Snape Stuns Flitwick: WHY? was: CHAPDISC: HBP 29, The Phoenix Lament

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 164156

Pat:
> For that matter, what in the world was Snape doing asleep??  He's 
always up at all hours: nearly every time Harry has been wandering 
around Hogwarts after hours, who does he run into??  Back to the 
issue at hand,  I have recently come to believe that Dumbledore had 
told Snape where he and Harry were going - well, maybe not *where* 
they were going, but what they'd be doing that evening, and that DD 
expected to have health problems afterwards, just as he did after 
finding the ring horcrux.  I believe that DD asked Snape to sleep 
while they were gone, and the plan was for Snape to stupify *Harry* 
when DD sent Harry to get Snape.

Ceridwen:
I've always wondered if Snape was supposed to have Stupified Harry 
that night, too.  I thought that it might have had more to do with 
Draco's task than with Snape healing Dumbledore, but that's a thought

In my version, they knew that Draco had succeeded in whatever he was 
attempting that night, and they didn't want Harry to be in any danger 
from secondary DEs.  Whatever would have happened with DD's death, or 
his lack of death since Snape would have been there to coax Draco 
into taking Dumbledore's offer, Harry would not have been in on it to 
either yell something at Draco to make him turn away from the offer, 
or to be harmed if Draco wanted to fight.

This is assuming that they didn't know about the Vanishing Cabinet 
plan.

This would also have had the benefit of circumventing the DADA curse 
since Snape would not have been seen to kill Dumbledore and would not 
have had to leave Hogwarts.  Maybe the curse will be broken if it is 
successfully negated once.

So, while Harry went to "get his cloak", Dumbledore told Snape that 
they were going after that next Horcrux and that something might 
happen that night; Snape took a nap; when he was awakened he 
automatically Stupified or stunned the person who woke him.  When he 
saw it was Flitwick, he knew everything had gone pear-shaped and 
rushed to the tower, where the action was.  Maybe Flitwick did get 
the words "The tower" out before Snape was awake enough to register 
who was talking to him, or maybe he just went to the sounds of battle.

Ceridwen.