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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