CoS Chapter 11 post DH look

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 181271

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at ...> 
wrote:

> Yaxley is taller than Snape, who is shorter than Black.

zanooda:

Yeah, I remember that Yaxley is taller from Ch.1, but it means 
nothing to me, because I have no idea how tall Snape is. In your 
sentence he is shorter than everybody :-).


> potioncat:

> The idea was that after the DEs entered Hogwarts, McGonagall 
> sent Flitwick to get Snape. Some readers thought it was unusual 
> that McGonagall would send a full wizard on an errand, instead 
> of sending one of the students.


zanooda:

Or she could have sent her Patronus to alert Snape, like she did in 
DH - she even managed to produce three :-)!. I actually can 
understand why she didn't want to send a student. I think that maybe 
she decided to send for Snape right after she found out from Ron, 
Ginny and Neville about the DE's being in the castle, not during the 
battle. 

At this point the teachers and the Order didn't find the DE's yet and 
didn't know where they were - they only found the DEs "minutes later" 
(p.618) - and then the battle began. So maybe McGonagall thought it 
was too dangerous to send a student alone on an errand, knowing that 
he/she can run into the DEs loose in the castle. Or maybe she was 
afraid that Snape won't take a student (and a Gryffindor at that :-)) 
seriously and say someting like "What is this rubbish?", LOL.

It's more difficult to explain why she didn't use the Patronus. Maybe 
she was afraid that Snape was asleep and wanted to send a messenger 
who would be sure to wake him up. Or maybe Flitwick needed to do 
something downstairs anyway (like seal the entrance door, for 
example) and volonteered to alert Snape in the dungeons at the same 
time.

These are all not very good explanations, but the point is, 
McGonagall sending Flitwick away *can* be explained - I've seen worse 
things explained here on this list :-). And even if McGonagall sent 
Flitwick away from the battle because she thought he was unable to 
defend himself, it doesn't mean she was right about him. If she 
thought he was a weakling (you know, so tiny, frail and squeaky :-))  
she was mistaken, IMO. Maybe he is not a champion, but he doesn't 
seem worse than others at fighting.