If DD knows, then why...? [was: Snape, trying very hard not to smile?]

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94006

> SUSAN:
<snip>
> I am left w/ the question that Potioncat has alluded to:  Do others 
> think Snape was trying to discover whether Harry is a 
> Parselmouth...or do you think he was just being mean...or setting up 
> some other "test" for Harry?

Carol:
I don't think Snape is ever "just being mean." There's a method in his
meanness, so to speak. I don't know what he was attempting to discover
by having Draco cast serpensortia, but it must have had some purpose.
Maybe he simply thought it was an appropriate spell for a Slytherin to
cast and one that Harry would need to watch out for at some point. I
don't see how he could have known about the basilisk or guessed that
Harry spoke Parseltongue, but he certainly realized the significance
when Harry did so. Whether Snape knew anything about young Tom Riddle
or not, he certainly knew that LV was a Parseltongue and that the gift
(or is it a curse?) was very rare.  So believe it or not, I'm on the
fence with this one. (Scoot over, Sue! Make room for me!)


 Potioncat wondered:
 > Why do you think DD knew Tom Riddle opened the Chamber?  I'm sure 
 > he knew Hagrid didn't but what did he know for certain? How would 
 > he know it was a basilisk? Perhaps he tried to talk to Myrtle, but 
 > didn't learn anything. Harry had a difficult enough time getting 
 > her to talk and she may not have talked to a professor.  For that 
 > matter, DD may have been hampered in his investigation in the 
 > early days by Headmaster Dippit 
> 
> 
> SUSAN:
> Yes, I think these are good questions as well. Is there something 
> in canon which makes people *sure* DD knew Tom opened the Chamber 
> and what was within it, or is it the "all-knowing DD" assumption?  
> <snip>

Carol:
Dumbledore may have suspected that Tom had opened the Chamber, but
surely he would have testified against him at Hagrid's expulsion
hearing if he had conclusive evidence. Instead, Hagrid's wand was
broken and he was expelled. All Dumbledore could do was get him a post
as gamekeeper (which begs the question of how a Transfiguration
teacher who was not yet headmaster could hire a thirteen-year-old
gamekeeper, and what happened to his predecessor, Ogg, but I won't go
there). Meanwhile Tom got a special award for services to the school,
killed his father and grandparents over the summer holiday, and
returned to Hogwarts to become Head Boy. Did DD, who reads the Muggle
papers, suspect him of that murder, too, and yet say nothing? Or maybe
no one in the WW cared to listen because the dead people were just
Muggles? I'm starting to find this train of thought disturbing.

To return to the point, I think Dumbledore suspected that Tom had
opened the Chamber and may even have suspected that it contained a
basilisk (the snake/Slytherin connection combined with the
petrification of the students) but could prove nothing and so he did
nothing. In CoS, when Mrs. Norris is petrified and the writing appears
on the wall saying that the Chamber has been opened, he only says that
Mrs. Norris is not dead but petrified and that no second year could
have performed such advanced Dark Magic. Possibly he communicates his
suspicions to Snape that the heir of Slytherin has returned to Snape,
who would be on the alert for a Parseltongue who could open the
Chamber, but he seems to have kept any suspicions that Riddle/
Voldemort had returned to himself at that point.

When Colin Creevey is petrified, McGonagall asks what the melted
camera lens means and DD answers, "It means that the Chamber of
Secrets is indeed open again," and when she says, "But, Albus. . .
surely . . . *who*?" he responds, "The question is not *who*, the
question is *how*" (CoS Am. ed. 181-82). So it sounds as if he knows
at that point that Riddle/Voldemort in some form has somehow opened
the Chamber, but it's still not clear whether he knows that the
creature is a basilisk. McGonagall, OTOH, is clearly clueless. For
much of the rest of the book, DD is not even present. We learn at the
end that he was one of the few people who knew that Tom Riddle was
Voldemort--no indication of whether he already knew about the basilisk
unless you count ssending a phoenis and a sword to help Harry. 

Well, I thought I knew where I was going on this post, but now I've
succeeded in confusing myself. At any rate, I started out thinking
that DD didn't know that Tom Riddle had opened the Chamber. Now I'm
leaning the other way--he either knewor strongly suspected but had no
proof.

Coming to my rescue, SSS?

Carol