Snape ignoring HP blood (was: CHAPDISC: HBP8)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 146667

Irene:
> And for exactly the same reason Harry wouldn't answer truthfully even if 
> Snape had asked him if he was hurt.

Pippin:
Right. So Harry lies, and Snape uses legilimency, since this question of
whether Harry is hurt is of such desperate importance, and poor Harry
has to relive the whole humiliating experience. And Draco *still*
doesn't get punished, because it happened before start of term and
Draco didn't use magic to hurt Harry anyway. Not that I think
Snape was deliberately being nice to Harry, or anything, but really,
Harry was probably better off that Snape didn't pry.

Tonks is a member of the Order and a public servant (as an auror)
so it would have been her responsibility to tell the school if Harry
needed help. She could have sent for a carriage or used side along
apparation to get Harry to the gate a lot quicker -- so obviously
she didn't think Harry needed any help. Snape knew all that, of
course. Tonks would have put in her message that she was 
coming to the gate and approximately when she would get there,
or how could she expect to get Harry through?

It raises an interesting question though. Tonks couldn't get through
the gate, but she shows up unexpectedly outside the RoR later on.
How did she get there? 

AFAWK, besides Dumbledore himself, only Snape and Hagrid  can open 
the gates and they would have told her that Dumbledore wasn't there.
I'm wondering about that supposedly blocked secret 
passage behind the mirror, now. Peter knows about it (so does
Lupin) and as we saw in CoS, blocked passages can be opened.

Pippin