Snape's part in death of Sirius
pippin_999
foxmoth at qnet.com
Mon Jul 26 15:43:40 UTC 2004
No: HPFGUIDX 107738
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "theadimail"
<theadimail at y...> wrote:
> Hi,
> I read the last portions of Book5 yesterday and the actions of
> Snape looked to me as highly suspicious.
> According to Dumbledore, Snape first alerted the crowd at the
> Grimmauld Place that Harry might be thinking that Sirius was
taken hostage by Voldemort at the ministry and then went to the
Forest for searching Harry. Now this explanation raises several
doubts.
> Firstly, why did Snape take so long to alert the Order?
Assuming that the guys who appeared at the ministry for Harry's
resuce started on the job immediately without dilly-dallying
makes one ask, why were they so late? <
Snape contacts the Order twice.
"He, like you, attempted to contact Sirius at once[...]Professor
Snape found that Sirius was alive and safe at Grimmauld Place."
"When, however, you did not return from your trip into the Forest
with Dolores Umbridge, Professor Snape grew worried that you
still believed Sirius to be a captive of Lord Voldemort's. He
alerted certain Order members at once. " --OOP 37
The delay arose because Snape found Sirius alive and well at
Grimmauld Place. Assuming Snape next found the hexed
Slytherins in the DADA office, they would tell him that Potter and
his pals had been caught attempting to use the Floo network
and had then taken Umbridge into the forest to show her where
the 'weapon' was.
Snape would conclude that Harry had been trying to contact
Grimmauld Place, and that he must have failed, since if he had
succeeded he would no longer believe that Sirius was captive.
Snape would recognize that 'the weapon' was a subterfuge
directed at trapping Umbridge. Snape would figure that if
Umbridge pressed Harry too far, she would be the one in need
of rescuing, and of course he would be right.
So, allowing Harry an hour to walk into the forest and deal with
Umbridge, and another hour to make his way back, it would be at
least two hours before Snape began wondering why Harry hadn't
returned.
At that point, when Harry was probably at the Ministry already,
Snape contacted the Order for the second time. Those who were
there went to the Ministry at once. Snape asked that Sirius stay
behind to notify Dumbledore of what had happened.
Snape would ask himself why, if Harry had failed to contact
Grimmauld Place before, he hadn't come back to the school and
tried again. But if Harry did succeed in contacting
Grimmauld Place then someone at Headquarters had deceived
him. Sirius is the one person it can't have been, therefore Sirius
is the one person Snape can trust to stay behind and tell
Dumbledore what had happened.
Of course there was't time to explain all this to Sirius.
Sirius, knowing nothing of Snape's suspicions, delegated the
task of informing Dumbledore to Kreacher, and went to the
Ministry to save Harry.
Like Dumbledore, I refuse to believe that Snape's taunts had
anything to do with that. Sirius thought that Harry was worth dying
for, period. Harry can't bear to think of that, and has shifted the
blame to Snape.
Pippin
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