Snape's the Rescuer - Really?/Justice to Snape

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 170767

Alla:

> I see no significance in Snape putting Ron on 
> stretchers first. IMO.

houyhnhnm:

The significance is that shows that Snape was 
performing triage by attending to the most severely 
injured first.  It reinforces the image of Snape 
behaving with the professionalism of a healer rather 
than being in a personal mode.

Alla:

> Gagging though is a different story. What **can** 
> go wrong if Sirius will be talking, binded?

houyhnhnm:

He wouldn't be talking, gagged or not, if he was 
unconscious.  From that I had concluded that the 
gagging served no practical pupose whatsoever.  It 
was just Snape *over*compensating for having been 
unconscious and out of control during an emergency.  
It was his way of reassuring himself that he was back 
in control.  However, I like Montavilla's idea that 
the gag may have been intended as protection against 
any return of the Dementors.

Alla:

> And I am saying that I inprepret this **image** [...] 
> as image of practical, hypocritical bastard, who is 
> concerned how Dumbledore and authorities would see 
> him when he comes back to the castle with **murderer** 
> on stretchers.

houyhnhnm:

If it was only for show, Snape could have arranged 
Sirius and the kids on stretchers when he got to the 
door, after visiting whatever indignities on them he 
wanted during the trek up to the castle.  He didn't 
do that. How you treat an unconscious person when no 
one is watching:  I just can't imagine any situation 
in which character would be more transparently revealed 
than that, in fiction or real life.  And I speak as 
someone who has both attended unconscious patients and 
watched others attend them.