"Only just".

[Mike]

> > zanooda2 wrote:
> > Can you guys help me with this expression? It's in SS/PS, when 
> > Hermione was supposed to keep an eye on Snape (pretending to be 
> > waiting for Flitwick outside the staff room), but then she came
> > back to the common room and said: "Snape came out and asked me
> > what I was doing, so I said I was waiting for Flitwick, and
> > Snape went to get him, and I've only just got away, I don't know
> > where Snape went".
> > 
> > I know "only just" means something like "just now", "very
> > recently" ("we've only just begun"), but dictionaries also give
> > another meaning - something like "barely", kind of like when
> > Diary!Riddle says that Ginny is alive, but "only just". 

 
> Geoff:
> In this particular instance, I would agree with your first case -
> "I have only very recently got away". Not getting away in the
> sense of escaping but of starting off

Mike:
Since Geoff has a much better handle on the way the English turn a 
phrase, I must bow to his expertise. That said, when I read that 
scene, I read it as Hermione *just barely* got away. Because, I 
thought Hermione didn't really want to see Flitwick, didn't have 
anything ready to say to him, and would have appeared a blithering 
idiot if Snape actually found Flitwick and sent him out to meet her. 
So I thought she "only just" got away before Flitwick came out of the 
teachers' lounge.

Now that I read your thoughts, Mila, and Geoff's confirmation of your 
interpretation, I think my reading of it was wrong. I do think that 
Diary!Riddle meant "only just" as "barely", though.

So, how's that Mila, you got a "could be both" anyway. ;-) Nah, take 
Geoff's word for it, he's probably right. :-)

Mike, only just catching up on OTC reading