Snape's timing and the supposedly missing five hours (Was: Interpretation)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 142028

Pippin wrote:
> > You determined these endpoints by consulting an almanac or
something similar, but would JKR bother to do that? Nowhere else in
canon does she approach times or dates with that kind of
versimilitude. I guess she would simply rely on her subjective opinion
that summer nights in northern Scotland are relatively short. 

Neri responded:
> JKR has lived several years in Scotland and she knows that sunset in
the summer there is around 10pm (using DST now). <snip>
This establishes that in JKR's privet clock Umbridge takes Harry to
the forest before 9:00.<snip> Conclusion: when it's important to the
plot JKR is consistent and exact about the timing. The relation
between dinnertime, the sun's position and the time of sunset is
consistent over both PoA and OotP.
> 
> What we indeed don't know from canon is when JKR thinks is the first
light of dawn. However, I simply can't believe she's so ignorant and
math-challenged to think it's as early as 1:00am (in realty it's
around 3:00am using DST). So even in JKR's privet clock it should be
*at least* 4 hours, probably more than that. <snip>

Carol responds:
First, I'm not sure what you mean by "JKR's privet clock." Do you mean
her personal (private) internal clock? Privet is a shrub, as in Privet
Drive, unless it has another meaning in British English which I, as an
American, am missing. Can you clarify your intended meaning here? Thanks.

That aside, I'll grant you that she has figured out the timing of
*Harry's* actions with some precision, even though this is the same
woman who thinks that Charlie Weasley, the star Seeker without whom
Gryffindor couldn't win a match until Harry arrived, can be two
(changed to three) years older than Percy and yet Gryffindor hasn't
won a match in seven years. (Huh?) I won't go into the other examples
of her maths inadequacies, but we all know they exist and she admits
them herself. Even if, realizing this deficiency, she sat down with an
almanac to figure out the timing of *Harry's* actions, chances are she
has *not* figured out exactly how Snape's actions (which she touches
on only to show why DD still trusts Snape) would fit the requirements
of the plot. She doesn't even seem to notice that it would make more
sense for him to go into the forest *before* contacting the Order the
second time. (DD, being highly intelligent, would see this as well, as
would the relentlessly logical Snape. I see no other way that he could
have figured out that Harry and his friends were indeed gone.) 

What JKR needs is for Harry to get into the forest with Hermione and
Umbridge, ditch Umbridge, be rejoined by their DA friends, fly to the
MoM, be met by the DEs, fight the DEs, be rescued by the Order just in
time, then have Harry fight Bellatrix and have Voldie arrive followed
by DD just in time to fight him. This plot requires that the Order be
delayed and that DD be delayed even more so that his arrival roughly
coincides with Voldie's (accomplished through his talk with Kreacher
at Order HQ). If Harry and his friends had arrived with the Order
already there, they would either have watched the fight from the
sidelines or been scolded and sent home. Somehow, that wasn't quite
climactic enough.

For Snape, the requirements are to discover that Sirius is not missing
or in danger, to discover Harry's whereabouts and figure out that he
has somehow managed to leave the forest without a broom him and
without knowing how to Apparate, to search the forest when he realizes
Harry hasn't returned (a dangerous undertaking given the present mood
of the Centaurs), to contact DD (who otherwise would not have known to
go to Order HQ), and to re-contact the Order, telling Sirius to wait
for DD and the others to go to the MoM. Although JKR doesn't say so,
he almost certainly has to deal with the hexed Slytherins as well.
(And there's the small matter of his duties as a teacher. I rather
think the poor man didn't have much time that night for grading
Potions essays.) We don't know how he communicated with the Order: If
by Patronus, it was probably rather less quick and efficient than by
sticking his head in Umbridge's fireplace, which I assume he did when
he talked with the Order members rather than Sirius Black alone. 

*The plot* requires Snape to contact the Order at about the time the
kids are fighting the DEs (setting aside whatever time it takes them
to get organized and arrive at the DoM, into which you can't Apparate
directly). It's clear from the sketchy and somewhat inconsistent
details of Snape's side of the action that JKR has not thought it
through nearly as fully as she has thought through the fully enacted
Harry scenes. It's also clear, as has been repeatedly stated on this
list, that neither Dumbledore nor Bellatrix considered the Order's
arrival to be excessively delayed. (Fortunately for Snape, Bella
doesn't know who sent them!)

In any case, there are plenty of reasons why Snape would not have sent
the Order to the MoM quite as soon as you think he should have done,
one of which was figuring out that Harry actually believed the vision
that he, Snape, knew to be false, as well as realizing that it was
actually possible for him to have left Hogwarts. Did the anti-wizard
Centaurs tell him this? Did he use Legilimency on them? Or did he just
"put two and two together as only Snape could" using clues he found in
the forest? However you look at it, Snape's job wasn't easy and could
well have taken as much time as it took Harry and company to get to
London and fight the DEs.

And if it didn't, blame the requirements of JKR's plot, not Snape,
without whose action in sending the Order to the MoM, Harry and his
friends would be dead.

Carol, who's not even sure that JKR is aware of the much more
important missing 24 hours in SS/PS and is certain she sees no
"missing five hours" regarding Snape