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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 142076

> Neri:
> First, there's no need for an almanac. You just google "Edinburgh" 
> (or any other nearby city), "sunset" and "sunrise" and you 
> immediately get several weather and astronomy sites that would supply 
> you with the numbers. She doesn't even need to be so exact as to go 
> for any specific year.
> 

Pippin:
You do, because you're internet savvy. Until very recently, JKR was not. The death of Sirius 
is Harry's darkest hour and was most likely imagined as taking place just before dawn for 
that reason, long before JKR discovered the online world. According to what she says, she 
never even knew there were whole web sites devoted to Sirius until just after she'd written 
his death.

Neri:
> Secondly, why would JKR bother to plot the timing of Harry's actions 
> in such a consistent way? 

Pippin:
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The dramatic confrontation at the end of each book 
*always* takes place after nightfall. I would think the metaphoric value of having 
Dumbledore finally deciding to enlighten Harry as the sun comes up would be obvious.

 
> Neri:
> If Snape deduced Harry could catch a thestral and fly to the DoM, as 
> Dumbledore said he did, then IMHO it would be *much* more logical for 
> him to warn the Order about this before he goes to the forest. This 
> way both possibilities (Harry in the DoM and Harry in the forest) are 
> covered immediately, and especially the more dangerous of the two.


Pippin:
I'm not sure you're interpreting this correctly. According to Dumbledore, Snape grew 
worried that Harry still believed that Sirius was a captive of Lord Voldemort's and deduced 
where Harry had gone when he didn't return from the forest. Dumbledore doesn't say 
anything about thestrals -- Snape doesn't need to know *how* Harry's planning to get to 
the Ministry, just that it's vital that the Order intercept him should he get there.

It's the reason Snape doesn't become concerned sooner that the reader is left to wonder 
about. Your hypothesis, as I understand it, is that Snape *was* concerned, but put off 
notifying the Order as long as he dared because he wanted Harry to fall into Voldemort's 
trap. In that scenario, of course Snape would have to have realized that Harry was 
travelling via thestral, because how else could he have expected Harry to reach  the 
Ministry before the Order? But there's no canon that he knew or could have deduced it 
without going into the forest, which according to Dumbledore, he didn't intend to do until 
after he'd notified the Order. It seems absurd that Snape would lie about something like 
that when there is a whole castle full of ghosts and portraits who could be keeping tabs on 
his movements.  

Alternatively, you hypothesize that Snape should have become concerned as soon as he 
knew Umbridge had gone into the forest with Harry regardless of whether he thought 
Harry was trying to get to the ministry or not. But why?

Umbridge was ready to perform an unforgivable curse in front of witnesses -- she has no 
fear of the law, so there's nothing she could have done to Harry in the forest that she 
wouldn't have been just as capable of doing in the castle. Snape surely understands that, 
whether he knows about the crucio or not, because she's asked him, twice, to supply her 
with a potion she's not entitled to use.

> Neri:
> There's a very simple way to achieve this: just avoid having Umbridge 
> summon Snape to her office. He simply wouldn't know about all this, 
> find out from the Slyths several hours later that Umbridge took Harry 
> to the forest and that they didn't came back yet. 

Pippin:
Um, then Snape wouldn't know about Harry's vision, and he wouldn't have any idea that 
Harry was trying to get to the DoM. He'd report that Harry was lost in the forest, the Order 
would go looking for him (and probably get entangled with the centaurs), and Lucius 
would have obtained the prophecy for his master. In fact it's hard to understand why ESE!
Snape wouldn't  have ignored, or pretended to ignore,  what Harry was trying to tell him 
and done just that.

 It is not clear that the Order was still keeping a guard at the DoM -- we don't hear 
anything about it after Arthur was attacked. It seems that at that point they changed their 
strategy from trying to block access to the DoM to trying to block Harry's visions. It would 
have been foolish to keep the guard there once Rookwood had escaped. Voldemort would 
no longer be trying to reconnoiter.  If the prophecy went missing, that in itself would 
reveal that Voldemort had returned, which was the Order's main objective at that point.

. A> Neri:
> I don't know yet what are the requirements of JKR's plot. I'll know 
> that only after Book 7. All I can say for now is that certain 
> developments and well-specified timelines don't fit the official 
> explanation very well, but OTOH could fit quite well with an ending 
> in which Snape isn't the hero who always has Harry well-being and the 
> Order's cause in mind. 

Pippin:
Trouble is, while the fandom may be of two or three minds about Snape's allegiance, Harry 
isn't. As far as Harry is concerned, Snape showed he was capable of murder at the age of 
sixteen. To Harry, Snape is a dark wizard, he's always been a dark wizard, and 
Dumbledore was sadly mistaken to suppose he could ever have been anything else. JKR 
has very carefully arranged for Harry's attitude to be the mirror of Snape's attitude towards 
Sirius in PoA, with the added fillip that Harry himself is the naive eyewitness. She drops 
anvil-sized hints that compared to what Snape and Dumbledore know about  magic, Harry 
might as well be a Muggle.

So how do you see this tidbit of yours coming into play? Harry's not looking for additional 
evidence to convince him that Snape's a loyal DE, so he can't come to  it that way.  At some 
point, maybe someone will try to convince Harry that he's mistaken about Snape. But 
somehow I can't see this as the clinching counter argument -- "If Snape really had my 
well-being and that of the Order in mind, he'd have sent the Order to the MoM sooner!"  It 
will all be rather convoluted to explain, won't it? 


OTOH, we've had Snape  claim credit for information which helped Voldemort 
dispose of Sirius. If that's true, it's far more damaging and easy for the reader to 
understand than a supposed five hour delay.  What information this is, if it exists,  we 
don't know. We can expect fireworks when Harry finds out. But this supposed delay 
doesn't fill the bill -- I can't see how it's information in any way.

One thing about DDM!Snape, it requires the minimal amount of explaining. Only two other 
things need to be accounted for: the events on the tower, and Snape's corrosive attitude 
towards Harry and Neville. Granted those are biggies, so much so that some have 
indicated  there's no rationale, excuse or exoneration they'll accept. But I think that says 
more about the sensibilities of some readers than the possibilities of the narrative.

Pippin