Snape's part in death of Sirius - Revised Time

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 108055

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> 
> --- nkafkafi <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
> 
> >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.


> Magda: 
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> I'm not convinced by Neri's arguments or by the assertion that JKR
> did such a detailed timeline.  There are lots of sloppy details in
> the series that show that JKR could do a better job of tightening
> things up or at least get a sterner editor.
> 

Asian_lovr2:

Well, I was planning a long post to this thread but Magda pretty much
stated my case. So all I can add is the dreaded and forbidden; I
agree. Although, hopefully, I can add a tiny bit more than that.


> Magda continues:

> ... there might have been more hours between Snape leaving
> the Umbridge's office and contacting Sirius and his second 
> contacting of the Order members than others have assumed.  ...,
> Potter shouts his weird statement, Snape responds, leaves and checks
> on Sirius.  Sirius is at GP.  Okay.  So no one's in any danger.  
> Snape goes back to grading papers or essays or whatever.
> 
> There's really no reason for Snape to assume that something 
> different was going to happen that night or that Harry was going to 
> try to get to London.  


Asian_lovr2:

This I think is the critical part of the timeline. From Snape's point
of view there is no reason to panic. And remember, all the information
Snape has is - (Chapt 23 - Out of The Fire)

- Umbridge and the I-Squad have captured Harry and friends
- Umbridge wants Veritaserum
- Umbridge 'found Potter using my/her fire to communicate with a
person or Persons unknown'.
- Umbridge want to interogate Harry
- Harry says "He's got Padfoot! ... He's got Padfoot at the place
where it's hidden!"

That's it. Whatever Snape says or does has to be constructed on that
bank of information. 

First, I'm sure Snape gave it some thought. He surely ponder the
meaning and significants of what Harry said, and weighed the need for
action. Then Snape contacts the Order and finds that Sirius is safe
and relatively sound. *I* believe Snape conveyed some basic
information about what was going on; although to what extent I can't
say. But there is really nothing going on that would warrant even a
hot head like Sirius doing anything. Harry thought Sirius was in
danger; Sirius was not. So, business as usual.


> Magda continues:
>
> After all, Umbridge caught him using the fireplace floo as a 
> telephone, not a portal (this is one of my favourite dumb!Harry
> moments in OOTP: he's desperate to GET to London but when he's in
> front of Umbridge's fireplace and can floo there he just uses it
> like a telephone.  Amazing!).  
> 

Asian_lovr2:

Here I take acception to this secondary point. Umbridge's office is
just as restricted as all the other fireplaces in Hogwarts. The
difference is that the Floo Regulation Department is not monitoring
her private office fireplace. Floo Regulation is not monitoring but
Hogwarts is still restricting.

The overal series implies strongly and repeatedly that Hogwarts is
protected from entrance and exit by magical means. Dumbledore is the
exception, since he is Headmaster, he controls the protections and the
exceptions.


> Magda Continues:
>
> So a few hours go by and then a bedraggled Draco comes pounding
> along the corridor to report what happened. ...  Cause for
> concern?  Definitely, on the other hand Umbridge has a wand and 
> she's an adult. ...  He'll give it some time and wait for them to 
> come back.  
> 
> Okay, there's STILL no reason to assume that Harry and Co. have gone
> to London.  Surely they wouldn't be THAT reckless and foolish?  


Asian_lovr2:

I'm inclined to agree that Draco came to Snape, or that Snape heard
that something had occurred in Umbridge's office from a third party
and that lead him back to Umbridge's office. I don't think Snape would
go back uninvited, and I don't see him concerned enough to linger for
an extended period of time listening outside the door. Harry is in
Umbridge's custody, everything is under control. 

This I think is the key unresolved part of the timeline. From the
perspective of the Order, all Snape had to do was tell Harry that
Sirius was OK. From the perspective of Snape, Sirius was at home and
Harry was at school with the additional bonus that Harry was also in
trouble; so all was right with the world. 

Nobody had to do anything at this time, and they didn't. 

At some point Draco told Snape about Harry going with Umbridge, and
Harry's friends escaping. How long it took for this to happen we don't
know. An additional point, Draco certainly knows Ron escaped, but does
Draco know for a fact that Ron & friends went into the forest? How
long did it take to determine that with a degree of certainty? Did the
go back to Gryffindor tower and check? Did the check the Great Hall?
How long did the look before they reached their conclusion? Of course,
we don't really know any of those answer, but I still say relative to
the timeline, they are key questions.

So now we have reach some point in time when Snape knows Harry,
Hermione, and Umbridge are stomping about the forest. He suspects that
Ron and friends may have gone to look for him. Certainly this is a
time for GREAT ANNOYANCE; that Potter kid is breaking rules right and
left. But not really a time to panic. They are all in the forest,
Umbridge is there, eventually they will all come back.


> Magda concludes:
>
> But perhaps Potter is insisting on talking to Sirius face to face. 
> Perhaps they've succeeded in shaking off Umbridge and are making
> their way to Hogsmeade to use an unsupervised floo in the village. 
> But that means they're more likely to be wandering around lost in 
> the woods. Better go out and find the little twits.  To be on the 
> safe side, contact the Order and let them know what might be 
> happening in the MoM.  He does and off the Order goes to the rescue.
> 
> So I really believe that Snape thought the biggest danger Harry was
> in was from something in the forest.  That's why he took so long to
> make the second call.  He didn't know Harry was trying to GET to
> London rather than just CALL there.
> 
> Magda

Asian_lovr2:

In the first hour after Snape finds out the whole lot of them are out
of bounds stomping about the woods, I suspect he was annoyed. After
the next hour, he would probably become concerned. An hour after that,
he would probably become worried. During the next hour Snape probably
did a lot of thinking about all the things that could be happening in
the woods; Centaur attack, Umbridge killed them all, they all killed
Umbridge, maybe Harry is still trying to contact Sirius, maybe Harry
still thinks Sirius is in trouble, maybe he's trying to find some way
to get to London, maybe he's actually gone so far as to try to get to
London, maybe after all this frustrated thinking, Snape decided he
better not take any chances. 

Now Snape has to contact the Order and explain to them a relatively
far fetched story. Harry, last seen in the woods with a teacher, May
have thought he needed to get to London, may have found some highly
unlikely method of getting to the Minstry of Magic, and may have found
some highly unlikely way to do it in a reasonable amount of time. It
is, after all, in the neighborhood of 450 miles, at 100mph that a 4.5
hour trip; at 200mph, it's a 2.25 hour trip. Even if he traveled by
likely magical means, from deep inside the forest, it would reasonably
take him a couple hours to get out and find an unrestricted Floo
fireplace. I seriously doubted whether anyone considered they would
capture and fly half a dozen Therstrals.

So the timeline to the point where Snape knows everyone is in the
forest is shifted to a later time. Then Snape, assuming everything is
still reasonably under control, waits. With each progressive hour, he
becomes more concerned until he becomes worried enough to consider the
possibilities. After enough thinking, he concludes the worst, and
contacts the Order, after which he /intends/ to search the forest.

In the latest post by Neri/nkafkafi, we have the most recently revised
timeline. 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/108037

Most of which is pretty close. Neri has Snape's first contact at
8:15pm, the Order arriving at the Dept of Mysteries at 1:45am, and
Harry back in Dumbledore's office at 3:00am. With the exception of the
last one, those times seem a little off. I would put first contact a
little later, and the Orders arrival a little earlier, but haven't
worked out my own detailed timetable yet. 

It should be obvious by now from what I've said, that I don't see much
wrong with Snape's actions or his timeline. I think my verion and
Magda's easily accounts for the roughly 5 hour delay. I will admit
that there may have been some delay because Snape's a jerk and hates
Harry, but not enough to be considered negligent.

For what it's worth.

Steve/asian_lovr2