HBP post DH look Chapters 1-2.

[tommy_m_riddle]

No: HPFGUIDX 184291

(Snip question about how Snape found out about the plan that I think
was settled in other messages)
> 
> Sarah: 
> > Absent obvious evidence, I'm usually prone to give the benefit of 
> the
> > doubt to the author not making a mistake.  But in this case, I 
> wonder
> > if maybe it is one, though it's a very minor matter.
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> 
> I am not sure I follow here. What mistake, could you clarify please?
> 
> Thank you.

Sarah:

Oh, sure, sorry.  I mean that with only HBP to work with, it really
seemed to me that Snape only found out about the plan from Narcissa
the moment he (I figured at the time) used Legilimency on her.  And
that up until that second, he really was bluffing about knowing what
the plan was at all.  My support for this was that Snape acts
completely hesitant to make any promises, right up until the line
about him staring in her eyes.  The very next sentence, he agrees
straight away, in no uncertain terms, to take the Vow.

Then DH came along and showed Snape talking to Dumbledore all about
the plan, at a time prior to Spinner's End.  So he did already know
it.  But the clues in Spinner's End really seemed to suggest something
different, so I thought maybe JK forgot about having set that up.

I'm not too fussed either way about this being a flint or not, it's
just something I thought I'd mention.  It just makes Snape's behavior
in Spinner's End slightly more confusing to me than if it had turned
out that Snape only found out the plan right there when he read it
from Narcissa's mind.  No big deal, just a very minor detail.

If it weren't for that one thing, Spinner's End would be in my running
for the best-conceived Harry Potter chapter.  That is, if you don't
count the fact that it exists.  Its mere presence is kind of a
giveaway, if we were supposed to think at the end of HBP that the big
shocker ending was that Snape was evil.  There was no chapter 2 of GOF
where Moody talked about how he was actually Barty Jr, no chapter 2 of
PS/SS where Quirrell explained that Voldemort was on the back of his
head, etc.