Snape's Messenger Patronus ((was Re: Snape's Dementor lesson

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182641

OotP:
> > > "Professor Snape requested that Sirius remain behind, as he
needed somebody to remain at headquarters to tell me what had
happened, for I was due there at any moment" (830).
> 
> > Carol responds:
> > (As in, "Black, you need to stay here because Dumbledore is coming
in about five minutes and I need someone to tell him what has  happened.")
> 
> zgirnius:
> At the moment Snape said to Black, "You need to stay", he obviously 
> knew Albus was coming. So far, we are agreed. But where in the 
> passage do you see unambiguous proof that Snape, and Snape *only*, 
> had prior knowledge (prior to Snape's own arrival at HQ) of Albus's 
> plans? <snip.

Carol responds:
"*He* [Snape] neededed somebody to stay, for [because] I (dumbledore
was due there at any moment." It's Snape, not Sirius or the Order in
general, who *needs* someone to stay. And the *reason* he needs
someone to stay is that DD is coming. So it stands to reason that
Snape informed the others that DD was coming. It's not as if *Lupin*
suggested that Sirius stay behind, as he would have done if he'd known
that DD was coming. (Sirius, of course, would not have volunteered to
do so.)

zgirnius: 
> Suppose Snape strides down the corridor of 12 GP, towards the door
to the stairs leading to the kitchen looking for Sirius and anyone
else he can send after Harry, and Kingsley (who expects Albus to be 
> arriving shortly) shouts up at Snape "Albus? Is that you?"
> 
> Snape comes in, explains the situation, and, since Kingsley has made
clear Albus is coming...asks Sirius to stay. I fail to see how this is
not consistent with Albus's summation of the events. <snip>

Carol responds:
Dumbledore says that Snape, and no one else, needed someone to stay
and update him. Any other interpretation is reading something in that
isn't there.

zgirnius:
> After all, if Snape was in the habit of sending Patronus messages to
Albus and other Order members, why could he not simply do that in 
this case? Why ask Sirius to stay?

Carol responds:
Because there's no point in sending DD a Patronus when DD is going to
be at HQ at any moment. Whoever stays (Snape expects it to be Sirius)
can update DD in person. Meanwhile, Snape also has an important job to
do, which will take some time and can't wait--search the forest in
case the kides are still there--with Umbridge of facing Centaurs or
Acromantulas or whtever else in in the forest.
> 
> > Carol:
> > And you're not responding to my other examples. 
> 
> zgirnius:
> I already did. My original response covers all possible contacts by
Snape with all possibe Order members, including Albus. Snape could
have Apparated, answers them all. <snip>

Carol:
I meant, you haven't explained how you think DD could know that the
Occlumency lessons ended and why (he's obviously heard Snape's story)
or how he knew about the fake Veritaserum that Snape gave Umbridge.
Both incidents happened after DD left, and neither Harry nor Umbridge
would or could have told him. And Snape could have sent a Patronus
much more easily than he could have Apparated, which requires leaving
Hogwarts grounds. And wouldn't Dumbledore just say, "Why don't you
send a Patronus, Severus?" Snape has no reason to hide his Patronus
from DD or be ashamed of it; DD knows he's doing everything for Lily
(even if he doesn't realize the depth and intensity of Snape's love,
or the guilt associated with it--I wonder if his telling Harry that
the SWM is painful for Snape because of James indicates that DD really
doesn't know that the pain is because of Lily or whether he's covering
up the Lily aspect to protect Snape?)

Besides, Apparating to DD could give away DD's hiding place and would
be much more dangerous (as well as requiring more effort because of
the necessity of secretly leaving the grounds--he wouldn't want Filch
or Umbridge or anyone else to see him. Heck, McGonagall might think he
was going to see Voldemort.)

The whole point of sending a message by Patronus is that it's
efficient and reliable. Probably, it can't be tracked, either, whereas
a person who Apparates is always in danger of being seen after he
*Dis*apparates. 

I could buy Snape's using DD's fireplace if we had any evidence that
he could or would do so, but since that method of communication isn't
mentioned and Umbridge says that *all* of the fireplaces except hers
are being watched, I don't think that's his method. It's plausible or
I wouldn't have suggested it, but there's no reference to it in the
text, whereas there's plenty to suggest that Patronuses are the usual
method of communication by the Order. (If Snape is with the DEs, of
course he's not going to cast a Patronus. But, then, he wouldn't
communicate with DD or the Order in any way when he's with them.)
>
> zgirnius:
> How long did it take him to leave Hogwarts airborne in DH? You are
still insisting he walked.

Carol responds:
Surely, if Snape ever flew at Hogwarts before DH, someone would have
seen him. (Maybe he didn't do it because it seemed like a Dark power
and didn't want to arouse suspicion; maybe he didn't know how yet--if
he really learned it from "his master," it was probably after the
death of DD; maybe he wanted the ability to be a secret.) I'm not
insisting that *did* walk (or run) to the gates to Apparate because I
don't think he used that method of communication. I'm "insisting" that
he *would have* walked (or more likely, run) *if* he needed to go to
the gates to Apparate (which, as I've already argued, he probably
would not have done because a Patronus is easier and more reliable).
Every time we have seen him leaving or entering the building at
Hogwarts (until DH), he has either walked or run. For example, Harry
sees him heading for the Forbidden Forest in SS/PS and recognizes him
by his "prowling walk." He walks to the gate to escort Harry to the
Great Hall in HBP after the Draco incident on the Hogwarts Express. He
runs (with Draco in tow) after the "murder" of DD. (Either he wants to
be on the ground to make sure that the DEs and Draco get off the
grounds and Harry is safe or he doesn't know how to fly yet.) But even
if he *could* fly just long enough to get past the gates to Apparate,
why risk being seen when a Patronus is faster and more efficient?
> 
Carol earlier:
> > In DH, Kingsley's Patronus warning that the Ministry has fallen
seems to arrive instantaneously. It gets to the Weasleys' house just
before the Death Eaters do, and they are probably Apparating. 
> 
> zgirnius:
> I actually considered this scene, as the one most likely to give us
an answer to the question about speed of patronus communiation. The 
problem is, Kingsley could have sent the warning before the Death 
Eaters Apparated. ,snip>

Carol responds:
He says, "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are
coming" (DH am. ed. 159). They *are* coming. So he's sending it just
as the DEs are on their way. as the people around HRH run in all
directions and start Disapparating, Harry sees cloaked and masked
figures in the crowd. It looks to me as if the Patronus was just
slightly faster than the Apparation of the DEs. If that's the case, a
Patronus is virtually instantaneous (and a Patronus disappears so it's
undetectable and it's "reliable"--apparently, it can't go to the wrong
recipient. (I don't think that Tonks specified Hagrid; she just
intended her message to be sent to an Order member, and Snape qualified.)
 
Carol earlier:
> > As for interactive communication, I imagine that it's like a phone
conversation. You respond with your own Patronus message. <snip>
> 
> zgirnius:
> How well this works, depends on whether or not there is a delay.

Carol responds:
Evidently there isn't, given the Kingsley example.

Carol earlier:
> > As for Snape's ability to fly, obviously JKR didn't want to give
that information away in OoP, but I can't see him flying all the way
to London
> 
> zgirnius:
> My susggestion is that he flew from the nearest window to the gate,
and then Apparated.

Carol:
It's possible, assuming that the windows are open (they weren't in
DH--he had to go through it) and that most windows are big enough for
a man to fly out of. And he's dealing with an urgent matter. (Maybe he
used his ability to fly, if he had it at that time, to search the
forest?) In any case, there wouldn't be any windows in his dungeon
office, which is underground, and there's the risk of being seen, even
at night. Why not use a Patronus, which is foolproof?

> 
> > Carol:
> > Only we don't see any other such means, do we? 
> 
> zgirnius:
> Well, we do see plenty of Order members Apparate. <snip>

Carol:
But they don't use Apparition as a form of communication. It's a form
of transportation. If they need to be there in person, they Apparate.
Otherwise, they use a Patronus. (Unless, like Sirius Black when he
uses the Gryffindor fireplace in GoF, they don't have a wand. In OoP,
he seems to have acquired one somehow (just as the DEs, who've been in
Azkaban, somehow have wands again even though Ollivander hasn't yet
disappeared) but uses the fireplace anyway. Why doesn't Sirius send
Harry a Patronus? I guess he doesn't want the other Gryffindors to see
it. Or he doesn't have a wand yet. Or JKR wanted him to nearly get
caught by Umbridge in the fireplace.

> zgirnius:
> Exactly why I do not think it in any way indicates how Snape 
communicated. The statement is not informing Harry or us about the 
details of how Snape communicated, or the various ways in which other
Order members might do so. It is a very gentle reminder to Harry that
going to an Order member, not Umbridge's Floo, was a more reliable
means of communicating. Much nicer than saying "WHY DID YOU NOT GO TO
SNAPE?!"

Carol:
Well, true. But it also *suggests* that Snape used that same reliable
form of communication. If Harry had gone to Snape, he would have seen
Snape cast his Patronus (or Snape would have had to find some other
way to communicate with the Order to prove that Sirius was alive and
safe. They couldn't have used Snape's fireplace, which was being
monitored, to go to 12 GP together, and I doubt that Snape would have
said, "Let me fly/walk/run to the gates and Disapparate, Potter, and
find out for you." The Patronus would have been fast and foolproof,
and would have conveniently shown Harry where Snape's loyalties lie if
Harry had eyes to see, but, of course, we wouldn't have had the MoM
fiasco and the whole Snape storyline, which depends on ambiguity,
would have been ruined.

zgirnius:
> <snip> I do not believe Snape would have wanted Sirius to see his
Patronus. He might as well have just showed it to Harry (which
apparently he does not wish to do, since in HBP he teaches some other
way to deal with Dementors.

Carol:
That's possible. But, as I said earlier, Sirius probably would not
have interpreted it correctly. Young Severus called Lily a Mudblood,
their friendship ended, and Snape later joined the Death Eaters. Would
Sirius believe that Snape, whom he hates and thinks is still loyal to
Voldemort, was in love with Lily, James Potter's wife, who had died
fourteen years earlier? I don't think Sirius has even the remotest
understanding of snape or the remotest desire to understand him, and
he's not going to understand the significance of the doe Patronus. Nor
would he even be thinking about the form of the Patronus in a message
or messages involving Harry and Voldemort. In DH, however, I agree
that he doesn't want *Harry* to see his Patronus. But Harry has a Stag
Patronus, and he would certainly wonder why Snape's Patronus so
closely matches his own. It's important to Snape for personal reasons,
and for his own safety (as Portrait!DD notes in DH) that Harry not
know that Snape is helping him. (Sirius wouldn't believe it; he thinks
that Snape will use the Occlumency lessons to hurt Harry.)

zgirnius quotes:
> > jenny: How did snape keep his patronus secret from the rest of the
order?
> > J.K. Rowling: He was careful not to use the talking Patronus means
of communication with them. This was not difficult, as his particular
job within the Order, ie, as spy, meant that sending a Patronus to any
of them might have given away his true allegiance.

Carol responds:
Yes, I'm familiar with this "explanation." But it's not consistent
with canon. Snape seems to have used the Patronus to communicate at
the end of OoP. He seems to have Apparated and visited 12 GP in person
during holidays, and he would not have needed to communicate to the
Order directly when both he and DD were at Hogwarts. But I don't trust
JKR's explanations, for example, why Harry can't see Thestrals at the
end of GoF even though he's watched Cedric die.

Two points. First, JKR forgets things. I can find any number of
inconsistencies in the books, and they don't all deal with numbers.
And, second, JKR's characters act as the plot requires them to act, as
do the spells they use. If the spells or actions are inconsistent from
book to book (or Weasley-Is-Our-King Ron has to overcome the same fear
twice) it's because the plot of the new book has different
requirements than the plot of the book it contradicts.

Carol, who doesn't trust JKR's interviews because they are off-the
cuff responses and because JKR doesn't check her own "fictional facts"