The more I think about Severus Snape’s actual position in the Death Eaters and his relationship with Voldemort, the more I see him as a kind of court jester who doesn’t realize he’s wearing bells.
I was chatting with @deathdaydungeon about this the other day and this just becomes more and more my absolute interpretation of things.
I will admit a tendency to see a hefty layer of irony in nearly everything to do with Snape and this is probably the epitome of it. What he believes himself to be, what he wants himself to be, what he insists to others that he is, is always at such stark odds with reality, and I think this is where a lot of confusion about him comes from. The reader has a burden of sorts to separate what Snape says about himself, and the actions & events that surround him, because Snape, for all his inherent self-loathing and guilt, is still somewhat conceited, and very much an example of wounded pride. There’s an element of self-deception as well as deception of others in much of what he says.
We get one scene in The Prince’s Tale of his sorting, where Lucius Malfoy is seen welcoming him into Slytherin. I think Lucius Malfoy is absolutely key to his position in the Death Eaters. He’s Snape’s patron, in my mind, and the only reason that Snape was even allowed to become a Death Eater, because the Malfoy name is that powerful in pureblood circles in the UK.
People have all sorts of headcanons about Snape’s first days as a Death Eater prior to his defection, but I think he was not at all held in high esteem, nor was he trusted with important knowledge or work. He was Lucius’s pet to begin with, I think. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pottermore came out one day with a story about how Lucius Malfoy paid for a coveted apprenticeship in potions for Snape or something very similar, to be blunt. I think Snape was heavily in Lucius’s debt, which explains a lot about Snape’s interactions and relationship with Draco (a much more plausible situation in my mind than Snape being Draco’s godfather).
Lucius was the one, in my mind, who first recognized the potential usefulness of Snape’s talents - this poor half-blood first year who could fire off hexes like a seventh year, who had an instinctive knack for improving upon and even inventing entirely new methods for potions & spells.
So Lucius pulled him into pureblood circle of Slytherin, got the rest on board with recruiting him and made sure that Snape was offered everything he desired - power, position, a way out of his impoverished childhood home (even if he had no intention of giving him more than an illusion of these things). Hook, line and sinker.
But seeing somebody on the top of the social ladder lavishing this attention on someone scraped from the bottom had to be irritating for those ambitious occupants of the middle rungs.
This is why I always interpret young Snape as being sort of on the fringe of the Death Eaters. He’s there but nobody really wants him there, other than Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy, who want him because he’s useful, not because he has the pureblood birthright to be there.
I feel that among the other Death Eaters (those who knew who Snape was, at least) is probably this unspoken knowledge that he doesn’t really belong there and doesn’t really have a place in their New World Order other than as a useful servant, that he’s really just an uppity mudblood who doesn’t know his place. That if Voldemort himself hadn’t decided to take him up on Lucius’s recommendation, there’s basically zero chance he would have been there.
Would he have been trusted, very early on, with important matters? I’m not convinced. He’s probably working at more solitary pursuits prior to the prophecy, working on spells and potions, and acting as a petty spy, hanging around Hogsmeade and spying on Order members, like he was the night he heard Sybil Trelawny make her fateful prophecy to Albus Dumbledore in a back room at an ill-reputed establishment, the Hogs Head. This is where he proves himself to be a truly canny and useful servant, hence Voldemort's indulgence in his request to spare Lily Evans (which I think Voldy would have found an amusement coming from this half-blood, and is probably where Snape really gained his court jester status).
I’ve written in the past about Snape’s elevation after Lucius’s downfall, how this is not Snape being truly favored by Voldemort and elevated on actual merit. This was the king putting a crown on his court jester to shame & humiliate his nobles. He is sending a message to his followers - if you fail me, this is your fate - your birthright and position will be given to that which is unworthy, because you have lowered yourself to this unworthy state.
Snape interprets this as him being valued & trusted, but Bellatrix Lestrange, at least, sees it precisely for what it is - hence her absolute scorn & resentment in Spinner’s End. She is loyal and pureblood and from a noble family with a long history, and she’s looking at this mudblood school teacher living in a “muggle dungheap” and knows she’s been insulted. She, at least, got the message loud and clear.
Snape himself has this intense need and neediness, to be respected, to be seen as worthy and seen as powerful, and to be seen as trustworthy & useful. You see this in his relationship with Dumbledore especially, where his true loyalties lie, but you see this also with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, even though he is working against them. His need for this is so strong that even his hidden hatred of them does not negate it. This is, in my mind, Snape’s greatest vulnerability and why he is in a sense self-blinded to his true situation.
I’ve seen a comments in the past claiming that Voldemort was more respectful and kind toward Snape than Dumbledore was, but I think they’re missing all of this dynamic, to be blunt (as did Snape himself). I don’t think Voldemort really regretted anything about Snape’s death or held any kind of esteem or affection for him, and used him as a tool much more ruthlessly than Dumbledore ever did, to be frank. He trusted Snape in the manner one would trust a loyal guard dog, but still gladly keep the animal on a chain and kill it once it was no longer needed. The manner in which Voldemort killed Snape, giving him the exact same death that Snape witnessed him give to Charity Burbage earlier is a strong symbol in my mind of what Voldemort really thought of Snape.
Albus Dumbledore may have been rather detached and emotionally ungenerous with Snape, but in the end, I think Albus Dumbledore at least respected his servant’s bravery, loyalty and integrity by the end of his life, even if he could not bring himself to open up to him more.
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