Snape/Harry/Sirius Nov 1, 1981

[heathernmoore]

No: HPFGUIDX 30944

I've been turning things over today:

- Hagrid's withholding information about Snape from Harry
 
- Dumbledore's utter lack over concern about Snape's loyalty, under circumstances which many readers find a little odd

- The sequence of events running during the ten days between Oct 23 and November 2, 1981, especially McGonagall's bizarre lack of information and the Hagrid's equally bizarre disappearing baby trick

- Snape's unprovoked, near-total irritation with Harry and his utter lack of perspective regarding Sirius Black and Remus Lupin

- Snape's apparent attitude adjustment between Harry's duel with LV and his subtle encounter with Harry at the Leaving Feast  

-the mystical powers of Life Debts in the wizarding world



I have a really OUT THERE theory about how it all might fit together. I wish I could be more articulate about it, but I'll do my best.

We are fairly certain that Snape was the individual who tipped off *someone* about Voldemort's intention to murder James and Harry Potter. 

It is factual that this tip has to have made its way to the Potters somewhat before October 24th. We can reasonably presume that the Potters were *not* living at the Godric's Hollow house when the tipoff came. Since James and Lily Potter appear to have been something of a popular and promising young couple, using Fidelius on the house where they already lived would 
have served little purpose; easy enough for any Death Eater to find out who the Potters' friends were and lean on them to say where they lived. 

One would surmise that a person would first need to have a Secret in order to need to have a Secret-Keeper, and I can't picture Fidelius actually operating as a Memory Charm for everyone on earth except the Secret Keeper. So prior to Oct 24, when they worked the charm with Peter, the Potters have to have left their home and fled to the new house.

Why was there a house available? Presumably furnished, no less? Was this an unused home which had been left to them as a family legacy? Again, it's not likely to have been the Potter Family Summer House; there would likely have been records about it somewhere in the Ministry or elsewhere. 

Was this one of the Evans family homes, then? Lily being Muggle-born, its much more unlikely that any of the Death Eaters would have known anything about any of her childhood houses prior to Peter's revelation. The magic-related destruction of one of the Evans houses 
would have just driven Petunia over the edge.

It is factual that Snape was not privy to the source of the leak about the Potters' location in hiding, but we haven't actually been given any strong reason to believe he was *ignorant* of  the details of the raid on Godric's Hollow once it came down. 

In addition to the two murders at the house - which might have gone undetected - the raid *also* resulted rather bizarrely in the destruction of the house itself (HOW???), in such a way that the Muggle officials showed up later. 

But before the Muggles can arrive, first Hagrid, and then Sirius, both turn up. Hagrid has to have been told by Dumbledore where to go. Due to the last-minute nature of the SK Switch, Sirius may well have been the one person outside of the charm who knew where the Potters were. Hagrid might have Apperated in, but Sirius is of course on his flying motorcycle. As we see with the flying Ford in CS, these enchanted vehicles aren't bullet-train fast. Sirius must have taken a little bit of time in getting there. (How he knew to come? Did Peter draw Sirius out, intending to kill him later in the day?)
 

The fact that they arrive too late to get the Potters away, but before the Muggles arrive, suggests to me that someone in Dumbledore's circle (probably D himself) received another, last-minute warning from Snape, who was able to tell D(?) where (Godric's Hollow!) and when (*tonight*). The tragic timing also suggests to me that Snape may have done this in person and was genuinely unable to get the word to the others in order to have support at the house when it would have helped. Perhaps he didn't have the crucial detail until LV had already left, and Snape had to find some privacy to Apperate into Hogsmeade and then rush to castle.  

Snape being Snape, I'm sure once he was filled in, he placed the blame for the weakness of the Fidelius Charm plan squarely on the late James Potter's shoulders. Surely the plan was only intended as a temporary measure?

So everything is quiet when Hagrid arrives - presumably except for the squalling of baby Harry, with an oozy cut on his forehead and the house in shambles around him. How does Hagrid know that Voldemort is gone? Surely it shouldn't be safe for him to turn up on his own if they don't know exactly what he'll find? I'm guessing that Dumbledore and the Potters (and godfather Sirius?) worked whatever protective magic they had on Harry before the Potters went into hiding, so that Dumbledore has a pretty solid idea what may have been the final outcome should LV have found the Potters.

Hagrid half-sorrowfully, half-bewilderedly does what he was asked to do: he retrieves the baby and refuses to give him to Sirius. It isn't clear that he has any idea *why* Sirius has to be snubbed like this, but Hagrid is loyal to Dumbledore.  Depressed and enraged by Peter's betrayal and the deaths of his dear friends, blaming himself to a degree, Sirius hands off his motorcycle (what would appear to be a typical pre-suicide move) to Hagrid and sets off to settle the score with Peter. He probably expects to die in the encounter. Hagrid, of course, takes the baby and the motorcycle and flies off to....

.... Privet Drive? Nope. That's the following night. So where *does* he go? To DisneyWorld? To bed? To the moon, Alice? 

I'm guessing to bed, back at his cottage at Hogwarts, dropping off the baby somewhere that Dumbledore is first. Dumbledore apparently instructs Hagrid to come back late the following evening to pick up the baby and take him at midnight to Privet Drive in Little Whinging, where Dumbledore will meet them again. 

Someone during the night gets the word out (likely to the MoM) that Voldemort is gone. By morning, it seems as though all of Wizarding Britain learns the news over their breakfast. They perhaps do not have the rest of the yet, though, because when a Harry-less Hagrid runs into McGonagall that morning, she doesn't know the details and Hagrid doesn't tell her much. He also won't tell her where Dumbledore is, but lets the Privet Drive location out, so off she scarpers.

The next thing we know, it's midnight. Dumbledore gets to Privet Drive and does his little put-outer schtick, McGonagall has her little "yo, what the hell is going on" moment, and suddenly here comes Hagrid the Hells Angel, once again with Harry in tow. Nobody asks and nobody tells what has gone on all day -- much later we find out about Sirius' being framed.

 Okay... now here is where I have a schizophrenic breakdown and get to the point of all this:

  I think Snape's distaste for Harry springs from the mysterious 23-hour period when Dumbledore had Harry in his possession on November 1st. I think the Potters, Sirius, and Dumbledore had had between them a contingency plan for Harry in the event of the Potters' deaths. Considering the coercive power life debts seems to have in the Wizarding World, I suspect there's much more to the relationship between godparent and godchild than meets the eye. 

The Potters and Sirius, being relative youngsters (they're all only 21) and undoubtedly scared almost witless by the idea of Voldemort targeting them, screwed the pooch with their Fidelius Charm plan. With their substitution of Peter for Sirius, not only were they putting their Secret into very weak hands, they were gambling against making Sirius unable to participate in a binding charm with Harry should they be killed. 

It was a gamble they lost: Sirius lost the trust of everyone - even Remus Lupin - and most importantly of Dumbledore. In his anger, he raced off to find Peter instead of attempting to explain his innocence to anyone.

Again, as above, I think the timing of the raid and of Dumbledore's response is consistent with Snape having come personally to Dumbledore. Probably unknown to Hagrid, perhaps Dumbledore struck a bargain with the penitent Snape: with Sirius out of the picture, Snape could make amends for his Death Eater activity and his untimely warning of LV's raid by stepping in as Harry's protector/"godparent" in a binding charm.

Being skeptical about all that prophecy rubbish and not inclined to be fond of this squirmy little Pottergrub, Snape's gut response is sure to have been, "ICK!" But he knows that he's in danger of ending up in Azkaban, however useful he might have seemed as a spy while LV was still around. And now here is Dumbledore offering him this position of trust and responsibility, in spite of every malicious thing he has done when he was under the Dark influence.

Not only is he being shown respect and given protection and a purpose by Dumbledore, but it's in the face of and in preference to that damnable Sirius Black. If Snape finds binding his protection to the son of James Potter a little burdensome, at least he knows that the prophecy is all hogwash, and naturally as Dumbledore says, it isn't as though Snape has to raise the kid. Dumbledore intends to put him with relatives where he will be safe until he can attend school, where he'll be far away from the inevitable fame.

And so Snape agrees to the arrangement. Over the next few hours, Snape and Dumbledore prepare and perform a ritual which creates a sort of mutual Super Life Debt between Severus and Harry. , In the morning, soon after being so evasive with McGonagall and being certain she has left, Hagrid comes to get Harry and put him down for a nap for an hour or two before setting off on Sirius' flying motorcycle for Surrey. 

I'm not going to speculate much on how the binding protection enchantment thingie works, but I'm thinking there's some Big Mojo magical obligation on Snape's part to protect Harry against dark magical threats in life.

And it's really not that big a deal for the first several years. Snape just puts it out of mind; after the ordeal of the trials and with his increasing responsibilities at the school, his Harry Potter albatross seems such a minor thing. 

Then the DADA professors start going haywire: something's weird about Quirrell even before he runs off to Albania. People start talking about Voldemort again, and the possibility that he isn't really dead. Dumbledore is concerned enough that he and the staff start planning for bringing the Philosopher's Stone to Hogwarts. Dour Severus finally has to admit to himself that Potter will be at school soon; the kids are all over "Harry this" and "Harry that" and "Professor Snape, do you think Harry Potter will be good at potions?" "Professor Snape, don't you think Harry Potter will be Head Boy?"  
And the children of the other Death Eaters have started turning up at Hogwarts already. And and and...

And then the albatross is at school, and it becomes absolutely clear to Severus that: 

a) Harry Potter is a detestable little brat just like his father who got himself and his wife and nearly his son *killed,* 

  and

b) It doesn't matter whether the prophecy is objectively accurate: Voldemort is after Harry again, Severus is magically bound to help protect him.