why did snape return to the good side

[Scellanis]

i didnt say people couldnt change.....i just pointed out that revenge and pain gives them a motive to turn to the dark arts, its up to the person what path they choose but what happens to them in early life is bound to have a strong influence.....

[Neo]

that's exactyly whta I tried to say Sonk.

And yeah I partially afree with Mist, it is not either good as DD or evil as Voldemort, each person is different, and can value different things, and act in differen ways.

[Holly Golightly]

Well, Sanpe should have known basic things (and Harry didn't) becausthe of living with wizards

Hrmm, Sirius said in the book "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year"... I dont' know, but that makes me think that someone was defintaely teaching him this stuff! I mean, Ron knew nothing akin to what Snape aparently did... Snape definately had a hunger to learn it, and I would assume that it would have come from something like idolisation of his parents and thus wanting to follow in their footsteps. I just can't see that some kind of horrible thing happening to Snape really early on in his life would have caused him to know all those curses/hexes?

The way Hermione always tries to be the best is, at least in my opinion, a kind of compensation for her muggle heritage

I agree with this, but I also think that it's kind of just the type of person that she is... she needs to excell and prove herself. I don't think that she would be able to handle sitting back and just being mediocre. As in, if she wasn't a witch, but just a muggle, she would still have studied her butt off at normal school, just to be the best....

she can be really consumed by an idea she has...

The Rita Skeeter incident comes to mind!!!

[Neo]

Snape must have suffered in his eary life; I mean for what other reason he would have learned the dark arts before even entering school?

And Hermione surely wants to be the best, but she doesn't harm anyone, does she?

[Holly Golightly]

[quote="Neo"]Snape must have suffered in his eary life; I mean for what other reason he would have learned the dark arts before even entering school?quote]

I dont' understand...

Why couldn't his parents simply have taught him becuase they were nasty people too???

[Mistress Siana]

That means, his parents or whoever raised him are most likely either dead or Death Eaters as well

[Holly Golightly]

Well, I think that they were either DE's, *if the DE's were around then* or just wizards turned bad!

After all, Voldie didn't start the whole wizards turning bad did he... I'd say he just organised it alot! There had to be baddies before he was around??? no?

[Mistress Siana]

Why couldn't his parents simply have taught him becuase they were nasty people too???

I just think it would be an explanation way too simply...I expect more of JKR than that

[Neo]

Even if Snape parents were very evil, I'm not sure they taught him the DA so soon; I mean it seems that usually wizard parents do not teach anything to their children.
And they were not DE, as DE in that time didn't exist, but surely dark wizards that probably went to Slytherin, no?

[Holly Golightly]

So who taught Snape the curses and heses then?


Because a bad/horrid/whatever experience doesn't teach you magic...>? You still need someone to do the teaching?

[Mistress Siana]

he could have read some books...I mean, Hermione knows almost all of her spells from books, and we haven't been told that little Snape used the hexes, only that he knew them.

[Holly Golightly]

Hagrid told Harry in florish and Blotts at the beguining of the first book that he woudl need to learn a bit before he would be able to use the cuses in the book he picked up.

And the phrase "he knew more curses than most of the seventh yrs" (mightn't be word for word, was too slack to look it up) sounds like he could use them...

And Hermoine said that she had tried only a few simple spells... if the 7th yrs didnt' know the curses, the wouldn't all have been very simple???

[Neo]

Yeah, but remember that Hogwarts doen't give too many curses and hexes, I mean all the ones Harry learned they have to look up for them, and nobody teached him how to use them, he learned by himself, no?

[Mistress Siana]

hm, I just can't imagine he used all the hexes he was said to know...he'd be expelled before the sorting ritual then...

[Holly Golightly]

Yeah, but remember that Hogwarts doen't give too many curses and hexes, I mean all the ones Harry learned they have to look up for them, and nobody teached him how to use them, he learned by himself, no?

I thought that you would need some magical training first though... not necessarity for a particular spell, but just a little basic knowledge first...