Interpretation (was Re: Dumbledore's "peaceful expression"??

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 141997

 > Neri:
> Why do you believe the castle steps are high above the forest? Anyway,
> they are not on the castle steps. They're on the grounds walking
> towards the forest: "The sun was falling towards the tops of the trees
> in the Forbidden Forest now as Hermione marched purposefully across
> the grass, Umbridge Jogging to keep up." (Chapter 33).
> 
> In any case this is splitting hairs. If we stretch everything to save
> Snape's name we might conclude it was only 3.5 hours.
> 
Jumping in and quoting just this little bit.  

I played with the time line myself and came up with a reasonable way for Snape to have 
spent those 3.5 hours.

Starting from the moment that he leaves Umbridge's office....

1. He contacts 12 Grimauld place (we don't know how) and detemines that Sirius is there.  
Since we don't know how, we can't really know how long it took.  But say it takes half an 
hour--long enough for Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna to hex their captors and escape.

2. He returns to the office to find it empy.  At this point, he doesn't know where anyone in 
the office is.  The Forbiddin Forest isn't the conclusion I'd jump to.  If I were Snape, I'd 
start looking in Filch's office, the dungeons... places Umbridge might place six students 
for punishment.  Eventually, he comes upon the Inquisatorial Squad (maybe in the Hospital 
Wing?  Maybe in the Slytherin Common Room?  And he learns from them that Hermione 
and Harry took Umbridge into the Forest to look for some weapon.  This could easily take 
an hour.

3. He starts into the Forest to look for them (probably wondering why the heck they're now 
looking for a weapon.)  By this time, it's probably getting dark and it could take him a long 
time to track them to the spot where they met the Centaurs.  Which would be very 
puzzling, especially since he probably doesn't know about Grawp. One possibility might be 
that the Centaurs took them all.  Even if he didn't go on a wild goose chase after the 
Centaurs, it would take a bit of time to figure out that they left on thestrals instead.  So, 
this could easily take another hour and a half to two hours.

4. Once he figures it out, he has to get back to the castle to contact the Order (using the 
fireplace in Umbridge's office, which is the only one not being watched.)  Getting back 
takes time, probably at least half an hour (we're talking about a hurried pace through a 
forest at night).

1==.5 hours
2==1 hour
3==1.5-2 hours
4==.5 hours

That's 3.5-4 hours.  Without getting any dinner, either!

What I don't understand, though, is why he'd go back into the Forest, unless he wanted to 
be sure about the Centaurs.  Which leads to the question of why he didn't help Umbridge.  
But then again, why would he?



Montavilla