Harry getting Unfrozen on the Tower...

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155446

Cyril wrote:
> 
> > The only reason that I could think of for the spell to 
> > be released would be if Snape did it (nvbl of course). 
> > This would be only becuase DD informed SS about Harry 
> > being hidden under the Cloak (through Legimency and 
> > Occlumency) - without which Harry would be there for 
> > a long time to come - with probably no one ever looking 
> > for him at that spot (unless Ron/Hermione use the Map 
> > to look for him somewhere in Hogwarts)
> 
> houyhnhnm:
> 
> I agree that there is no certainty that a freezing charm 
> is cancelled when the caster dies.  The idea of Snape's 
> casting a non-verbal Finite Incantatem hadn't occurred 
> to me but it's an interesting idea.  If that's what 
> happened, it would be the mirror image (there are so 
> many of them in HBP) of Tonks releasing Harry from 
> Draco's freezing spell when he was hidden under his 
> invisibility cloak on the train.  Her Finite was 
> also non-verbal.
>

Carol responds:
I agree that it's an interesting possibility (as is Snape's being the
one who shouts "Petrificus Totalus!" to save Harry from Fenrir
Greyback, as I proposed some time back), and one I hadn't thought of.

However, I don't think Snape needed Legilimency to know that Harry was
on the Tower in his Invisibility Cloak. All he needed was to see the
second broom (which we know that Draco saw) and use his powers of
deduction ("putting two and two together as only Snape could," as the
narrator puts it in GoF). Since Snape was trying to get the DEs and
Draco off the tower as quickly as he could (IMO, to keep Harry from
trying to fight them and getting killed), the last thing he would want
is for Harry to be prematurely released from the spell. If Harry is
right that the spell enede with DD's death, Snape would know that and
would take advantage of those few seconds to separate the DEs and
Draco. If, OTOH, the spell would last until someone cast a Finite
Incantatem, I suppose that Snape might choose to silently release him
on the assumption that he wouldn't otherwise be found. But surely,
once the DEs were gone, some Order member would have gone up to the
tower to investigate and would have found Harry? The two brooms would
be a giveaway, and Tonks would remember what happened on the train.

BTW, I'm not arguing against a possible message exchanged via mutual
Legilimency. There's a pause between "Severus" and "Severus, please"
in which Snape looks at Dumbledore, changes from his usual inscrutable
expression to the look of hatred and revulsion, but still doesn't
raise his wand--perfect for eye-to-eye silent communication that
neither Harry nor the DEs (including Draco) is aware of. I just don't
think that DD needed to tell Snape that Harry was there. Snape could
figure it out just as easily as Tonks did on the train.

Carol, agreeing that Snape was acting in Harry's best interests, but
pretty sure that he didn't want Harry to unfreeze until the last
possible second because, like Dumbledore when he cast the spell in the
first place, he didn't want Harry rushing out to fight the DEs