[HPforGrownups] Snape saving Harry (was: An odd musing about Harry's atit...

[IAmLordCassandra at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 54105




> Finwitch:
> Not that his counter-curses didn't do what he
> intended, just that well, why didn't Snape steal Quirrell's attention -
> well, until Hermione *made* him to? Maybe move his hand in front
> of Quirrell's eyes? "Accidentally" step on Quirrell's foot?

"Hermione fought her way across to the stand where Snape stood, and was now 
racing along the row behind him; she didn't even stop to say sorry as she 
knocked Professor Quirrell headfirst into the front row. Reaching Snape...." 
~SS/PB/191 

Ok, that quote leads me to believe that Quirrell was in the row behind Snape. 
Where though I cannot say, but it had to be close enough for him to see 
Snape. WHERE exactly he was behind him I cannot say, but I have a feeling he 
wasn't directly behind him. Otherwise he probably would've crashed right into 
Snape when Hermione knocked him over or at least caught his attention and 
broken his own eye contact (which wasn't broken until Hermione set him on 
fire.)  

How did they figure each other out if they were both concentrating on Harry? 
Here is my theory: 

Neither of them knew WHILE they were doing the spell WHO was doing the spell. 
After Quirrell got back on his feet there was probably enough time before 
Hermione got to Snape for him to look around and see him continuing to chant. 
At this point was when he probably also saw Hermione doing her handy work. 

How did Snape figure Quirrell out? Process of deduction, Maybe?  He already 
suspected the man (with good reason) of evil doing and it could've dawned on 
him that the spell was severed right when Quirrell was knocked over. 

And if he did know before hand, I have two reasons why he didn't take any 
action against Quirrell: 

1. He knew that if he didn't constantly counter the curse from the start 
Quirrell would've succeeded in throwing Harry off his broom. Quirrell even 
admits to this. Snape probably figured he would have a better chance at 
countering the curse than at trying to find its originator and stopping them. 
Quirrell himself said he could've thrown Harry off sooner if the curse wasn't 
being countered. 

2. Let's say he did decide to directly try to break Quirrell's eye contact. 
By the way I think they were in the stands, I don't think he could just wave 
a hand infront of his eyes or anything. besides, who says that would break 
his eye contact. Having to concentrate with a spell like this one seems to, 
well, take LOADS of concentration which probably involves blocking other 
interferrances (sp?) in some way. That was why it took actually knocking 
Quirrell over to break his eye contact and why Snape didn't notice that he 
had been set on fire or who had done it. I think if Snape hadn't been 
concentrating on the spell he would've definately caught Hermione.  So the 
only way Snape would've been able to break Quirrell's eye contact would be to 
do something drastic. Which, of course, would raise a lot of questions. 

~Cassie~ 


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