Snape/Harry/Sirius Nov 1, 1981

[heathernmoore]

No: HPFGUIDX 31029

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "clio44a" <clio at u...> wrote:
> Wow, what a great theory, Heather.
>  I like the idea of Snape being kind of a reluctant guardian of 
> Harry.It would explain his attitude towards him without needing the 
> James-life-depth background, which after all was not considererd 
> important by the movie makers.
> I think you got close to the core of things, but we are not quite 
> there yet. But I have the gut feeling Snape is deeply involved into 
> the events in 1981. I just can't put my finger onto it.
> 
> Being a fanatic nitpicker and having the events of that night 
> pondered over and over again, too, I still have some questions.
> 

> 1. 
> It's a nice idea that the Potters were hiding in a summer house of 
> the Evans family. It is highly unlikely that the Evans (muggles, as 
> far as we know)owned a house in a place named Godric's Hollow. The 
> name stringly suggests a connection to the Godric Gryffindor-heir of 
> Gryffindor issue.   

Well, that's unless you allow the possibility that the Evans family were *also* descended from Godric Gryffindor, in a branch which had gone squib and fallen out of the record-keeping some generations before.
It's consistent with LV's late interest in destroying the Potters if you follow the line that the Heir of Gryffindor was more likely to have come from a *double* line of descent, and especially if you surmise that the 'Phoenix' is a feature of the prophecy, rather than just a reference to Fawkes's butt.

> 
> 
> 2.
> 
> After delivering the baby to Privet Drive Hagrid says he now will 
> return the bike to Sirius.
> Why is he oblivious of Sirius blasting Peter Pettigrew and being in 
> jail? And if he doesn't know, why doesn't Dumbledore tell him? And 
> why didn't Hagrid return the bike earlier, if he really has spend a 
> full day in Hogwarts?
>

 I would suggest here that Dumbledore may well realize that some dangerous times are still to come in the next several days, as the Death Eaters run amok looking for answers without LV to direct and organize them. So if Hagrid doesn't know about the Pettigrew/Black incident simply because he has been sleeping or en route to Surrey much of the day, Dumbledore may not regard this as need-to-know information for Hagrid to complete his task yet. For that matter, though, I'm not sure I recall us ever hearing exactly when the word of that incident hit the wizarding public. Is it possible that even Dumbledore didn't know about it until after Harry had been taken to the Dursleys?


 
> 3.
> 
> Dumbledore sends Hagrid to the destroyed house. If Dumbledore got a 
> warning in time, why did he not send a more powerful wizard there.
> No offense to Hagrid, but he doesn't legally own a wand. Did 
> Dumbledore knew Hagrid would come to late to save the Potters? How? 
> wasn't it dangerous to send Hagrid there alone? I mean it was 
> possible that a Death Eater or Voldemort himself was still lurking in 
> the house.

This is a sticky point for me as well, but I am wondering if the Death Eaters' Dark Marks acted wonky when Voldemort's body was destroyed, as they did when he was gaining more substance back on the physical plane again. If Snape had gone personally to DUmbledore, he may have been able to know from this that Voldemort was disrupted.




> Its a remarkable slim window in time between the destruction of 
> Voldemort and the arrivel of the first muggles or MoM officials in 
> the street.How come that Hagrid arrives exactely in that time? And 
> how does Sirius know when to go there? He was still thought off as 
> the secret-keeper. Surly dumbledore would not
> send the secret-keeper to the place he was supposed to keep secret in 
> a moment where this secret was in danger. 
> 

Ah, I've remembered Sirius' motives now: he had been due to check up on Peter in Peter's hidey-hole that night. When he arrived, he found Peter gone so we rushed to the Potters' house. It would appear to be a coincidence that he arrived on Hagrid's heels. That sequence:  a) reveals how little information Hagrid actually had about the issues, and b) accounts for Sirius' horrible lapse in judgement by allowing him to see the destruction firsthand and to be denied his "right" to care for the orphaned baby.

> 4.
> 
> Hagrid states that baby Harry fell asleep over Bristol when they 
> travelled to Little Whinging.
> Would he really fly over Bristol if he would go straight from 
> Scotland to Surrey? (I'm not that familiar with English topography.)

I wasn't really clear with my post here: I'm not sure whether Hagrid dropped off the baby with Dumbledore at Hogwarts or in some bolthole somewhere else. I am assuming that Hagrid had his morning conversation with McGonagall at the school, but nothing stops him from having FLOOed to and fro somewhere else.

> If baby Harry spent the missing 24 h in Hogwarts, why does not 
> Dumbledore take him to Privet Drive himself?

Perhaps its too risky to Apperate an infant. Besides, Dumbledore had to go early to prep the area with the Put-outer before the baby got there.

<snip interesting suggestion about time-turner use> 

This is a theory that deserves further exploration, but at the moment I'm a little skeptical simply because one would think Dumbledore would have time-turned a whole hit squad to the house to be there when LV arrived.

> Clio,
> who wanted to say so much more, but cant think of it right now.