MetaFic

I think Snape has to have someone along side him to stand a chance and he always makes sure that no one gets close to him. One way to get round that would be to put him through a trauma and through it take away his ability to be self sufficient.

One way of doing this would be to have him lose the stuff that is important to him. Loss of magical power or potions making ability would be one such example.

Malfoy, as I think has already been commented would need to be taken away from his family to stand any chance at all.

But first, you have to _want_ to change. The problem is what plausible motivation is there for wanting to change? Draco is a pointless coward and not very smart, either. Snape is an interesting character, especially when driven properly with a solid setup, but redemption is hard.

To all the Snape-fans, get over it. He didn't love Lily, he was obsessive-compulsive about her. If he really loved her, he never would have acted the way he did in later years. But that's just it -- he didn't love her. He was obsessed and never saw her as an individual.

So how will he find redemption? Either have him wake up to his obsession, and the fact that it's not love at all, or else throw something else at him to make him realize he's so self-centered he may as well be the polar opposite of Gilderoy's looks and intellect, but the exact same for self image.

Pick any "bad guy" that's set up in canon, and you're stuck with the same problem. You want a challenge? Redeem Fenrir Greyback.

I am not crazy, I think that if written correctly any character in fiction can be redeemed and any character can lose his way. Some of the greatest literature in the world is about the redemption of a character who has lost his way or even the personification of evil who finds that moment of compassion and sees the folly of his way.

Redemption is not about forgiveness of past sins or amnesty for actions taken. Redemption is a personal journey for a character that takes them from human to inhuman and back to the human. It is about that one act of kindness at the last moment that allows them to see through eyes unclouded by hate, anger, fear, pride, or desire. And in that moment to actually see the errors of their life and accept responsibility for their actions and to make that attempt at fixing what they have caused, even if it is too little too late.

You see no human character is born evil. There is not an evil gene. Rather, most villains are a product of their environment and the demons that haunt them. Take Voldemort, whom everyone indicates is irredeemable. Why? Is it because he has killed hundreds of people and cause immense destruction to society? Is it because he wields a terrible amount of power with no person to check him? Is it because he has split his soul and is therefore no longer human?

No, those cannot be the reasons as Darth Vader, whom some consider the greatest villain of modern myth, did much worse than Tom Riddle and he was redeemed. No, the reason no one sees Voldemort as redeemable is because Rowling does not want him to be redeemed, but she left all the clues to how to redeem him.

You see, Voldemort was once a scared and hurt child who was ridiculed and unloved. Rowling wishes for us to believe that he was always evil, and that even from the earliest age he was harming the children of the orphanage. And perhaps from a young age he was, but as a newborn he wasn't. As a toddler, he wasn't. Malice requires forethought, and forethought does not come until most children reach 5 or 6. By then, their environment has greatly affected them.

For a moment, put yourself in Tom's shoes. You are in an orphanage. As a young child, you are not receiving regular attention. You are neglected, not because you are unloved, but because the orphanage is understaffed. You are not given physical affection, so you do not expect it and shy away from it as time passes even though you crave some kind of emotional and physical connection. As you grow older, you lose the ability to gain that companionship because every time before you were rebuffed and pushed aside. You are afraid of rejection, but desire so much to be accepted.

Instead, you begin to place your affections and attentions on things. Objects become more important than people. And then you realize one day that you have power over someone. You have power to make them hurt to make them pay for all that has gone wrong in your life and the feeling, though not pleasant, is still a feeling. You get satisfaction from that inflicted slight. You come to realize that power over people provides you with satisfaction.

And now you are safe and secure because you wield something over the others and they fear you. They respect you, and that means you are someone. You are the rooster in the hen house. You are the alpha dog. Your word is law and you can back that up, and then comes this man into your life who brushes aside all that you have created and it sends you back to that time as a child when you were lonely and afraid and had no power.

This opens a new life for you. You fear this man because he is the one who has held power over you, but you refuse to let anyone else make you feel that way. You become obsessed with being powerful and having nothing to fear. Even death becomes simply an obstacle to overcome. You are driven and it matters not how far you go or who suffers in your quest, because only the quest matters. You need to be more powerful than death and then you will have no one to fear.

But in this quest, your life has become empty. And that fear of the man has never gone away and the more power you have and the more control you have, the hard it is to hold on to and the tighter you grasp onto the shreds, the faster they slip through your fingers. Your life sinks into a never ending struggle and depression sets in and paranoia and then you are told that all of your plans all of your efforts will be undone because of this one child, and you must prevent that, and in so doing set about your own destruction.

This child becomes an obsession for you. He defeated you once, and then again, and then again, and now your are intrigued, Now you are fascinated. What power does this child hold that he can stop you? How can you harness this power? How can you make this power your own?

So you take the child. You hurt the child, you threaten all that the child holds dear and the child resists and does not give in. And you find that it is the child's feelings toward his friends, his allies, his family that motivates him. That his love makes him place his life before others and that as long as he hates you, you can never have that power, never have that protection, so you change tacts.

In all the years, although you have never shown it, nor needed it, you have still understood human emotions and connections. You break the child and turn him against those he loves by making him believe he was betrayed and abandoned, you change the past so that he finds you to be his saviour and he comes to care for you as you pretend to care for him. He comes to your side and fights for you and protects you and even stands in front of you to turn aside your enemies. And over time, though you care about noone else and nothing else, you start to care about this child. You allow him leniency and benefits others lack and eventually the pretending becomes the norm and then the norm becomes what you truly feel.

And then, those who loved the child save him and bring him back from the edge and he realizes what has gone wrong and turns on you. You are furious, your are enraged and you do all in your power to get him back. You need to have him back, and you take those he loves and draw him in because you know what will happen and he comes to you and he fights you, but you see in his eyes that he does not want to and that he only does it because he must protect the others. And although you can hurt his friends and family and even your servants, you cannot hurt him. You cannot undo what you have created and that the power you have given to this child and the feelings you have for this child cannot be taken back.

You care for the child and in that moment you realize what you have thrown away in your life and the damage you have done and you lower your defenses and smile at him and he stops and you make no move and he understands,. He sees what is in your eyes and he is resigned to this fate. And he kills you because you let him.

No, in this scenario, Voldemort does not become good. He does not right the wrongs he has committed, but he sees the folly in his actions and does the only thing that he can to make atonement for it. He gives up everything he has ever sought after and goes gently into that goodnight. He allows the one thing he has come to care about as much as his desire for power to survive and go on. And in doing so, he becomes human again.

After that, i think Draco is a piece of cake and Snape not much more difficult. However, i must say that I did use Kurinoone's The Darkness Within as a basic template for the plot line above. it is not exactly the same, but the redemption cycle borrows heavily from it.

-Jonathan

- A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.
Ayn Rand - The Romantic Manifesto p. 74 (pb 93)