Musings on the Silver Doe scene
Aug. 22nd, 2015 11:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockI'm re-reading "The Silver Doe" again, and I'm more convinced than ever that Snape deliberately arranged for Ron to be there at the time.
Half the point of that whole scene was to heal Harry and Ron's friendship - Harry's friendship with his first-ever and best wizarding friend.
Remind me, what did Severus say Harry's real strengths against the Dark Lord were?
"a simple combination of sheer luck and more talented friends."
Albus focuses on Harry's supposed purity. Severus notes his friendships.
And the "need and valor" condition on the Sword, if it was real or at least if Severus believed it was real...
Harry's need, and Ron's valor. Answering Harry's call for help.
He set off around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to him. He had been in terrible danger then, and had asked for help.
"Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent, motionless.
We all thought it a little silly to consider diving into frigid water an act of brave chivalry. Of nerve, yes, but not anything inherently morally weighted.
Even Harry got that part:
With fumbling fingers Harry started to remove his many layers of clothing. Where "chivalry" entered into this, he thought ruefully, he was not entirely sure...
Nothing truly valorous about diving into that pool.
Not unless you were, say, risking yourself for another person, one in need. Like Ron did.
That's also why he was sure it was meant for Ron to destroy the locket. Because Ron's was the valor that had been required in order to retrieve the Sword.
Also, the Deluminator started playing friend-finder on Christmas day, and the doe appears the very next night, after Harry's certain someone's been stalking around in the area around the tent at least for the whole day - it was Ron, of course. The bobbing light pattern even matches Harry and the doe, and leads Ron to their location, where he sees the doe and then Harry. Though that part might just be a nice coincidence.
I think as far as the Deluminator itself goes: I'm stuck as to the details of Severus interfering directly with that. I can't see a way for Severus to have gotten access to Ron to have deliberately fiddled with the thing itself, for all that its actual workings mirror his approach with Harry rather interestingly.
Probably, what happened was that Dumbledore had finally realized - possibly clued in by Severus - that Harry would certainly be relying on his friends for the Horcrux hunt, that he would need them for it, and that he had left them a task in the pursuit of which it was possible they might be separated in any of many ways. (Not that he specifically foresaw that Ron would split in anger.) And that before passing it on he therefore charmed the thing specifically to activate on mention of any of the Trio's names, if the one holding it wished to reach the other/s. His portrait would then have told Snape of the charm.
Possibly, just possibly, it was simply Harry's sacrificial luck in action that brought everything together, and Severus knew enough to rely on it when he got some other (unknown) cue that it was time to give the Sword.
Or, the far more likely option, is that he was waiting for an opportunity to drop the Sword when Ron would be near enough to the others that he could rely on Ron, having been looking for Harry and Hermione and having been let to glimpse the doe, to involve himself. And he relied on Harry, knowing Harry, to do something as stupid as - for example - not take off that very suspicious locket the friends have been angsting over before jumping in (how much did Severus figure out about the horcruxes without tipping Dumbles off that he suspected, anyway? He's not stupid.) Possibly the sword wouldn't have been able to be taken out of the pool by Harry's hand anyway, though I'm not 100% certain about that.
But, however the logistics of it precisely worked, I am certain that it's not at all a coincidence that Severus decided to drop the Sword just on the day Ron happened to find his way back to where Harry and Hermione were.
And, in The Prince's Tale, we get no memories whatsoever of what Severus was doing between searching Grimmauld Place and getting Phineas' report that the Trio is in the forest, when he leaves to give the Sword.
I'm really quite convinced that, thanks to Phineas, he knew all about Ron's leaving and very deliberately set up that whole scene with the conscious intent that it should bring Ron and Harry back together.
It's even the very next thing he shows Harry that he did after he takes the letter and the photograph of his own lost red-haired best friend:
Snape took the page bearing Lily’s signature, and her love, and tucked it inside his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor, under the chest of drawers…
And now Snape stood again in the headmaster’s study as Phineas Nigellus came hurrying into his portrait.
“Headmaster! They are camping in the Forest of Dean! The Mudblood – ”
“Do not use that word!”
“ – the Granger girl, then, mentioned the place as she opened her bag and I heard her!”
“Good. Very good!” cried the portrait of Dumbledore behind the headmaster’s chair. “Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor – and he must not know that you give it! If Voldemort should read Harry’s mind and see you acting for him – ”
“I know,” said Snape curtly. He approached the portrait of Dumbledore and pulled at its side. It swung forward, revealing a hidden cavity behind it from which he took the sword of Gryffindor.
“And you still aren’t going to tell me why it’s so important to give Potter the sword?” said Snape as he swung a traveling cloak over his robes.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Dumbledore’s portrait. “He will know what to do with it. And Severus, be very careful, they may not take kindly to your appearance after George Weasley’s mishap – ”
Snape turned at the door.
“Don’t worry, Dumbledore,” he said coolly. “I have a plan…”
Also, note that as far as the initiatory aspects of this scene go (I might be talking about them a bit in my Indestructible series), Harry undergoes a seeming death:
Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death's....
Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow.
A part of Voldemort seems to overcome and kill him, he wakes feeling colder than he ever had before, and finds that his lost friend has rescued him so that they can continue their quest to destroy the Dark Lord together. And Harry, newly, is able to recognize his friend's rightful part.
Interesting.
Half the point of that whole scene was to heal Harry and Ron's friendship - Harry's friendship with his first-ever and best wizarding friend.
Remind me, what did Severus say Harry's real strengths against the Dark Lord were?
"a simple combination of sheer luck and more talented friends."
Albus focuses on Harry's supposed purity. Severus notes his friendships.
And the "need and valor" condition on the Sword, if it was real or at least if Severus believed it was real...
Harry's need, and Ron's valor. Answering Harry's call for help.
He set off around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to him. He had been in terrible danger then, and had asked for help.
"Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent, motionless.
We all thought it a little silly to consider diving into frigid water an act of brave chivalry. Of nerve, yes, but not anything inherently morally weighted.
Even Harry got that part:
With fumbling fingers Harry started to remove his many layers of clothing. Where "chivalry" entered into this, he thought ruefully, he was not entirely sure...
Nothing truly valorous about diving into that pool.
Not unless you were, say, risking yourself for another person, one in need. Like Ron did.
That's also why he was sure it was meant for Ron to destroy the locket. Because Ron's was the valor that had been required in order to retrieve the Sword.
Also, the Deluminator started playing friend-finder on Christmas day, and the doe appears the very next night, after Harry's certain someone's been stalking around in the area around the tent at least for the whole day - it was Ron, of course. The bobbing light pattern even matches Harry and the doe, and leads Ron to their location, where he sees the doe and then Harry. Though that part might just be a nice coincidence.
I think as far as the Deluminator itself goes: I'm stuck as to the details of Severus interfering directly with that. I can't see a way for Severus to have gotten access to Ron to have deliberately fiddled with the thing itself, for all that its actual workings mirror his approach with Harry rather interestingly.
Probably, what happened was that Dumbledore had finally realized - possibly clued in by Severus - that Harry would certainly be relying on his friends for the Horcrux hunt, that he would need them for it, and that he had left them a task in the pursuit of which it was possible they might be separated in any of many ways. (Not that he specifically foresaw that Ron would split in anger.) And that before passing it on he therefore charmed the thing specifically to activate on mention of any of the Trio's names, if the one holding it wished to reach the other/s. His portrait would then have told Snape of the charm.
Possibly, just possibly, it was simply Harry's sacrificial luck in action that brought everything together, and Severus knew enough to rely on it when he got some other (unknown) cue that it was time to give the Sword.
Or, the far more likely option, is that he was waiting for an opportunity to drop the Sword when Ron would be near enough to the others that he could rely on Ron, having been looking for Harry and Hermione and having been let to glimpse the doe, to involve himself. And he relied on Harry, knowing Harry, to do something as stupid as - for example - not take off that very suspicious locket the friends have been angsting over before jumping in (how much did Severus figure out about the horcruxes without tipping Dumbles off that he suspected, anyway? He's not stupid.) Possibly the sword wouldn't have been able to be taken out of the pool by Harry's hand anyway, though I'm not 100% certain about that.
But, however the logistics of it precisely worked, I am certain that it's not at all a coincidence that Severus decided to drop the Sword just on the day Ron happened to find his way back to where Harry and Hermione were.
And, in The Prince's Tale, we get no memories whatsoever of what Severus was doing between searching Grimmauld Place and getting Phineas' report that the Trio is in the forest, when he leaves to give the Sword.
I'm really quite convinced that, thanks to Phineas, he knew all about Ron's leaving and very deliberately set up that whole scene with the conscious intent that it should bring Ron and Harry back together.
It's even the very next thing he shows Harry that he did after he takes the letter and the photograph of his own lost red-haired best friend:
Snape took the page bearing Lily’s signature, and her love, and tucked it inside his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor, under the chest of drawers…
And now Snape stood again in the headmaster’s study as Phineas Nigellus came hurrying into his portrait.
“Headmaster! They are camping in the Forest of Dean! The Mudblood – ”
“Do not use that word!”
“ – the Granger girl, then, mentioned the place as she opened her bag and I heard her!”
“Good. Very good!” cried the portrait of Dumbledore behind the headmaster’s chair. “Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor – and he must not know that you give it! If Voldemort should read Harry’s mind and see you acting for him – ”
“I know,” said Snape curtly. He approached the portrait of Dumbledore and pulled at its side. It swung forward, revealing a hidden cavity behind it from which he took the sword of Gryffindor.
“And you still aren’t going to tell me why it’s so important to give Potter the sword?” said Snape as he swung a traveling cloak over his robes.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Dumbledore’s portrait. “He will know what to do with it. And Severus, be very careful, they may not take kindly to your appearance after George Weasley’s mishap – ”
Snape turned at the door.
“Don’t worry, Dumbledore,” he said coolly. “I have a plan…”
Also, note that as far as the initiatory aspects of this scene go (I might be talking about them a bit in my Indestructible series), Harry undergoes a seeming death:
Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death's....
Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow.
A part of Voldemort seems to overcome and kill him, he wakes feeling colder than he ever had before, and finds that his lost friend has rescued him so that they can continue their quest to destroy the Dark Lord together. And Harry, newly, is able to recognize his friend's rightful part.
Interesting.
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no subject
Date: 2015-08-24 03:46 am (UTC)In fact, IMHO, Ron's the only one who's been acting with any sense in the last couple of chapters.
And it is very interesting that Harry recognizes this horcrux is Ron's to destroy.
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Date: 2015-08-24 02:56 pm (UTC)I really do like Ron quite a lot, when he's not letting his jealousy get the better of him and when the author isn't dumbing him down artificially.
It just took me a little while to see that maybe Severus was a little more careful about the details of that whole setup than it seemed at first. ;)
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Date: 2015-08-25 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-25 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-26 01:10 am (UTC)