[HPforGrownups] Breaking into Snape's office

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 32916

Clio:

> And another thought about Crouch breaking into Snape's office: Why
> wouldn't he hide his tracks better? Snape says the door was ajar and
> the torches lit. Wouldn't you use a lumos spell on your wand if you
> were searching one's office at night? IMHO either Crouch felt
> completely safe to search the office (had Ddore really given Moody
> premission to do so?) or he wanted Snape to know someone was in his
> office.

Hikaru:

>My opinion was that Crouch was so certain of the fact that he would
>never get caught, that he could leave the lights on; if anyone was ever
>suspicious of him entering Snape's office, then he could just simply
>say that he was just doing a check. Given Snape's past, everyone would
>accept that "Moody" was just doing his job and trying to make sure the
>school was safe. Personally, I think assuming the identity of Moody was
>good idea on Crouch's part.


Clio, you got me to go back and read that again and something hit me in bed 
this morning (yes, sad, isn't it?):

That was how I remembered it, the door of Snape's office open. But it wasn't. 
Snape says that as he passed his office, he saw that the torches were lit and 
a *cupboard* door open. I assume as he passed the closed office door, he saw 
the lights burning from underneath, as you would if the passage were in 
darkness, and entered.

The torches were still burning and the cupboard door still open not through 
Crouch-Moody's carelessness or confidence at not being caught, but because 
*he was still there*, hidden under this invisibility cloak. (Poor Severus, he 
does have problems with these invisibility cloaks. Personally, I hope he 
inherits Crouch's. I can invisage  wonderful scenes of him and Harry 
invisibly bumping into each other in the dead of night)

But I digress...
This explains why we don't hear Moody clunking along until after Snape 
arrives on the scene : he lesft the office after Snape, not before. (It 
doesn't explain why Snape didn't hear him clunk into the office, but maybe he 
muffled the artificial leg and in any case Snape is probably used to him 
clunking around at all hours.)

It is also why Moody is wearing his old travelling cloak rather than a 
dressing gown over his nightshirt. Travelling cloaks I envisage to be rather 
large, all-enveloping kinds of garments. Perhaps he's still wearing the 
invisibility cloak underneath,or else it is large enough to conceal how he's 
carrying it.

I think lighting the torches is sensible. Anyone passing the office would 
think Snape was working late, whereas wand light flickering around might look 
more suspicious. It also allows him to get what he wants more quickly.

Hikaru's point again raises the vexed question of who exactly knows that 
Snape was a DE. I am sure that this cannot be public knowledge for reasons 
stated before and I doubt that it is common knowledge in the staffroom. Off 
the top of my head (I need to check this), the only people at Hogwarts whom 
we *know * are aware are Dumbledore, Crouch-Moody and Karkaroff.

Eloise (who can start her day and get on with thinking about the things she's 
supposed to be thinking about, now she's got that off her chest).


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