Could Harry have saved Snape? (was Reacting to DH...)

[julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 178048


> Ceridwen:
> Harry dreamed about Arthur's attack through his VoldyVision.  It 
> took, I would say, nearly half an hour, perhaps longer, for 
> Dumbledore to send help.  Harry woke his dorm mates, Neville went 
for 
> McGonagall, Harry had to explain what he had seen and convince her 
> that it wasn't just a dream but something more; they went to 
> Dumbledore's office and told him, and he sent two former Heads to 
the 
> Ministry and St. Mungo's respectively to try and help. 

Julie:
Thanks for the canon. I didn't recall the specifics, but I
did recall that it took awhile to get help to Arthur. And as
you say, he bled for half an hour before help came. There was
a copious amount of blood after that length of time, but it
just proves that Snape's injury was much more severe. Arthur
is still alive if very weak from loss of blood after some
thirty minutes, while Snape bled for perhaps five minutes
at most before he died.

Snape's injury was much more serious than Arthur's, which
makes sense if his carotid artery was severed. As with the
femoral or aortal arteries, a person would bleed out very
fast. While Arthur apparently bled continuously before 
help came, he was clearly not bleeding from a major artery,
or he would have been well dead by the time help arrived.

I'm not saying Harry or even Hermione put this together in
their heads via logical deduction, but I think when they
approached Snape he was already at death's door, and they
recognized that fact, even if without the conscious thought
process. 

> Potioncat:
> > As the reader caught up in the events I am furious that neither 
> Harry 
> > nor Hermione tried to help Snape--even if it wouldn't have worked.
> 
> Ceridwen:
> Hermione sank below the sub-sub-basement for me here.  Miss Level-
> headed in a Crisis, and all she can do is conjure a phial?  Sorry.  
> She was level-headed enough to bounce-Apparate when Yaxley grabbed 
> onto her after leaving the MoM, she could have remembered her 
> carefully-planned store of dittany.  Instead, she came off as 
> Redshirt number two, giving Kirk whatever he needs, with far less 
> effective results.

Julie:
As a reader, I didn't feel the same. Yes, I briefly wondered
if Hermione might say something (I think I'd forgotten she
had the dittany with her) about getting Snape help, but as 
a reader I recognized from the amount of blood and the torn
throat that it was already too late. I knew without a doubt
that Snape was going to die.

Now I would have been happy if Hermione had pulled out the
dittany, or she and Harry had mentioned the concept of getting
help or saving Snape, but I didn't fault them for it at all.
Partly because, as I said, I think they did recognize that
Snape was a goner, and partly because I agree with Eggplant,
sort of. Not that Harry *shouldn't* save Snape, but that it
wouldn't immediately occur to him that Snape needed or even
deserved saving.

After all, I wouldn't expect Harry to have tried to save
Bellatrix or Avery or one of the Carrows if one of them
was standing in front of Voldemort, even if Harry was 
getting the same sense of danger and doom he felt when
Voldemort and Snape were confronting each other. Should
or would Harry jump out and try to disarm Voldemort, a
probably impossible task which would not only endanger
him but also Ron and Hermione, to save a Death Eater who
has given his allegiance to Voldemort and is apparently
as determined as Voldemort to rid the WW of Mudbloods and
their supporters, not to mention Harry himself?

I wouldn't expect Harry to do so, and this is exactly
who Snape is to Harry, another Death Eater who wants him
and many others in the WW dead. Even if Harry had some
subconscious doubts and confusion over Snape (as I think
he probably did, and this showed in his confusion over
what to feel when Snape was dying), there's no reason I
would expect him to try to save Snape before Nagini
bites him, or even after, especially not when it's clear
that Snape is almost certainly mortally injured.

That's not to say in another circumstance, say if Harry
had been given some reason to truly doubt Snape's loyalty
to Voldemort (Dumbledore's memories or some such other 
device we hypothesized before DH), I would expect Harry 
to act as he did in DH. But under the circumstances, with
Snape presumed an unrepentant DE and with his death so
immediately imminent, I didn't expect any "saving" action
from Harry. 

But that's just my opinion,

Julie