Snape's part in death of Sirius

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 107951

Pippin:
Isn't it one of the points of OOP that it is sometimes your duty to
stay put, even if you know your allies are in danger?

Neri:
Ah, but is it?

Pippin:
The delay is JKR's fault, not Snape's--her time line has some
holes in it. 

Neri:
<LOL> Yes, that's the ticket. If it's between JKR and Snape, then 
clearly it must be JKR who is at fault.

Pippin:
What's unaccounted for is the time between five pm,
when Harry has his vision, and the escape from the DADA office.
Would it really take five hours to set up the diversion? I can't see
why, but that's the way the canon crumbles.

Neri:
I didn't understand why you think the escape from the DADA office was 
so late? What is the canon for it? In my timeline:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/107933 
it is at 2000, which seems quite reasonable to me. 

Pippin:
There may be a similar hole in the Ministry battle. Put the Order's
arrival before 0100 and the battle seems to last inordinately long.
Put it after 0100 and you have to explain what the Order or
Snape were doing all that time. But I can account for three or four
hours of Snape's time easily enough.


1700 -- Harry has his vision

1700-2200
The DA clears the corridors for a five minute window in the DADA
office
Harry speaks to Kreacher at Grimmauld Place
Umbridge ambushes Harry
Umbridge sends Draco for Snape
Snape arrives and is put on probation for not supplying
veritaserum to Umbridge
Harry and Hermione leave with Umbridge
2200? --one hour before sunset -- Harry, Hermione and
Umbridge enter the forest
--people are still eating in the Great Hall (!?)
--Snape contacts the Order for the first time
2210? --Ginny, Luna, Ron and Neville overpower the I-squad
2300? -- sunset -- Harry leaves the forest via thestral It took 50
minutes for Harry and Ron to walk from the edge of the forest to
Aragog's lair in CoS, the same path taken by Harry and
Hermione with Umbridge, so this accords approximately with my
estimate of one hour in OOP.
2400? -- (the witching hour) Harry arrives at the Ministry. Can a
Thestral travel 450 miles an hour? A Firebolt can accelerate to
175 mph in 10 seconds, presumably its top speed is even
faster, and a thestral is faster still

0400? -- Harry returns to Hogwarts

Neri:
I like it how much our timelines are similar. I actually posted a bit 
after you, but I promise I didn't see your timeline before posting 
(it was a lot of work answering Steve). The main difference is that 
my time for Harry and Co leaving the forest is, I believe, more 
accurate: 2200, sunset time, as opposed to your 2300. This difference 
is countered by the difference in flight time, which is pretty 
arbitrary. And I still don't see why entering the Forest so late.

Pippin:
My answer to Neri's challenge needs to account in a logical,
rational, non negligent way, for Snape's time. What was Snape
doing?

First he contacted the Order. My guess is he sent a portrait
message from his quarters in the castle to Phineas in
Dumbledore's office, and Phineas then contacted the Order.

Snape could have Phineas check to see if Harry had contacted
the Order. Sirius would be positive he hadn't--he didn't use the
Mirror, did he? Kreacher would lie, if asked, even to Sirius
himself. He's already had to punish himself for wounding
Buckbeak, anyway.

Snape does not yet have any reason to think that Harry is on his
way to the Ministry. Snape is *not* going to try to explain the
whole topsecret mindlink business to the Order members at
second or third hand. Lupin's the only one who might
understand what he was talking about. Besides the vision is
*false*; who knows what Voldemort is up to? He's already set up
one Order member who was caught breaking into the DOM. A
rescue party would face the same danger, and as far as Snape
knows there's nobody who needs rescuing. None of this would
be instantaneous, so the remaining DA members would have
time to overcome the Slytherins and escape the castle before
Snape turned his attention back to what's going on in the DADA
office.

In GoF and OOP the Slytherins get hexed just after lunchtime,
and are still hexed when the HEx arrives in London, so the
scenario that Snape did nothing and did not find out what
happened until the hexes wore off and the Slytherins freed
themselves seems unlikely.

But Snape had been put on probation and ordered to leave
Umbridge's office. If he interfered again, he could be sacked
and turned out of the castle. Snape would have approached with
caution, as he did in the Shrieking Shack, disabling the stealth
sensors, unlocking the door without benefit of Sirius's magic
knife, and finally discovering the carnage within. He would see
that Harry, the DA and Umbridge weren't there. Could we allow
an hour for that? Depends on how good Snape is at
housebreaking.

Neri:
I'm impressed by the level of detail, Pippin, but excuse me at this 
point: why would the door be locked at all? I'd assume Ron and Co 
left with so much hurry, I wouldn't be surprised if they left the 
door ajar.

Pippin:
He would have to dehex the Slytherins and/or get them to the
Hospital Wing before they could tell him anything. That could
take an hour or two all by itself. 

Neri:
Pippin, I'm really surprised you are not familiar with this useful 
spell:
-----------------------------------------------
GoF, Ch. 35 :
Dumbledore forced the man's mouth open and poured three drops inside 
it. Then he pointed his wand at the mans chest and said, "Ennervate."
	Crouch's son opened his eyes
------------------------------------------------
So simple and quick. And Crouch Jr. was hit with "Stupefy", which is 
the same that Ron used on several of the I-Squad. And when DD does 
this spell, Snape is standing right beside him. Can you see our dear 
Severus failing to master it? (even if he has to train on poor 
Filch). In fact, the DEs must know that one too, because they recover 
so quickly after getting hit at the DoM battle. And Snape was a DE 
too.  



Pippin:
He might have to argue with
Madame Pomfrey about whether they should be allowed to talk
to him. Then he'd have to make sense of what they were saying.
He'd have to pretend to be interested in the 'weapon' and not
particularly interested in saving any Gryffindor skins, or it would
look suspicious.

<snip more detailed descriptions>

Presumably the Order couldn't apparate directly to a secure area
of the Ministry. They'd arrive in the hall of the fountain and have
to travel down to the DoM, overpower any security the Death
Eaters themselves had set up, and locate Harry, who was no
longer in the Hall of Prophecy where they might logically expect
him to be, but in the Death Chamber.


Neri: 
So what you did is basically this:
You delayed going into the forest to 2200, which is sunset time 
according to 
http://www.onlineweather.com/v4/uk/sun/Edinburgh.html#June 
while JKR writes that at that time "the sun was falling towards the 
tops of the trees". 2200 also seems awfully late for dinner, which we 
know was also held at the time Harry was leaving for the forest. This 
delay enables you to shave 2 hrs from the period Snape has to account 
for, relative to my time of 2000, which IMO is much more reasonable. 
Regarding the other end of this period, the time the Order members 
made it to the DoM, you are a bit vague, but I think your reasoning 
is close to mine. What was left of the period you had to account for, 
you filled mainly with an activity that can be replaced by a simple 
and instantaneous spell.

Looking at this again, I don't think JKR has any holes in her 
timeline. In fact, the more I read the canon, the more I am convinced 
her timing is carefully planned. I would not be surprised if she 
actually looked at the same sunrise/sundown table I cited above. 
While not actually naming the hours, she gives us quite enough 
consistent detail to convict our poor Severus with nearly criminal 
negligence. I know, she's generally not very good with numbers and 
times, but I think in this case it is not she who is at fault. It's 
Snape.

Neri