Question about Snape and Quirrell

[bluesqueak <pipdowns@etchells0.demon.co.uk>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49630

All references by MarEphraim and myself are to the UK paperback 
edition of PS/SS.

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "marephraim <htfulcher at c...>" 
<htfulcher at c...> wrote:
> Forgive if I've missed it in the archives (usually do), but 
several 
> questions occurred to me concerning PS/SS. At the Halloween Ball, 
> Quirrell lets in a Mountain Troll, races to the Great Hall and 
> pretends to pass out from fear. Everyone panics, Dumbledore sends 
> the students to their towers and the teachers are supposed to 
follow 
> him to the dungeon, where the fainted Quirrell has indicated the 
> troll to be. Snape is suspicious and sneaks away. 
> 
> Now this is what I don't quite find logical. Quirrell later tells 
> Harry that after the troll incident Snape never again trusted him. 
> Further, he says that snape was 'always suspicious' of him. (p.  
> 210 UK paperback, throughout)
> 
> I ask myself, Why would Snape be suspicious of him at all before 
> this incident? Or was he suspicious of Quirrell from the time of  
> the great feast when Harry's scar hurt him for the first time? (p. 
> 94)(The movie would 'clarify' this by having Snape glance  
> suspiciously at Quirrell when the scar incident happens but Canon 
> makes no such reference.)

No, it doesn't. However, it does have Harry making visible signs of 
pain, such as 'Harry clapped a hand to his head'[p.94]. Since Snape 
knows *he* wasn't the person who did this, he might start wondering 
why the boy was in pain. Since Snape was looking at Harry at the 
time, i.e. in the direction of the students, he would probably have 
seen that none of the students could have aimed a curse or jinx at 
Harry.

That leaves one of the people on the High Table as the likely cause. 

Snape would know that while Quirrel himself couldn't have been 
casting a curse/jinx at the time, Harry was looking at Snape and 
Quirrel (because Snape and Harry's eyes met). Quirrel has just come 
back from dangerous, dark infested areas. That would put him at the 
top of the 'may have been got at' list, at least in Snape's 
suspicious mind.


> Why would Snape break (unnoticed?) from the group of teachers 
> going to the dungeons to look for the troll and go straight to the 
> 3rd  floor corridor? 

If you are expecting an attack on the Stone, you would expect either 
a) a major frontal assault with great force or
b) a sneak attack, possibly with a planned distraction to divert the 
defenders attention away from the Stone.

A troll in Hogwarts is a major distraction. It's not a huge leap of 
the imagination to work out it may be aimed at leaving a clear route 
to the Stone. 

We don't actually know that Snape leaving for the Stone was 
unnoticed by *all* the teachers. By Book 4 Snape is working very 
closely indeed with Dumbledore and McGonagall (in rescuing Harry 
from Fake!Moody). It's possible (though uncertain) that he may have 
been *assigned* to do a quick 'fade from the scene and head for the 
3rd floor' in the event of odd happenings; Dumbledore and McGonagall 
being the ones who deal with the known danger.


> Did he find Quirrell with Fluffy or did he 
> get there first? If the former, why didn't he go to Dumbledore    
> straight away? 

Possibly he did go to Dumbledore. But Quirrel's story would 
undoubtedly be that he woke up on the floor and realised that the 
troll might have been a trick to get at the Stone, so he rushed 
straight there to protect it...

> If the latter, how did he meet up with Quirrell -- and McGonagall  
> in toilet after Ron and Harry defeated the troll? (p. 127-131)
>
 
Snape and Quirrel, as you point out, are with McGonagall, not 
Dumbledore later on. Is this because Dumbledore is now standing 
watch on the 3rd floor? And has decided to make sure that Quirrel is 
accompanied by the two people who (we find out in Book 4) he trusts 
most in an emergency (Snape and McGonagall).

> Further, why didn't anyone tend to the poor fainted Quirrell in 
> the Great Hall (which would have prevented him going after the 
> stone)? Did the students just clobber him as they stampeded to 
> their dormitories?

I like the thought [grin]. But sadly, Quirrel was probably being 
tended by Poppy Pomfrey, or the House Elves, and managed to shake 
them off by 'recovering' and weakly insisting that it was his duty 
as DADA teacher to help in finding the troll...

> 
> Quirrell indicates his sorrow that the troll didn't beat Harry to 
> death and that Snape only received a wound. Does this mean that 
> the troll was also supposed to kill Harry? If so, how could 
> Quirrell (or the troll) know that Harry and Ron would be going to 
> fetch Hermione from the toilet? I ask this because he comments 
> that for all he knew Harry might have seen Quirrell coming to look 
> at what was guarding the stone (p. 210, referring to p. 99). 
> 

I think Quirrel's referring to things he didn't plan, but would have 
liked to happen. He would have loved it if Fluffy had bitten Snape's 
leg (or head) right off [grin].

The troll was planned as a distraction. However, the kids have been 
a pain and it was annoying that the useless bloomin' troll couldn't 
even manage to kill the little brats when it was stuck in a toilet 
with them. In hindsight it would have solved a lot of problems. 
Further, if the kids were in the toilet, instead of in their 
dormitories where they *should* have been, what else might they have 
seen?

It is also possible that the troll was under orders to kill anyone 
it found. It attacks Hermione. But it's not likely it was under 
orders to kill Harry specifically, otherwise it would have chosen to 
batter the toilet door down to get at Harry, rather than head 
straight for Hermione [p.129](who at this point in the story is not 
yet Harry's friend).


> All in all, to me at least, this whole sequence doesn't make 
> sense. If Quirrell brought the troll in to get past Fluffy, why go 
> to the Great Hall and announce that it was there at all? With the 
> feast taking place, no one would have heard the Troll and Fluffy 
> fighting it out so far away. 

In a 'Fluffy versus troll' contest, my bets are firmly on Fluffy. I 
think the troll was brought in to make sure all the other teachers 
were chasing it. This would give Quirrel some quiet, undisturbed 
time to work out how to get past a three headed giant Rottweiler 
equivalent (best of luck mate!). 

Quirrel doesn't say he was coming to 'get' the Stone; he says 'look 
at what was guarding the Stone' [p.210]. At this point, he may not 
even have known Fluffy was the first obstacle.
> 
> Any comments or explanations to help me reckon this out?
> MarEphraim

The sequence does make sense, but there's an awful lot going 
on 'offstage', as it were. And we still don't know all the answers. 

Was Snape working on his own at this point, or was he reporting to 
Dumbledore as he is seen doing in Goblet of Fire? Was he protecting 
the Stone as a 'lone ranger' or as part of Dumbledore's team? Will 
Book Five *ever* reach the publishers?

For some answers, queue up for the next exciting installment...

(But expect it to raise even more questions [grin])

Pip!Squeak