PRESSURE COOKER

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 45411

At 22:30 15/10/02 +0000, Porphyria wrote, in reply to Pip's objections:

<snip with the garden shears again>

>On to Richard's objection that Fudge tells Snape to be reasonable.

<snippette>

>Still, I can't buy your interpretation. I refuse to believe that
>Dumbledore would suggest Disapparation to Snape with a straight face
>since Dumbledore is probably the one in charge of making sure you
>cannot Apparate into or out of Hogwarts. Furthermore, Fudge *does
>tell* Snape to be reasonable a few lines later, so that's certainly
>an expression he would use. So is "when this gets out"; that line is
>Mega-Fudgey.

*sniff*

There I was, replying to a few other emails whilst arranging my thoughts on 
this one, and Porphyria comes along and steals my thunder, saying pretty 
much everything I wanted to. Then again, not *quite* everything. :-)

I must point out that when I took Pip to task over who said what, I hadn't 
noticed that the "be reasonable" line came up twice, once outside the 
Infirmary and once inside, which is one of the reasons for our mutual 
confusion. Only the line inside the Infirmary was attributed, to Fudge, a 
fact to which Porphyria referred above.

That said, a few more thoughts:

What Harry hears from outside the door are "angry voices, growing louder 
and louder" (note plural voices). When the senior trio enter, "Dumbledore 
alone looked calm", Fudge is described as "angry", Snape was "beside 
himself". So who was more likely to have been the owner of the other angry 
voice? The apparently calm Dumbledore, or the angry Fudge? If it was 
Dumbledore, BOY, does he change mood quickly! Not to mention that as far as 
I can tell, Dumbledore has never been seen to have raised his voice in the 
four books to date.

Incidentally, I know it's not been raised as a possibility, but I'd just 
like to point out that as regards whether or not Fudge knew Hermione had 
the Time-Turner, he doesn't even know Hermione's name, referring to her 
throughout as "girl" or "young lady", both when talking to her or about her.

BTW, I understand that one of MD's tenets is that Snape was trying to stop 
the kids mentioning rats. Why, pray, does Snape say (sorry, "spit") during 
their first visit to the Infirmary: "I suppose he [Black]'s told you the 
same fairy tale he's planted in Potter's mind? Something about a rat, and 
Pettigrew being alive"?

:-)

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who has just noticed that he started writing this 
message almost two hours ago and has no idea why it's taken so long as he's 
not done anything else of note in that time!