[HPforGrownups] Re: Did Snape set up the Pensieve scene?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169410

Magpie:

"Montague's memory wasn't erased, he was, as far as we know
now, just befuddled by being trapped in limbo with no way to get out."

Lizzyben:
That just doesn't make sense to me. Assume the facts are as given:
Montague was shut in a closet for a day until he apparated out. Why
would he have any significant mental side effects from that? 

Magpie:
But we're not talking about real life conditions here; it's magic. The
effects can be whatever JKR says they are. The Trio knows what happened to
Montague, and they don't think it's suspicious that he's still befuddled
from being in the broken Vanishing Cabinet. No one else thinks it's odd
either. Montague wasn't shut in a Cabinet, he was sent into a limbo world,
floating back and forth.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we couldn't learn that the befuddlement
was actually the result of some sort of foul play, but there's no evidence
of it so far--I don't think we can take the befuddlement as evidence that
foul play was involved just because we, as readers who know nothing about
magical injuries anyway, don't think it's possible. Nobody else has ever
experienced what Montague has.

More importantly, there's never any indication from anyone that Montague
has lost his memory once he comes out of it, since he tells everyone,
eventually, what happened to him. One could suggest that he was given false
memories like we saw in HBP, but there's no more evidence that this
happened than there is that anyone else has been given false memories. What
Montague says happened is validated in HBP when Draco bases his plan on
what happened to Montague, as reported by Montague himself.

Snape himself is never connected to him at all except that he has an alibi
for Montague being found in the toilet.

Lizzyben:
One day isn't enough time to cause real injuries, and the text never
suggests
that apparating itself causes mental "befuddlement" or confusion. In
HBP, a bad apparition usually means that the body itself doesn't
apparate right. If he left a leg behind, that would be much more in
line w/the side effects of a bad apparition. "Befuddlement" suggests
something else altogether. From the dictionary: "Befuddle - 1. To
confuse; perplex. 2. To stupefy with or as if with alcoholic drink."
It suggests a charm, drink or other agent was used to cause confusion.
And, everyone acknowledges that he shouldn't have been able to
apparate within Hogwarts at all. So, there's at least 2 things that
don't make sense about this incident. 

Magpie:
We're not told the Apparition caused the befuddlement. We are told that
apparently a day and a half in limbo *is* enough to cause befuddlement,
perhaps when there's also a quasi-Apparition escape into a non-Apparition
zone out of it. I wouldn't automatically say Montague should be confused
after that experience, but it also makes sense to me that he would be since
the point is the Cabinet is broken and he is in limbo. It's like if a
character were stuck in another dimension for a day and a half--sure that
could cause long-term confusion. There are a lot of people in St. Mungo's
who have weird mental problems--it doesn't seem like it's that unusual for
peoples' brains to be addled by magic. In HBP, iirc, we hear about a
badly-done Imperius curse making somebody think he's a duck or something.

We're also given another reason his confusion lasts so long: nobody knows
what happened to him except people who aren't telling. If he was actually
found in the toilet, which is the only information we have, no one would
connect him to the Cabinets at all. Apparition is impossible in Hogwarts,
but so is coming out of the Vanishing Cabinet when it's broken. That's why
Draco has to fix it before it works the way it's supposed to work.
According to what we know Montague wasn't able to come out of the Cabinets
because one was broken.

I don't see any independent evidence that he was being befuddled afterwards
by Pomfrey or by Snape, Potion aside. There's no signs of Snape interfering
there, eventually Montague tells his story, and what is Snape's motive for
keeping him befuddled for several weeks? Not to keep the Cabinet story
secret, since it isn't secret to the Slytherins and on the contrary it
potentially is a secret to Snape.

Lizzyben:
<snipping canon for how long Montague's illness drags on>

OK, so Montague remained in Madame Pomfrey's clinic from late March
through May - two months, and he still hasn't recovered. He's being
fed a bright blue liquid - a potion of some kind. He's described as
"confused & disoriented". Oddly enough, the novel earlier took the
trouble to describe all the ingredients and side effects of a
"confusing and befuddlement potion" - 

"Midnight came and went while Harry was reading and rereading a
passage about the uses of scurvy-grass, lovage and sneezewort and not
taking in a word of it.
'These plantes are moste efficacious in the inflaming of the braine,
and are therefore much used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts,
where the wizard is desirous of producing hot-headedness and
recklessness"

He's reading this as part of an assignment from Snape. The quote is
repeated TWICE, as Harry wonders if the potion might be used against
Sirius. Again, why go into detail about a potion if it didn't have
some relevance to the events of the novel? This is virtually the only
time that the novel directly quotes from a textbook. Why? I think this
was a clue - so readers could combine the description of a "confusing
& befuddlement draught" w/later descriptions of Montague as "confused
& disoriented." Snape knows how to brew "confusing draughts", and was
one of the first to discover Montague; Montague is confused &
disoriented for months, while he's being fed a blue potion. What if
that potion was the "confusing draught?" That would actually explain
Montague's symptoms. He's apparently confused throughout this time - I
don't know when he told Draco this "great story," - perhaps on the
train home? Maybe he was only befuddled while at the clinic until the
MOM plan could take place? I dunno. 

Magpie:
The Befuddlement Potions definitely interested me too--and I well
remembered Montague's longterm confusion because it shocked me at the time.
I do expect that Potion might be coming up later in some way. If it was
given to Montague I'd want to know why we didn't see him acting hot-headed
and reckless.

It is, I grant you, a very intersting connection since we've got this
confusion potion and then a confused Montague. But why is Pomfrey giving
him this Potion--surely she can't be expected to be so clueless as to be
feeding someone a Befuddlement draught and not realize what it is when
she's trying to cure befuddlement? What good does it do anyone for him to
be befuddled for this block of time? The only people we know think they
benefit are the Trio, and they're not dosing him.

Also, if we're now talking about a befuddlement draught, we are no longer
talking about Memory Charming. Montague's condition is never connected to
the MoM battle. And did Pomfrey eventually stop giving him anything and
then he got better?

Lizzyben:
I actually tend to think that Snape is on the good side, but this
incident nags at me, & almost convinces me that Snape planned this
out. He'd kill 2 birds w/one stone - end Occlumency lessons, and
prevent Dumbledore from learning about the Cabinets' connection to
Borgin & Burkes. Or maybe it wasn't Snape - maybe Draco moved Montague so
that he could use the Cabinets later. It's a mystery - I don't know who's
the actual "bad guy", but I'm pretty sure the events didn't
actually go as portrayed. I'm just posting this in hopes someone can
help sort it out. 

Magpie:
For Snape, there's no pressing reason for him to end the Occlumency lessons
we know of, and his behavior indicates true anger and humiliation at what
Harry saw, imo. As I've said before, I find it hard to believe that Snape
would intentionally let Harry see him in his underwear. It was also
incredibly convenient that Umbridge and Draco happened to discover Montague
and send for Snape at just the right moment. 

Suggesting that Snape doesn't want Dumbledore to find out about the
Cabinets opens an even bigger can of worms. An important element of HBP
both thematically and technically is that Draco is the only one who knows
what the Cabinets mean--a way into Hogwarts. Snape doesn't know what he's
up to there. 

Draco himself tells us that everyone heard the story from Montague, so
Draco isn't hiding the information from anybody either. He listened to the
story along with other people but only he realized that it meant fixing the
Vanishing Cabinet meant having a portal into Hogwarts from B&B.

Draco also tells us that he discovered Montague in the toilet with
Umbridge. He has no reason for interrupting the Occlumency lessons since he
doesn't know about them. (Making Snape into an even bigger puppetmaster in
HBP  destroys a lot of the Draco plot, which I don't think we can do.) 

Finally, the idea that Montague must have been found in the Cabinet seems
to be a premise here, when the Cabinet is broken, so he shouldn't be able
to come back through it. Not Apparating in a non-Apparition zone isn't,
imo, any easier than coming through a broken portal. Either way you're
making a door out of a brick wall.

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