Snape's Confundus line in PoA (Was: Was the eavesdropper unimportant to Harry?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147084

Amiable Dorsai wrote:
<snip>
> Harry knows that Snape told Fudge that he, Ron and Hermione were
Confunded. 
> Harry knows that Fudge subsequently ignored their stories.
> What do you suppose Harry thinks?

Carol responds:
Quite possibly he doesn't think about it at all. We certainly have no
evidence that he does. Or quite possibly, he realizes that, as
Hermione points out earlier ("We attacked a teacher! We're going to be
in so much trouble!"), Snape has actually prevented their expulsion by
telling Fudge that they were Confunded. (Hogwarts students don't cast
spells that knock out teachers with impunity. Only Snape's statement
that they didn't know what they were doing prevents further inquiry.)

The question, for me, is whether Snape actually believes this, wanting
as he apparently does to believe that Sirius Black really is a mass
murderer from whom Snape was attempting to rescue HRH, or whether he
is lying to protect the kids, specifically Harry. (If Snape is DDM!,
as I believe, he wants Harry at Hogwarts and under DD's protection
despite his empty threats to expel Harry for offenses that he knows
don't warrant expulsion or aren't within his jurisdiction.)

We know from later books that Fudge doesn't need Snape's to make him
believe that Harry's stories are farfetched (would *you* believe
without any evidence that a pet rat was an unregistered Animagus
believed dead for twelve years and now on his way to aid Lord
Voldemort? I wouldn't!), or to make him want Harry expelled if he,
Fudge, sees Harry as a threat (Harry's hearing in OoP). And Snape
later (GoF) vouches for the truth of Harry's and Dumbledore's story,
revealing his Dark Mark to Fudge as evidence that Voldemort has indeed
returned. He didn't have to do that, nor can Fudge's recalcitrance be
in any way attributed to him. Later, in HBP, Snape has an excellent
reason for requesting, even demanding, Harry's expulsion, the
Sectumsempra Curse that Harry performed on Draco, and he doesn't do
so. He gives him multiple detentions instead, insuring that he stays
in school, away from Voldemort.

So, regardless of what Harry thinks (and I don't see any evidence that
he thinks any more about Snape's words to Fudge in PoA after the
incident is over), I don't think we can safely assume a sinister
motive for Snape in telling Fudge that the kids were Confunded. And
incidentally, this is not an instance of meltdown!Snape (Karen's
term). Although he shouted furiously in the Shrieking Shack (as did
Harry and Sirius Black), he doesn't behave angrily in front of Fudge
until after he realizes that Harry has somehow helped Black escape.
When he tells Fudge that the kids have been Confunded, that they
attacked him *under a Confundus Curse*, he's perfectly calm. Suppose
he had said, equally calmly, "I was trying to rescue them from the
murderer and the werewolf and they attacked me." Imagine Fudge's
reaction to *that*. Not only Harry but Ron and Hermione really would
be in serious trouble--or Fudge would have extremely serious doubts
about their sanity. After all, Fudge, like everyone else in the WW
(including Snape at this point, IMO) thinks Sirius Black killed twelve
Muggles and Peter Pettigrew and that he's after Harry. They attacked a
teacher who was trying to help them? Let's cart them off to St.
Mungo's. But Snape's story, whether he believes it himself or not,
keeps the kids in school and unpunished.

I can't see that the events in PoA make any significant difference in
Harry's view of Snape (neither does GoF, which ought at least to show
Snape's courage), in marked contrast to OoP and HBP, in which Harry
sees Snape in an increasingly Black light, thanks largely to Sirius
Black's suspicions and his death, which Harry for psychological
reasons wants to blame on Snape. (And of course, there's the
eavesdropper revelation and the events on the tower, but I won't go
there now.) 

Nor do I see that Snape's words make any difference in Fudge's view of
Harry. Far from making him think that Harry is deluded, they explain
the seeming delusions by blaming them on a spell placed on Harry and
two other students by an adult wizard. But the combination of Harry's
stories in PoA and GoF and Fudge's own unwillingness to believe that
Voldemort has returned (not to mention Rita Skeeter's articles) makes
Fudge more and more willing to believe that Harry is unstable.

Harry blames a great many things on Snape, but Fudge's belief that he,
Harry, is delusional is not one of them.

Carol, who actually snipped a paragraph from this long post!