What would Snape have to do....

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 138901

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, <lady.indigo at g...> wrote:
> where do you think the phoenix has gone? JKR says she can't tell
> us. Almost anyone can just come to Hogwarts and claim Fawkes if he's
> just gone to a new owner. Except for the one owner he can have who's
> loyal but on the run at the moment, someone who needs protection
> more than any of them. Snape.

Welcome, nice post, and my goodness what a visual: Harry, 
"meet[ing] Severus Snape along the way" and raising his wand,
intending to maim or murder him, prevented only by the sudden
appearance of Fawkes :popping: in to shield Snape and get in Harry's
way. (I also like this as a mirror image of the scene where Buckbeak
flies at Snape to protect Harry.) What would Harry do? A whiplashing
reevaluation on the subject of Snape? Assume Fawkes had been co-opted
by Voldemort? (Can an animal be Imperio!ed? The spider could.) Suspect
Fawkes wasn't Fawkes but someone or something transfigured or
polyjuiced to look like Fawkes? (The polyjuice potion,
containing a single phoenix feather...)

"And if I meet Severus Snape along the way," he added, "so much the
better for me, so much the worse for him."

Then I had to go back and find this. Harry was remarkably unspecific
about what he would do when and if he encountered Snape. Contrast it
with what Harry said about Snape teaching DADA and the jinx on the
job: "Personally, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed* for another
death..." (Harry got one, didn't he...just not the one he hoped for! I
can't help thinking this is another illustration of irony, as in "Be
careful what you wish for" and "Do unto (and wish upon) others as you
would have others do unto you (and those you love)."

Sandy aka msbeadsley

*Wizards cross their fingers? How interesting!