Snape/Harry/Sirius Nov 1, 1981

[moorequests]

No: HPFGUIDX 30952


Heather,

 May I be first in saying,

 You think too much. Especially for one posting at 1 AM. 

 Seriously, though, I'm loving it. What well thought out detail!! I'm 
amazed. Keep it coming. I'll have to read your post through several 
more times before I can even comment... you've done some major work 
there. WOW!

 -Molly

"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the 
sinners are much more fun... only the good die young." -Billy Joel


--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "heathernmoore" <heathernmoore at y...> wrote:
> 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.