Did Snape know Draco's task in Spinner's End (was: Re: more snape stuff)

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 168408

> Magpie:
> You're definitely not the only person to wonder that! It doesn't
> work for me, personally. To me, Snape fishing for that information
> in the scene robs it of most of its meaning and makes it just funny.
> Narcissa was just about to tell him what the plan was and he
> interrupted her. If he'd let her speak for another second he would
> know what he's allegedly fishing for throughout the scene, and that
> makes little sense to me.

Miles:
Where do you read this in the book? That Narcissa is just about to tell the
whole story? I don't read it:

"Narcissa continued (...): 'He wishes none to know of the plan. It is ...
very secret. But -'
'If he has forbidden it, you ought not to speak,' said Snape at once." (HBP,
Spinner's End)

My reading: What Narcissa is about to say is, WHY she wants to speak about
the plan. How she fears for Draco, how lonely she is, whatever. She did not
start to speak about the plan, she speaks about Voldemort, his orders, and
why she thinks she must disobey. In her state I'd think she would explain
herself much longer, not to speak of the unavoidable continuing argument
with Bellatrix.
Now, it's always a problem to interpret sentences that are not completed in
canon - some speculation is necessary. But I really think my considerations
have some basis both in the psychology of the scene, and in the words of the
interrupted sentence, while Magpie's interpretation include a twist that is
possible, but not forceful.

> Magpie:
> Maybe it looks good for him to take LV's
> side and remind her she's not supposed to talk, but not if the
> alternative is making a suicide pact to do the thing instead (which
> is going against LV more than allowing Narcissa to shoot off her
> mouth)--a thing Snape never succeeds in finding out about in the
> scene anyway.

Miles:
You know about the following Vow because you read the book before. Since JKR
didn't make Snape a Seer, he possibly couldn't know of the Vow that follows,
so it is not a valid argument concerning Snape's success or defeat in this
scene.
When I read this scene for the very first time, I didn't doubt a second that
Snape did *not* know anything about the plan - simply because he never
mentions anything about it.

Like Rebecca wrote:
> Snape never actually SAYS what the plan is, he just says
> he knows of it.

Miles:
That's not a proof, that's for sure. JKR didn't want this scene to be clear,
so it isn't. But I really don't see Rebecca's and my understanding of
Spinner's end funny ;).

Magpie:
> If Snape has no idea what he's talking about lines like "I believe
> he means me to do it in the end" are just empty bluffing for him,
> and also, we're robbed of the terrible moment when Snape realizes
> just what he's stupidly agreed to do.

Miles:
You lost me. I simply do not see why this scene should be worthless with a
bluffing Snape, and great with Snape knowing everything?

Magpie:
> That presumably happens
> offscreen because by the time they get to school he and Dumbledore
> both know what Draco's supposed to do with no help from the UV that
> we see. So there's no storyline, that I can see, about Snape's
> reaction to what he's accidentally done.

Miles:
The dialogue between Snape and Dumbledore, overheard by Hagrid (AFAIR), is
not that very reaction? I thought so, following the storyline I see as a
bright red thread through the book.

Magpie:
> Also since it was clear to
> me in Spinner's End what Draco was supposed to do it's hard for me
> to believe Snape couldn't figure it out too--Narcissa gives him some
> pretty big hints.

Miles:
Which ones? I didn't figure out what the task was. I did later, when the
assassination attempts failed, but reading Spinner's End, there were many
alternatives, like killing Harry, or kidnapping him. Snape is not a Seer,
and he didn't get a copy of JKR's HBP, he only wrote his own one.

Magpie:
> So for me, the reason everyone talks around the plan is because JKR
> is hiding it from the reader. Snape's own dialogue doesn't seem to
> show a man fishing for information.

Miles:
It does in my reading. And the crux you try to point out in canon IMO shows
if anything, the opposite.

Miles