Snape's Psycology: WAS: More thoughts on the Elder Wand subplot - Ow

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 187437

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Beatrice23" <beatrice23 at ...> wrote:

> > JLyon <jnoyl@> wrote:

> > ... do not forget that  according to Trelawney, 
> > Snape and Bumbles were present and heard the  
> > entire prophesy.


> Beatrice:

> I think that you misread here. Snape overheard the 
> prophesy, but was removed from the building BEFORE he heard 
> the whole thing.


zanooda:

Many readers see a contradiction here :-). Yes, in OotP we find out that the eavesdropper only heard the beginning of the prophecy and then was thrown out of the building. However, in HBP Trelawney told Harry that she witnessed Snape being caught eavesdropping at the door ("The Seer Overheard"). To many people this means that Snape was only caught after he heard the entire prophecy and Trelawney came out of the trance.

For the record, I don't think it is much of a contradiction, because Snape could have been prevented from hearing the second part of the prophecy even if he was still at the door, IMO. I imagine Aberforth caught him eavesdropping at the very beginning of the prophecy and started shouting at him, and Snape tried to talk his way out of this mess, so he could easily miss the rest of it.

Meanwhile, Trelawney finished with the prophecy, came out of the trance and DD opened the door to find out what was the commotion. This way we have Snape still at the door for Trelawney to see him, and at the same time he didn't hear the second part of the prophecy, because Aberforth distracted him. 

Besides, DD never said *when* exactly the eavesdropper was "thrown from the building", just that he was discovered *and* thrown out :-). I guess he didn't want to say that there was something in between, because that meant to tell Harry who the eavesdropper was...