When did Snape attempt to save the Potters? WAS: Re: Harry IS Snape.

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 141394

> Alla wrote previously:
> > Where else is is stated for a fact that Snape made an attempt to 
> > save Potters? Pretty please?
<snip>
> Saraquel:
> Well there's an interesting quote from PoA (UK ed p265)where Snape 
> enters the room in the shrieking shack -
> <snip of the quote that can be read UPTHREAD>
> Up thread I wrote something on this.  I quoted the whole speech 
> because it needs to be seen in context.  The implication to me, is 
> that Snape personally warned James that Sirius was a spy (that he 
> was mistaken is not the point here)and in Snape's eyes James 
ignored 
> the advice and ended up dead.  I proposed that Snape sent a 
message, 
> probably via his patronus, telling the Potter's that Voldemort 
knew 
> where they were and was coming for them, and that their secret 
> keeper had blabbed.  Snape would have thought that Sirius was the 
> secret keeper. 
> 
> OK, this is interpretation and not strictly stated in canon but I 
> think it's a pretty reasonable assumption.
> 


Alla:

Thanks, Saraquel and to everybody else who responded. I completely 
agree with you that it IS a reasonable assumption to make that Snape 
attempted to warn James about Sirius . What stops me from being 
completely on board with it is the mechanics of how he would have 
done it, I think.

Carol downthread theorised that Snape could not have used his 
Patronus to warn James, because he was not an Order member and I 
actually agree with her.

What I am not sure about is whether Snape could have used any other 
communication means as Carol suggested using owl, because he is 
supposed to be pressed for time when  he issues this warning, no?

I mean if he indeed attempted to warn James, wouldn't that have 
happened AFTER Voldemort cracked Peter, meaning that Voldemort 
already knew their location?

I would think that Voldie would like to go there right away, 
personally ASAP.

Another reason why I am not completely positive that this passage 
can be interpreted as advance warning  is because I could also read 
it as Snape postfactum bitterness about James death  as in  Snape 
thinking "I've always known that Black cannot be trusted, Potter did 
not and now he paid for it" or something like that, but after James 
was already dead.

Oh, another thought - did Snape even know  that Sirius was supposed 
to be Potters' Secret Keeper? Because if he did not , it makes even 
less sense to me that he would have try to warn Potters that Secret 
Keeper blabbed. Although I guess that since Sirius offered as 
rationale for choosing Peter as secret keeper that everybody would 
expect him to be the one and come after him, it would have been easy 
enough for Snape to guess if he wanted to.

So, again, thank you everybody and just to be sure this is the only 
quote that was being interpreted as Snape attempted to save Potters, 
right?

JMO,

Alla