Five hours again was Re: Blood

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 149239

> > 
> > Neri:
> > It seems that the criteria for what can be a flint are pretty
> > flexible, depending on whether this flint would help Snape's case
or not.
> 
> Pippin:
> Or hurt it?

Neri:
Tut, tut (as Kneasy would have said), I should remind you that when I
first reconstructed the timeline of the OotP climax, many months
before HBP, I was merely accusing Snape of irresponsibility. I thought
he was DDM at the time, and I certainly did not expect him to AK
Dumbledore off the astronomy tower. As things are standing now, it's
hard to find a theory of the Missing Five Hours that would hurt Snape
more than JKR already did.

> Pippin:
>  But since when did the
> internet become the only way to get information? There are reference
> books and libraries and Asking Someone Who Would Know.

Neri:
<deep sigh> I wish *I* had thought about these arguments at the time.

> Pippin:
>  But actually my new theory can account for the missing hours. I'll
call it 
> HP!Snape, for Highest Priority.
<snip >

Neri:
According to your new theory Snape is (naturally) DDM and had delayed
during the Missing Five Hours for justified reasons. If that were the
case I would have expected the issue of the M5H to come up against him
in the end of HBP. Lupin or Tonks could have said something like:
"I've wondered why it took him so long to inform us that Harry was
gone before the Battle in the Department of Mysteries". This would
have made the reversal in Book 7 more powerful. OTOH, if Snape is (as
I suspect) LID, then the more proper place to bring up the M5H would
be when all his motivations are finally resolved in Book 7. 

> Pippin:
> Suppose Dumbledore is sure that Harry will need Snape at the final 
> showdown. What for? Because when Voldemort is cornered, he scarpers, 
> as we saw in the MoM, and AFAWK only someone with a Dark Mark can find
> him. 
> 
> If Snape's help will be needed for the final showdown, it becomes 
> necessary that Snape survive that long. Dumbledore would therefore 
> order Snape to do whatever was necessary to preserve his cover until
> that time, even if it meant letting other Order members fight alone, 
> unless Harry was in immediate danger from Voldemort. Dumbledore
> would explain that he believed that only Harry would have the power
> to defeat Voldemort, and Snape would have agreed at first
> because of the prophecy, and  later because of the unique abilities
> he himself witnessed.
> 
> The explanation for the missing hours, then, is that Snape followed
> Dumbledore's orders and didn't inform the Order that Harry might
> have gone to the MoM until he'd convinced himself the situation 
> was dire enough to break cover for. If there was another spy in the
> Order, that spy then knew whose side Snape was really on. 

Neri:
I assume this spy would be ESE!Lupin? However, according to Dumbledore
Snape did try immediately to find out if Sirius was in 12GP, and from
Dumbledore's words (the "more reliable ways of communication"
mentioned in this context) it appears he used his patronus for that. A
patronus is unique to the sender, and it appears you can't control who
precisely gets the message at the destination (in HBP Tonks meant for
Hagrid to get her patronus but Snape took it instead). So Snape
wouldn't know who would get his patronus in 12GP, and this doesn't fit
very well with your theory.

As I wrote here recently, if Snape isn't DDM then it's actually
possible that he lied to Dumbledore, saying that he had sent this
first message while he actually hadn't. But if he's DDM and didn't
send this first message for justified reasons, then it's Dumbledore
who lied to Harry about this, which I'd find much more difficult to
accept.

Also, like most theories that attempt to acquit Snape of the
responsibility for the M5H, your theory just transfers this
responsibility to Dumbledore. Umbridge had taken McGonagall and Hagrid
out of Hogwarts the night before. Dumbledore had many hours to decide
what to do about it. Your theory seems to assume that he had just left
Snape as the last Order member at Hogwarts while knowing that, should
any emergency arise, it would be very risky for him to warn HQ, and
that he had no means to contact Dumbledore directly. If this was
indeed how it happened then Dumbledore was an extremely poor commander
and the Order is actually much better off without him.

> Pippin:
> But
> would Voldemort trust the other spy? Not necessarily. He'd 
> try to arrange a test.
> 

Neri:
As an aside, if the spy was ESE!Lupin then Voldy knew about the
Occlumency lessons. He also knew that Snape stopped them. He'd also
know that Harry wasn't told about the prophecy, and yet Lucius in the
DoM tells us that Voldy actually thought Dumbledore did tell Harry
about it, only not the exact wording. I'm not sure how all this would
fit into your theory but I suspect it would make it considerably more
complicated.

> Pippin:
> Snape would fear, after unmistakably intervening on Harry's 
> side by informing the Order, that Voldemort would test him.
> He couldn't afford to do anything that even hinted of disloyalty
> to LV.  He took the vow, not expecting the third provision. 
> 
> After the attempt on Dumbledore's life that nearly killed Ron,
> Snape tried to back out of his agreement with Dumbledore,
> saying that maybe he didn't want to do it any more. But 
> Dumbledore refused to release him.
> 

Neri:
Lets see now how would LID explain the M5H. First the main
assumptions: LID!Snape must save Harry's life from Voldemort before he
can go back to Voldemort's side, but he must do it without Voldemort
realizing it. 

I suspect that Voldemort told Snape about his plan several hours
before the MoM operation. This would be the most reasonable from
Voldemort's point of view, since Snape might interfere with Harry
going to the DoM if he's not in the know. Snape's orders were to
"remain behind", exactly as he tells Bellatrix in Spinner's End. He'd
be very stupid to lie about this since he can assume that Bella and/or
Wormtail would report everything he says to Voldemort. 

Additionally, I suspect that Snape was indeed afraid of Voldemort's
spy in 12GP, but I think he was actually told that Kreacher was the
spy, or at the very least he was told that there *was* a spy, if not
his exact identity. This put LID!Snape in a BIG problem – he had to
save Harry somehow, but he was afraid to warn 12GP since the spy might
tell Voldemort that he did. Maybe Snape indeed couldn't contact
Dumbledore directly, or maybe he didn't want to, since at that point
Dumbledore might decide that saving Harry and the prophecy is worth
blowing Snape's cover. So LID!Snape would be extremely thankful when
Umbridge detained Harry. The idiotic woman practically saved Snape –
it would be her fault that Harry didn't go to the DoM. 

The next part isn't really necessary for the theory, but I also
suspect that Snape wouldn't care what would happen to Harry in the
forest. This depends on the exact nature of the Life Debt magic, of
which we were very pointedly told nothing, but it seems that logically
the magic should not hold Snape responsible for things he isn't part
of. Dumbledore took care to make Snape a part of Voldemort's schemes,
but Snape was never a part of Umbridge's schemes, and he certainly
wouldn't be a part if Harry were killed by an acromantula or a
centaur's arrow. If the magic indeed doesn't hold Snape responsible
for this, then from his point of view it's good riddance – no more
Harry and no more Life Debt, problem solved. But as I say this isn't
necessary for the theory. Maybe Snape simply estimated that whatever
might happen to Harry in the forest would still be far less dangerous
than going to the DoM.

So why *did* Snape finally warn the Order? The simplest version: Harry
doesn't come back for several hours, Snape suddenly realizes that
there are thestrals in the forest. If Harry goes to the DoM and is
killed by Voldemort, Snape *would* be magically responsible. Snape
throws all caution to the wind and warns 12GP. Luckily for him
Dumbledore catches Kreacher, so Voldemort never learns that his plan
was foiled because of Snape. 

An alternative version: around midnight Snape gets a message from
Lucius through the fire that everything goes as planed, and Harry & Co
had just entered the MoM. Snape throws all caution to the wind and
warns 12GP. Continue as in the previous version.

A slightly more complicated version: Voldemort or Lucius contact Snape
to tell him that everything goes as planned, and he's to wait half an
hour or so and then warn the Order. The plan is that Dumbledore and
the Order would run to the DoM to rescue Harry, would get there after
the DEs had already cleared the place, and the aurors would be called
to catch Dumbledore with the convicted murderer Black, nicely framed
for breaking into the DoM and possibly for kidnapping Harry and the
prophecy. This is how *I* would have planed it <g>. But Lucius has
some unexpected problems with the unruly teenagers, and maybe Snape
contacts the Order a bit earlier than planned, so the DEs are caught
instead. This version has the advantage that Voldy can't even blame
Snape for warning the Order. It's all Lucius' fault.

Regarding Snape's first message to Sirius – if he had sent it at all,
which I now seriously doubt, I think he only checked if Sirius was in
12GP but didn't actually inform him of what had happened. Snape would
perhaps be able to justify this to Voldy – he didn't actually warn the
Order of anything and it was needed in order to convince Dumbledore
that he did everything he could. I simply don't see Sirius getting a
message from Snape that Harry is under a mind-attack from Voldy and is
now detained by Umbridge, and then just sitting quietly for several
hours waiting for more information from Snape. This would be totally
OOC for Sirius. But it is possible that after the case Snape told
Dumbledore that he did tell Sirius everything the first time. It's
interesting that when Dumbledore joins Harry in his office after the
battle he doesn't arrive by portkey, the way he sent Harry. He appears
in his fire, and the first thing he tells Harry is that Madam Pomfrey
is "patching everybody now" and that none of them suffered any lasting
damage. He'd know that only if he's just coming from the hospital
wing, or at the very least he had talked with Madam Pomfrey from the
MoM through the fire. I believe he also talked with Snape at the same
time. Snape would hear from him that Sirius was killed and Kreacher
was caught, so he'd feel relatively safe to lie to Dumbledore about
his first message to Sirius. 

This theory might sound complicated, but it's actually considerably
more simple and straightforward than the hole riddled version that
Dumbledore trys to sell us in OotP. It doesn't have that absurd
situation in which everybody is supposed to act "at once" and yet
Harry & Co beat the Order to the DoM by a large margin. It explains
why JKR took care to describe the time in detail throughout the OotP
climax. Snape has a much better reason for doing nothing for several
hours, Sirius acts much more in character, Voldy behaves much more
reasonably by warning his agent at Hogwarts about the operation, and
Snape tells the truth in Spinner's End. The theory is also nicely
flexible – there are several possible variations but they are all
basically the same. It's actually similar to Pippin's theory but it
doesn't depend on an additional spy in the Order (besides Kreacher)
and it maintains all the nice properties of LID!Snape. It also
explains why the M5H were not brought up against Snape in the end of
HBP: if Snape is LID then the BANG in Book 7 should come from finally
revealing his motivations, and this is the time when the above details
are best explained. 


Neri