Snape's Unbreakable Vow is an interesting and clever device. He is able, with his status as a double agent, to keep his vows to both Dumbledore and the Death Eaters, even as he seems to be committing the ultimate act of betrayal against Dumbledore. But it strikes me as interesting in another way, too. Deprived of the one woman he was ever in love with--seemingly the only woman to who he ever felt attraction--the Unbreakable Vow that he takes in his book-framed bachelor pad (which might in fact have been his family home, nestled in an industrial area, presumably in London), is the only formal vow he takes, bound to a woman, the mother of a boy to whom he is devoted, presided over by a female Death Eater, who has been inscribed by the Dark Lord. Although Ron's later knowledge of the spell suggests that it is not necessarily dark magic in the sense of Unforgivable Curses or some of the more sinister hexes, like Septumsempra, it has all of the weight of a dark sacrament--in fact, of a marriage.
Beyond the rare interaction between Snape and a female character, the actual process is striking:
- Snape and Narcissa join hands (albeit right hands)
- A witness, who also acts as an agent to bind the two, is necessary
- As Narcissa asks a series of three (3) questions, Snape answers "I will"
- Three "tongues of flame" shoot from the wand of the witness to bind Snape and Narcissa
Leaving aside any possible phallic implications of tongues and flames and snakes and ropes shooting from wands (and there are some, I believe, though perhaps not here), many elements point to a sort of marriage. First, the very idea of a vow, and one that is unbreakable. Rowling may or may not have any real connection with the Catholic Church, though I swear the Weasleys are Irish Catholic, and there is some talk of her being a Chestertonian (though not a personal devotee of Chesterton, I can't vouch for the significance of that), but she has Catholic moments, and this seems like one. The Anglican Church is sacramental as well; however, this is an unbreakable union, and unless I am very much mistaken, only priesthood and marriage in the Catholic church are an unbreakable joining by way of a vow.
The three questions are conspicuious, as are the three "tongues of flame," which every person who has wished to defend Rowling's novel by way of Biblical references has no doubt cited as a reference to Pentacost, and the loosening of the tongues of the disciples. Interestingly, these flametongues bind two who are unable to speak of the dreadful plan/order/secret that necessitates Snape's vow to protect Draco, and to finish his assigned task if he is unable to do so. Rather than a loosening of tongues, they underscore the secretive nature of the proceedings. Does this contradiction, then, of the Pentacostal imagery make this an anti-sacrament? Perhaps. But the vow still remains unbreakable as far as we know, so those flaming tongues might have done something, even in the unholy atmosphere of secrecy and dark wizardry.
And since I have used the word flaming, and it is too good a segue to pass up, let's talk about to whom Snape is making the vow, and to whom he is likely to be foresworn. And I mean Dumbledore. Because he has sworn to Dumbledore as well as Narcissa, though presumably Dumbledore would not bind him with a vow that, if broken, would claim Snape's life. Although the other possibility here is that he is not so much vowing to Narcissa, but to her son, Draco. There are critics and readers enough who would capitalize on Rowling's ludicrous assertion that Dumbledore is gay and read homoerotic subtexts throughout the series (or write fan fics; whatever). However, I am disinclined to see any homoeroticism in the attitudes of Snape to Draco, or Dumbledore to Harry. I'm going to stick to teacher and student for the moment, so I will make no assertions about the relationship between James and Sirius, or Voldemort and whomever. There is a kind of sex-segregation at Hogwarts that mimics the traditional male-centered atmosphere of Oxford and Cambridge, where a professor of mine when I was undergraduate said the old male professors told her that Restoration Drama was not necessarily an appropriate subject for a young woman. McGonnegal and Madame Pomfrey, Professor Grubby-Plank, Professor Sprout, and Sibyll Trelawney are all there, and even one of the original founders (Ravenclaw) was female, as is the Ravenclaw ghost; however, the action centers around the males, and largely around male relationships. And that's okay.
So does Snape marry himself to Narcissa in making the vow? Is he wedded to Dumbledore? To Draco? Well, yes, in fact. The beauty of his vow is that it doesn't actually require the contradictions of betrayal, though the act he must perform is loathsome to him, and it is not one that I can endorse, even as an act of mercy, as the novels would have the reader accept it to be. I don't blame Snape; nevertheless, I do not see it as a moral, or even an amoral act. I venture to suggest that neither Snape nor Dumbledore sees it that way, either, so perhaps the morality of the act is not the question as much as whether Snape is to blame.
In dismissing the potential implications of Snape being "wed" to Draco or Dumbledore by his vow with this woman, I want to point to something about Hogwarts instead. I have not yet mentioned the word "vocation," but teaching is, in fact, a vocation for each of the teachers in the same way it was meant to be at Oxford and Cambridge. J. R. R. Tolkien was in the minority being married and a professor, and his relationship with his wife was, if memory served, strained by his separation from her in favor of male companionship. It was a source of disagreement between the Inklings that, while Tolkien's wife was banned from meetings, Joy Gresham was not. Hogwarts seems to require a similar dedication from their teachers, who after all, live on premises during the school year. There is no evidence in the books to suggest that any of the Hogwarts teachers are married. They are married to their vocation (and, indeed, marriage is understood as a choice of vocation, as well as priesthood and religious life). The school is like a spouse, and the students, their intellectual if not physical heirs. The distant "parent" role emerges as well in the role of Head of House, of which Snape, in fact, is one.
Having failed, then, to make one marriage, Snape makes a different kind of marriage--a different vocational choice. And he devotes himself to it wholeheartedly, though it does not help him to lose the bitterness which colors his tragic backstory. Probably my favorite character, Snape, and a very notable moment, which ties the novel together and revelas something about the nature of a teacher, perhaps, to start off his story (or at least the one named for him).
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