Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 20: The Dementor's kiss

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190768


> > 2.If things had worked out--if they could have delivered Pettigrew to DD, do
> you think it would have been a good idea for Harry to live with Sirius?

Pippin:
It would be nice to imagine Harry and Sirius having some more time together like they had in GoF, but I'm not sure Sirius was up to it. On the evidence of OOP,  he found  the responsibility for a household and a needy dependent day to day as burdensome as young Dumbledore did. 

Assuming, for the sake of JKR's timeline, that some other DE would have returned to Voldemort if Peter hadn't,  the only extra time Harry and Sirius could have spent together is the first part of the summer following PoA, when Harry was, for once, reasonably contented with his life at Privet Drive. 

The second part of that summer Harry spent at the Weasleys. Sirius wouldn't have wanted him to pass that up. And of course he believed that Harry should be at Hogwarts. 

After GoF, it was horrible for Harry to be left without emotional support so soon after The Graveyard and I'm sure reading Harry's desperate letters was as painful an experience as Sirius ever had. But Voldemort would be watching to determine who had emotional ties to Harry, so it wasn't safe to let anyone Harry really cared about be near him until Grimmauld Place was fully secured. 

> > 3.Harry quickly decided he couldn't do anything for Ron and that Sirius was in
> trouble, so he went to Sirius. Why did Hermione leave Ron?

Pippin:
She couldn't do anything for Ron either, except try to get him to the castle. But Ron wouldn't have wanted her to let Harry face danger alone. 


> > 4. Harry sees the silvery light as a galloping animal, as bright as a unicorn
> yet not clearly enough to make it out. Why did JKR keep the stag Patronus from
> us and Harry? What harm would there have been in telling or what advantage was
> there in JKR's keeping it secret?

Pippin:
The moment of recognition comes when Harry is alone, and at a moment when the dramatic tension has dropped. Then he's immediately able to explain what happened to Hermione, before the reader has much time to think things out and spoil the surprise. 


> > 5. Who did you think the person across the lake was?

Pippin:
Not a clue. I didn't really think it could be Harry's dad. 


> > 6. We follow Harry out of the tunnel, over to the lake, watch him be attacked
> by Dementors and rescued by himself. What does this tell us about Time Travel in
> the Potterverse?

Pippin:
It does whatever JKR needs it to do. <g> 

> > 7.While it's fresh, can you reconstruct what Snape saw when he came to? How
> does it compare to what he may have overheard earlier in the Shrieking Shack?

Snape says that when he came to,  the dementors were moving back to their positions by the entrance and  he didn't see what had driven them away. 

 There are several possibilities, among them that what Snape saw was a different timeline. But let us assume that it is not meant to be and any discrepancies in the text are Flints.

 Snape  comes around on the path to the castle and would know from the moon's position that Lupin must have transformed already. Wandless, Snape must reverse the spell which was keeping him in midair.  He finds Ron stunned by something much more serious than the usual spell, a dark wizard's work for certain. Lupin's wand is lying somewhere nearby, hidden in the darkness. Ron still has his wand, though. Possibly Snape is able to use it to locate Lupin's wand and discover, with priori incantatem, that it was used on Ron. But there's no time to investigate. Snape has to find the others, and what has become of Snape's own wand?

There's a glow of light by the lake. Snape conjures a stretcher for Ron and heads  to the lake, but by the time he gets there, the glow is gone and the dementors are  scattered, retreating towards the entrances.  Harry, Hermione and Sirius are lying unconscious and clearly suffering from a dementor attack. Presumably Snape recovers his wand, binds and gags Sirius, then conjures more stretchers. 

There wouldn't be anything to convince Snape that either Sirius or Lupin had friendly intentions towards the Trio. Ron was on the path to the castle, but he's been attacked, and despite Sirius's stated willingness to be taken to the castle, clearly Hermione, Harry and Sirius were moving away from it when the dementors found them. Nor would it be like Harry and Hermione to abandon their friend unless they'd been compelled. 


> > 8. What questions do you have?

Harry has the impression Sirius is doing nothing to keep Snape's head from bumping against the roof of the tunnel. Hermione is right there. How do you think she felt about this? What did she think of Sirius's invitation for Harry to live with him?

Pippin
with sympathies to Potioncat on her computer problems. Accio data!