Snape's part in death of Sirius

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 107974

> Asian_lovr2:
> At that point, Harry believe Sirius has been taken
> to the Ministry by Voldemort. Snape intent is to verify that Sirius 
is at Grimmauld Place which he does. However, we don't know 
the exact contents of that conversation. Remember at this time 
it's about 6pm; still daylight, and the Ministry is probably still 
occupied, so the whole idea is pretty far fetched.<
> 
> Neri:
> Actually my estimation would be more like 8pm. We know it 
was dinner  when Harry, Hermione and Umbridge left for the 
forest, and "the sun  was falling towards the tops of the trees" 
(Ch. 33) 

Pippin:
We know it was 5:00 PM when Harry had his vision.
==
"But...Harry, think about this. It's five o'clock in the
afternoon...the Ministry of Magic must be full of workers...how 
would Voldemort and Sirius have got in without being seen? 
Harry...they're probably the two most wanted wizards in the world. 
..you think they could get into a building full of Aurors 
undetected?"
==

The next time point we have is Harry's departure via thestral 
"...they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and 
soared out into a blood-red sunset"

JKR then confuses things by stating four paragraphs later that 
"Twilight fell: the sky was turning to a light dusky purple littered 
with silver stars..."  JKR is using the term 'twilight' loosely,
here, 
as the sun  has already set. It's full dark by the time they reach 
theMinistry, but the sun would set somewhat sooner in London 
than in Northern Scotland. 



Shaun? Care to give us some times for all this? I'm assuming 
it's at or near the summer solstice and that Hogwarts is well 
north of Edinburgh. That would put sunset after 10:00 PM, but I'm 
not sure by how much. 

Now we have to work  back from the sunset. We don't know how 
long the encounter with the centaurs took, but it can't have been 
too long or the rest of the DA would have caught up before it was 
over. Harry, Umbridge and Hermione can't have spent more than 
50 minutes walking into the forest, or they'd have reached 
Aragog's lair, unless they were going considerably slower than 
twelve year old Ron and Harry in CoS (canon).

Hermione told Harry he couldn't expect to have more than five 
minutes to talk to Sirius. Put it all together with the time it took
to clear the corridors, and have the altercation with Umbridge 
and it still doesn't work out to 5 PM.

In the Potterverse, poetry will always trump physics. JKR wanted 
the vision at five pm so that the Ministry would be crowded, and 
people would be eating dinner at Hogwarts (and not cluttering up 
the corridors shortly thereafter),  she wanted Harry to take off into 
a blood red sunset, and she wanted his darkest hour to be 
literally just before dawn. 

It's a toy universe, as I've said before. Some  things really work 
and others are just painted on. 

But one more point in favor of Snape; he wouldn't want to tell 
Sirius that Harry was in trouble unless he was sure it was really 
true. He might guess that whatever he said, Sirius would insist 
on leaving the protection of Grimmauld Place to come to Harry's 
aid. The last thing Snape needs is for Sirius to come roaring up 
to Hogwarts to challenge Umbridge. He might have become a 
hostage for real--or more likely, Dementor fodder. 

> 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.<

Ron might, but Ginny wouldn't. She's had some experience at 
this kind of thing, sneaking off with the twins' brooms and 
covering up her absences and her theft of the diary in CoS.  
(Ron: Let's go! Ginny: Not yet, Ron. We need to use a few more 
spells on them first...we don't want them waking up too quickly.  
Let's see, what are those two you shouldn't use together? 
Furnunculus and Jelly-legs? Excellent, *that* should take a while 
to sort out. Close the door, Ron, we don't want Filch finding 
them.)

Umbridge's security spells would reset themselves 
automatically, at least the ones on the obstacles in PS/SS and 
the ones at Grimmauld Place do. I don't suppose Umbridge set 
them up herself. She probably got her pet Aurors to do it for her.

Pippin