Snape as "the One"? (Was: A couple of little theories!)

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 162248

Carol: 
> But Snape's standing there with Aberforth after the Prophecy (which
> Sybill doesn't know she's delivered) is inconsistent with the
> eavesdropper's being "thrown from the building" halfway through the
> Prophecy, which is what DD tells Harry in OoP. Your version doesn't
> resolve that basic inconsistency for me. Snape can't be in two 
places
> at once (unless we bring in a Time Turner, and I don't want to get
> into that!).

zgirnius:
I don't see a discrepancy at all. First, it is in retrospect obvious 
that Dumbledore was actively hiding the identity of the eavesdropper 
from Harry in OotP. This is why he used the Pensieve to make 
Trelawney rise out of it and speak, instead of showing the memory in 
the usual way. That would have risked the possibility that if Harry 
was not pulled out of the memory in time, he would have seen the 
barman and Snape. At the time I thought nothing of it, but it had not 
occured to me that the eavesdropper might be someone we and Harry 
actually knew.

OK, if you can agree thus far, here is what Dumbledore actually said:

> OotP:
> My - our - one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was 
> detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the 
> building.

zgirnius again:
Note the absence of any indication of time in this statement. He was 
detected, he was thrown out. Immediately? moments later? hours later? 
Dumbledore doesn't say. He's not lying to Harry, but he is not 
telling the full story. The full story would be he was caught, he was 
brought to me, and he was thrown out. But 'he was brought to me' 
would probably cause even the occasionally unquestioning Harry to ask 
the question, 'who was he?' While the way it actually was worded, 
sugests without saying that Dumbledore might not even have seen the 
eavesdropper.

Personally, I think the barman chanced on Snape as Snape heard the 
first part of the prophecy, and pulled him away from the door before 
he heard the rest. A very short discussion involving protestations of 
innocence by Snape might have ensued, or a tussle, and then the 
barman threw open the door to show Dumbledore who had been listening 
to him. This occured just as Trelawney came out of her prophetic 
trance, hence her story of feeling funny, and then seeing Snape.

The barman then left Dumbledore and Trelawney to their conversation 
and threw Snape out.

Dumbledore also does not say that he knew THEN how much of the 
prophecy Snape had heard. He just states, without any explanation, 
that only the first part was heard. I would guess that this he may 
have learned later from Snape, after Snape 'returned'.

I think this is the way it has to be, unless Rowling goofed (doubt 
it, the event is too central to her story) or Dumbledore lies to 
Harry. (The theory that Snape heard all of the prophecy is consistent 
with Trelawney's version, but involves Dumbledore lying both in OotP 
and in the later conversation in the Weasley's shed.) I don;t believe 
Dumbledore would lie to Harry.

> Carol earlier: 
> > > However, Dumbledore says that Snape heard only the first half of
> the Prophecy, which means that the first of two lines about the
> seventh month would be included in what he heard. <snip> here's the


> > Brothergib (relatively warm in London - global warming is 
improving
> > the climate!)
> >
> Carol, wondering if this is the first time Tucson has ever been 
colder
> than London!

zgirnius, wishing she were in Tucson, or London, or anyplace else not 
covered by fourteen inches of snow which needs to be removed from her 
driveway.