Snape, the TT and Dumbledore's 'amusement' Re: The "face-value" theory of PoA

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 45374

Richard:
> As I think I previously pointed out, Dumbledore's "amusement" doesn't 
> really make sense if Snape knows about the Time-Turner. As I see it, 
> Dumbledore is amused as they enter the Hospital Wing not because Snape 
> knows how Harry did it, but because never in a month on Sundays would Snape 
> 
> be able to work out how Harry did it, *even if Dumbledore gives him a 
> whacking great clue*! The only valid reason for Dumbeldore to be amused at 
> that point (unless, as the M.D.ers would have it, the surface text makes 
> him appear to be sadistic) is that Snape doesn't have a clue what's going 
> on and has no grounds to be able to work it out.

Eloise:
Which means that he *is* being sadistic, doesn't it?
I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up very well recently and MAGIC DISHWASHER  
does things to my brain and I've really got very confused as to who's arguing 
that Dumbledore's amusement is appropriate and who's arguing that it's 
inconsistent and...........aargh!

Just to be clear, although I'm specifically answering Richard's post, I'm 
also answering other assumptions that are made about this scene and apologise 
in advance if I appear to attribute ideas to Richard which are not his.

Why is Dumbledore amused? Is Snape the focus of his amusement ?
*I* have previously pointed out that Dumbledore has other things to be 
pleased about (but it was in one of those rather 'twee' TBAY posts, Richard. 
Mm...haven't quite worked out how to respond to that one! ;-) ).
He is the only person in the room, aside from Harry and Hermione, who knows 
exactly what's happened. He is in control and all the other adults are 
floundering about. Now maybe that's because an evil, sadistic puppet-master. 
But maybe it's because he's a man who's just found out that a former student 
and colleauge of whom he'd been fond in the old days and whom he'd believed 
to have betrayed his friends and everything he stood for, was actually an 
innocent man. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he's just managed, with 
the help of Harry and Hermione, to save his life. He has every right in the 
world to feel elated. He also, as we know from his conversation with Harry at 
the end of PS/SS, enjoys his own cleverness.

In fact, reading it again, I'm not at all sure that canon in any way 
*specifically* suggests that Dumbledore's amusement is caused primarily by 
Snape's discomfiture although I agree that it can be read that way.

When Fudge, Snape and Dumbledore come in, we are told that Dumbledore alone 
was calm, even looking as if he was enjoying himself.

Can he not be enjoying, as I have suggested, his own cleverness, the fact 
that he has thwarted Fudge's (yes, and Snape's) attempts to have Sirius 
Dementor-kissed?
He is calm, because he *knows* his plan has worked and he can't be found out. 
If he  is amused, this may be sufficient reason.

When he addresses Snape directly, it is first "quietly", then, "calmly". No 
hint of amusement, just what some of us interpret as the coded message which 
tells Snape that he knows what has happened and that his loyalty is being 
called upon.

Now granted, as Snape stands seething looking from Fudge to Dumbledore, the 
latter's eyes are twinkling. But, y'know...that's what Dumbldore's eyes *do*, 
isn't it? In fact, if they "gleam" we all get worked up about it. We know 
Dumbledore's enjoying the situation, ergo his eyes twinkle. (I guess Snape's 
were glittering at the time, but we're not told.)

Now, yes, I'm sure that to an extent he may have been amused by Snape's 
antics. I have argued (not alone) that he takes a paternal view of Snape and 
not for the first time recently, I shall argue that here he's taking a 
benevolent, if possibly amused, view of him as a difficult child. You see, 
where others read cruelty in that twinkle, I read fondness, a "Poor, dear 
Severus, when will he ever learn?" I'll give you patronising, perhaps, but 
not deliberate unkindness,

But notice that when Snape flounces out of the room, Dumbledore's words to 
Fudge indicate only understanding of what he's just gone through.

Richard:
> 
> As it happens, Dumbledore's first words in that scene are to establish that 
> 
> the kids have been locked in the Hospital Wing. Only *then* does he suggest 
> 
> that they'd have to be in two places at once to have been able to have 
> assisted in Sirius's escape. If we're talking "surface reading", it is the 
> realisation of the *impossibility* of that fact that shuts Snape up, not a 
> realisation that Dumbledore authorised the use of the Time-Turner.

Elosie:
Belonging to the *coded message" fraternity, I have to disagree with that.
Why risk giving any clue as to how the rescue may have been achieved? 
Snape was beside himself. In the WW, Time Turners exist. Giving him that clue 
could easily have propelled him into, 'He's got hold of a Time Turner, 
somehow!' which could have given the whole game away. 

Let's face it, Harry's got an invisibility cloak, he had the Marauder's Map, 
he worked out how to get past all the enchantments guarding the Philosopher's 
Stone. Snape knows there is at the least this method of being in two places 
at once; he also puts two and two together very quickly. If there *is* a way 
of doing it, he'd naturally suspect Potter of finding out the way how.  

No. I think it was only safe for Dumbledore to say that if he knew both that 
Snape *would* put two and two together and realise that Dumbledore had 
authorised it but also that his loyalty would outweigh his fury. In fact 
Dumbledore needed to prevent Snape from putting two and two together without 
understanding his own involvement. Snape *could* have thought of the Time 
Turner possibility on his own, so Dumbledore needed to pre-empt this.


Richard:
> Snape is said to be looking from Dumbledore to Fudge, *seething*, as if 
> looking for a way around the conundrum of bi-location, not knowing whether 
> he should be angry at Dumbledore or Fudge. Dumbledore's statement does not 
> pacify him in the slightest, it just leaves him speechless.

Eloise:
Yes, speechless. He can't say anything else without giving the game away and 
being disloyal to Dumbledore. And why should he be pacified? He has, as Dumb
ldore mildly put it, suffered a severe disappointment. He may defer to 
Dumbledore, but that doesn't mean he likes it. He was desperate to get his 
revenge on Sirius (for much, much more than the 'Prank') and it's been taken 
away from him for reasons he doesn't yet understand. No wonder the poor man's 
speechless. He's caught between the man who would have achieved what he 
wanted (the disposal of Sirius) and who was about to get him the Order of 
Merlin, but now thinks he's deranged and the man to whom he's pledged his 
loyalty, but with whose opinions he sometimes disagrees and who has just done 
the most inexplicable thing. He can't appeal to either of them.

Poor, poor Severus.

<Dabs nose and eyes>

That's better. Now. Where were we?

> Marina:
> >So there you have it.  Note that this theory does not assume any
> >important events or conversations happening "off-screen."  If canon
> >doesn't say it happened, then it didn't happen.
> 

Richard:

> Sorry, as I think I've successfully argued, your explanation implies 
> off-screen information given to Snape about the Time-Turner.

Eloise:
But I don't think that's an 'important event or conversation' in the sense of 
being a very big assumption. Hermione must be a very well-known student, 
particularly so since most of the teachers teach her! It must have been 
slightly evident that she was taking more than one class at once. Given the 
nature of the Time Turner and the regulations governing its use, I would be 
highly surprised if the entire teaching staff *didn't* know about it, just as 
Prof Flitwick immediately knew the special circumstances surrounding Harry 
receiving a broomstick in his first year.

When we move on to GoF, we *have* to assume that there have been off-screen 
conversations, I think. Snape must surely have been filled in on the 
situation, otherwise, his "What's he doing here?" question when Padfoot 
transforms in the Hospital Wing is mild in the extreme. Either that or it's 
an indicator of just how great his loyalty to Dumbledore is. But even given 
his loyalty, he argues when he disagrees with Dumbledore and if he didn't 
know about Sirius' innocence, I'm sure he would have said something about his 
treachery instead of meekly, if reluctantly shaking hands. 

But for Snape to know about the Time Turner doesn't imply any private 
conversations, I don't think, just the assumption that the whole of the 
teaching staff weren't being deliberately kept in the dark about something 
pretty important.

Eloise
Who will use her new PRESSURE COOKER with pride, whilst noting that it's too 
big to fit in the MAGIC DISHWASHER. We sure need that KITCHEN SINK!


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