Snape's predicament: The DADA jinx and the Unbreakable Vow

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 136643

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pansophy2000"
<pansophy2000 at y...> wrote:

> I disagree here...there was nothing about the vow that specified a 
> time line for Snape to take over should Draco fall into trouble.  
> 
> After all, nothing happened to Snape after Draco's two failed 
> attempts to kill DD with the goblet and necklace.  

Pippin:
Snape was sworn  " if it seems Draco will fail" "to carry out the
deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform" " The 
goblet and the necklace come under the first clause but not the
second, since these crude measures were not ordered by 
Voldemort.  

What Draco was ordered to do was  to take place only when the cabinet
had been repaired and the Death Eaters had gained access to the
castle. As he tells Snape in ch 15, he has a plan and he's going to
have help. 

And the help, it turns out,  has very specific orders about what
Draco is supposed to do.

"No," said the fourth Death Eater sharply. He had a heavy,
brutal-looking face. "We've got orders. Draco's got to do it. Now,
Draco,  and quickly." And then "We've got a problem, Snape," said the 
lumpy  Amycus, whose eye and wand were fixed alike upon 
Dumbledore, "the boy doesn't seem able --"

Those five words invoke the terms  of the vow, because only
then does it seem that Draco will fail to do what he has been ordered
to do.

Pippin