How HBP could have interwoven into CoS (Was: Re: Eileen Prince)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156339

Dungrollin wrote:
<snip>
> > CoS: (if the HBP plot had been left in) Snape's a highly gifted 
> > half-blood with a penchant for the Dark Arts. As it is, we learned 
> > nothing about Snape, except that he *really* hates Harry.
<snip>

Colebiancardi responded:
> I believe that in CoS, we learned that Snape was an expert duelist 
> and was pretty quick on his feet.   <snip>
> Anyway, there seems to be more than just potions to our Potions 
> Master - he can duel - a hint of his power to come in HBP

Carol adds:
I was going to something similar--Snape makes a fool of Lockhart in
the duelling club scene (a hint that he really is good at DADA) and at
the same time teaches the students Expelliarmus, which comes in handy
against Lockhart later in CoS and against Voldemort in GoF. in fact,
it may be the most useful defensive spell Harry and his friends have
learned. It appears from the petrified cat scene ("I believe I am the
Potions Master at this school") that Snape makes the Mandrake
Restorative Potion that Madam Pomfrey administers to the Basilisk's
victims, just as he later makes the Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin. It's
Snape who suggests that Draco use Serpensortia, the spell which
reveals that Harry is a Parselmouth, and it's Snape who reminds
Lockhart that he's the DADA teacher, so it's his job to go after the
Basilisk, and we see McGonagall and the others back Snape up. Maybe
they're just getting Lockhart out of their hair, but it's snape who
forces Lockhart to show his hand (do his job or get out of Hogwarts)
and who (indirectly) gives the eavesdropping Ron and Harry the idea to
go to Lockhart, initiating the whole Chamber of Secrets sequence. And
we see Snape's gripping the back of his chair so that his knuckles
turn white when he hears that a student has been taken into the
Chamber--a clear indication that he does care about the welfare of the
students.

So even though I'd love to have seen more of Snape in CoS and any
other book, I think we see enough of him that (at least after reading
the other books) we can deduce something of the close relationship
between Dumbledore and Snape from the evidence in CoS. For example,
it's undoubtedly Snape who reports to DD that Harry is a Parselmouth,
whether or not he deliberately told Draco to cast that spell to
discover exactly that piece of information. (Since he knows a lot
about DADA, he may already have suspected that the monster was a
Basilisk and that the Heir of Slytherin must speak Parseltongue. He
may actually have thought that Harry was the Heir, or at least wanted
to explore the possibility.) It's also interesting that McGonagall,
the assistant headmistress, is the first to follow Snape's lead with
regard to Lockhart, even though, as we later learn, she's about twice
Snape's age and was once his Transfiguration teacher.

Still, to return to my original comment about not seeing how the HBP
plot could fit into CoS, I don't see how the HBP's Potions text or
DADA text could have been used in a book about Harry's second year.
Aside from having an interaction between Harry and two different books
(one magical and one not), it would have been premature to show Snape
inventing spells like Levicorpus, much less Sectumsempra, not to
mention having Harry cast it on Draco in second year and Snape saving
Draco from death at Harry's hands when the two boys are twelve years
old. I think the HBP's Potions book is a great device for an ironic
interaction between Harry and Teen!Snape, but it fits much better in
sixth year, when the relationship between Harry and the adult Snape is
worsening by the minute and the whole situation at Hogwarts is
hurtling toward disaster. It's just hard for me to comprehend that JKR
would even think of including it so early.

As I think I said in an earlier post, I'd love to get my hands on the
draft and/or notes of the HBP/CoS combined plots. What a disaster it
would have been for the series if she hadn't realized her error!

Carol, wondering how she would have fleshed out the plot of Book 6 if
she'd already used up the HBP plot with all its lovely irony