A double post for the eighth chapter. When I started preparing the
chapter discussion, I thought it wouldn't be long… and I finished
with a 12 pages long analyze. The matter is that there are many
things to say concerning "Snape Victorious", because it mirrors
several of the most important themes of the novel.
That's why you'll have two posts instead of one.
In this one, there's the "light version", with the summary and
suggestions for possible discussions. In another post, there's
everything I wrote while I was working on the chapter.
In both cases, I divided "Snape Victorious" between eight sequences,
and gave each of them a title, trying to make it fit what seemed to
be the general meaning of the sequence.

1)THE LONE TRAVELLER
(from "Harry could not move a muscle" to "…and nobody knew he was
still on it")

What happens:

•Draco Malfoy jinxed Harry, broke his nose, hided him under the
Invisibility Cloak and left him alone in a compartment of the
Express.
•Petrified, silent, invisible and covered in blood, Harry listens
with anguish the other students leave the train. At the same time,
he feels stupid for being in such situation.
•He tries to break the curse performing a silent spell. As he fails,
he hopes the others will worry and look for him.
•The train starts leaving the station back to London, and nobody has
come.

What could be interesting:

* Harry's situation foreshadows what will happen at the end of the
book, on the Astronomy Tower.
* Harry loosing his blood isn't just one more dramatic detail. Every
time JK Rowling spreads Harry's blood, she seals an important change
in the boy's evolution
* When Harry tries to liberate himself, he tries to imitate
Dumbledore. We couldn't find a better metaphor for what will happen
all along the rest of the book.
* As in every decisive moment, Harry is alone.
* One last thing about this sequence: Dumbledore's silences can be
very eloquent indeed.

2) VISIBLE DIFFERENCES AND HIDDEN PERMANENCIES
(from "Then he felt the Invisibility Cloak fly off him" to " I
suppose I'll just have to sleep out here and wait for the morning")

What happens:

•Tonks comes and rescues Harry. They leave the train as it moves out
of the station.
•Tonks heals Harry's broken nose, makes him hide under the Cloak,
and before they start walking towards the castle, she produces a
strange Patronus as a message telling that Harry is with her.
•During their walk towards the castle, Tonks tells Harry how she
managed to find him, and that she's protecting the school.
•Harry notices how different Tonks is by now. She's not the one she
used to be the year before.
•They reach the Hogwarts gate, but it is closed and Harry is unable
to enter.

What could be interesting:

* "Wotcher, Harry!" In this chapter, Tonks repeats towards Harry
what she did and said the year before, when she had come to find him
in 4 Privet Drive with the Advance Guard.
* Things are different now, but the essential remains unchanged. In
a few lines, JK Rowling evocates books 1, 2, 3 and 5, and tells both
us and Harry that this is an entirely new world, in which the boy's
childhood and teenage belong definitely to the past. By now Harry is
a young adult.
* The new Tonks is worth a short comment. She seems weaker, like her
Patronus tends to prove it. But weakness isn't necessarily an
inconvenient in the series, and Harry is the main example, because
he defeated Voldemort when he was a baby. As for Tonks, her visible
change will puzzle the reader.
* The most important, from a narrative point of view, is hidden
behind trivial appearances: someone in the castle is an impostor
and/or a traitor.

3)THE UNEXPECTED GATEKEEPER
(from "Someone is coming down for you" to "You can walk in so that
everyone sees you, which is what you wanted, I'm sure")

What happens:

•Someone comes to the gate, holding a lantern. Harry thinks it is
Filch, but he finds himself face to face with Snape.
•The gate opens. Snape comments ironically Harry's aspect and
Tonks's new Patronus.
•As they walk in silence, Harry struggles against the hatred he
feels towards Snape. He considers Snape is responsible for Sirius's
death.
•Snape takes 70 points from Gryffindor because Harry is late and
dressed up like a Muggle. He declares Harry wanted to "make an
entrance". Harry is furious, but he remains silent.
•Snape makes Harry enter the Great Hall without his Cloak, so
everyone can notice him.

What could be interesting:

* Snape is shown in his inherent ambiguity.
* Harry is at the same time different and unchanged.

4)END OF THE FEAST?
(from "Harry turned on the spot…" to "The talk and laughter echoing
around the Hall died away almost instantly")

What happens:

•Snape makes Harry enter the Great Hall, and Harry hurries towards
the Gryffindor table, hoping the others won't notice him. He's still
covered in blood, and Hermione has to clean him. Ron and she would
like to know what happened, but Harry refuses to talk, hoping they
will imagine he has been involved in something heroic.
•Harry tries to reach some food, but it vanishes. He missed the
feast, and also the Sorting, but the Hat didn't say anything new.
•Harry watches different people around him: Hagrid, Mac Gonagall,
Malfoy, and Trelawney, who has come to the feast for the very first
time.
•Hermione, Ron and Nearly Headless Nick tell him that everybody
wants to know if he was really the Chosen One.

What could be interesting:

* We find another foreshadowing of what will happen at the end of
the book, when Hermione exclaims that Harry is covered in blood.
* Harry has missed the feast and the Sorting, but he hasn't missed
the most important.
* We see that Harry has now for good what we can call "a political
status".
* We find a reference to the Prophecy. Later in the book, we'll have
to consider whether omens are trustworthy.

5)DUMBLEDORE'S LAST WELCOME SPEECH
(from "The very best of evenings to you!" to "…Quidditch
commentators, who should do likewise.")

What happens:

•Dumbledore welcomes his students with his arms wide open, and
everyone can notice that his hand is wounded and dead-looking.
•While Dumbledore is speaking, Harry and Hermione have a short chat
about his hand.
•Considerations about using joke items, and about Quidditch.

What could be interesting:

* Dumbledore welcomes his students opening his arms, "as though to
embrace the whole room".
* What Hermione tells Harry about Dumbledore's hand foreshadows
several important revelations involving magic.

6)CONCERNING WISHES AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT
(from "We are pleased to welcome a new member…" to "… the silence
was absolute before continuing".)

What happens:

•Dumbledore tells the students their new Potions master will be
Slughorn. As for DADA, it will be Snape's job.
•Harry and his friends are astonished; Harry can't understand how
Snape could be given the DADA job. He also remembers that Dumbledore
has never said that Slughorn would teach them DADA. It was Harry's
deduction, not reality.
•Snape seems to react to his nomination with arrogance; as for
Harry, he feels so furious that he wishes Snape will leave the
castle by the en d of the year, and he hopes he will die.

What could be interesting:

* Though Harry is the Chosen One, he still has to learn, and he is
not omniscient.
* When JK Rowling writes that Harry "was unable to recall Dumbledore
ever telling him what Slughorn would be teaching", we can say she's
trying to make us understand there's a gap between what people want
to believe and reality.
* "How could Snape be given the Defence Against the Dark Arts job
after all this time?" This is more than Harry's question. It's a key
question.
* Snape's triumph is ambiguous.
* "Well, there's one good thing. Snape'll be gone by the end of the
year. The job's jinxed… Quirrell actually died doing it. Personally,
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for another death."
Harry announces what is going to happen by the end of the book.

7)"I URGE YOU, I IMPLORE YOU, I TRUST YOU"
(from "Now, as everybody in this Hall…" to "Pip pip!")

What happens:

•Dumbledore tells the students that Voldemort and his followers are
back, and gaining power. Malfoy doesn't pay attention to what the
Headmaster says.
•Dumbledore explains that the castle's fortifications have been
strengthened and that the students must be vigilant, tell the
teachers whenever something strange happens, and care for each
others.

What could be interesting:

* Dumbledore's insistence about protecting the castle from exterior
danger.
* "I urge you, I implore you, I trust you": in a few words,
Dumbledore is foreshadowing what he will do on the top of the
Astronomy Tower.

8)THE HEIRS OF DUMBLEDORE
(from "With the usual deafening scraping noise…" to "he did not like
to think")

What happens:

•The students leave the Hall. Hermione takes care of the first-years.
•Harry and Ron remain at the back of the group. Harry tells Ron what
happened on the train, but Ron doesn't want to believe that Draco is
planning something.
•Hagrid comes and explains he couldn't welcome Harry at the gate
because he was with Grawp. He also gives news of Buckbeak.
•Harry, Ron and Hermione won't study Care of Magical Creatures, but
the boys don't dare tell Hagrid.

What could be interesting:

* Hermione and Ron immediately obey Dumbledore's recommendations.
* Hagrid's character seems to loose importance.