deathtocapslock | Quirrell, Quidditch, and Illusions: A Reconsideration (Reply)

I know everyone say, “Dem two short planks, dey’re as fick as [Terri]” Terry Pratchett, Jingo

Well, at least, they should be saying that.

What, from Snape’s point of view, was the point of volunteering to referee Harry’s second Quidditch game?

Severus did not really imagine that he could better protect Harry from Quirrell on a broom flying through the sky with his attention necessarily divided among fourteen children and two lethal missiles (oh, and a game), than with both feet planted on the ground and his attention all on Harry and Quirrell, no. Only a Gryffindor with visions of heroically (and idiotically) interposing his body between the intended victim and a spell would come up with such an idea.

Besides, Snape’s attempted protection was rendered utterly superfluous by Dumbledore’s unexpected appearance on the scene.

So I had applied Luna’s maxim for figuring out the schemes of the smartest Slytherins: sometimes you must at least consider the possibility that what did happen is what they meant to happen.

Applied to Snape’s refereeing, that gave me Quirrell’s assessment:

“Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn’t do it again. Funny, really… he needn’t have bothered. I couldn’t do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular….”[PS17]

So I deduced, and thought myself bright to do so, that the real point of the exercise had been to firm up Snape’s reputation with the other teachers of being frothing-at-the-mouth unfair where James Potter’s Quidditch-playing lookalike son was concerned.

Bangs head slowly against dem two short planks I are as fick as.

That result was lagniappe.

The point was Quirrell’s “Funny, really….”

Establishing that Quirrell—and Voldemort—bought that Snape and Dumbledore had been working at cross-purposes in protecting Harry.

Rather than, say, closely together.

*

What, after all, had been Snape’s supposed reason for protecting Harry?

Well, what did Severus say when Bellatrix challenged him on that point?

“Have you not understood me? It was only Dumbledore’s protection that was keeping me out of Azkaban! Do you disagree that murdering his favorite student might have turned him against me? … I have done my utmost to have him[Potter] thrown out of Hogwarts, where I believe he scarcely belongs, but kill him, or allow him to be killed in front of me? I would have been a fool to risk it with Dumbledore close at hand.” [HBP 2, emphasis mine]

Snape’s fabled animosity towards Harry is itself his excuse for working hard to protect the child. If anything happened to the boy, he’d be the obvious first suspect. Perfectly valid, absolutely self-interested reason to take a keen interest in the boy’s safety at school—I’ll take the fall if anything happens.

Including with Dumbledore. Dumbledore doesn’t really trust Snape with the boy. Dumbledore believes Snape capable of murdering James Potter’s son. Ergo, Snape dare not. And dare not even stand by when someone else tries.

And the two of them established this as soon as they could manage after Severus tipped. Voldemort’s agent off that he was protecting Harry.

Dumbledore must have been suspicious of Snape’s story that he’d been performing a countercurse at the first match, right? Why else would he show up to keep an eye on the ref? Which incidentally kept the real assassin in check as well.

Funny, really.