'll know the truth in July. !

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