Good point, but I’m not sure if the wards triggered right then: Dumbledore said he felt Hermione die, not that the wards alerted him that Hermione died. During the Draco fiasco various characters say the wards are triggered to detect rapid harm to students, which is why they didn’t detect the blood-cooling charm (although you’d think that means the wards would have detected what happened to Hermione sooner...). The implication is that if someone hadn’t discovered Draco he would have died without the wards detecting it, or at least that’s what it sounded like to me.
We don’t even know Dumbledore was in the castle, as I understand it. Ch88:
A quick glance at the Head Table confirmed that the Divination Professor was waving her wand frantically as the half-Giant dabbed at his clothes. Nobody else seemed to be paying much attention, even Professor McGonagall. Professor Flitwick was standing on his chair as usual, the Headmaster seemed to be absent again (he’d been gone most days of the holiday)
If he’s not even at Hogwarts, that seems like it renders it difficult to infer anything from when he shows up since any delay or argument-from-silence could just as well be due to it taking time to phoenix-fire back from whereever and then repoint himself.
During the Draco fiasco various characters say the wards are triggered to detect rapid harm to students
Hmm, this does appear to be a hole in my logic, and also the response of “the wards only trigger on death” to “if Dumbledore had show up seconds sooner things would have been different.” The text from earlier:
The clear intent of the Blood-Cooling Charm had been to kill Draco Malfoy so slowly that the wards of Hogwarts, set to detect sudden injury, would not trigger.
Good point, but I’m not sure if the wards triggered right then: Dumbledore said he felt Hermione die, not that the wards alerted him that Hermione died. During the Draco fiasco various characters say the wards are triggered to detect rapid harm to students, which is why they didn’t detect the blood-cooling charm (although you’d think that means the wards would have detected what happened to Hermione sooner...). The implication is that if someone hadn’t discovered Draco he would have died without the wards detecting it, or at least that’s what it sounded like to me.
We don’t even know Dumbledore was in the castle, as I understand it. Ch88:
If he’s not even at Hogwarts, that seems like it renders it difficult to infer anything from when he shows up since any delay or argument-from-silence could just as well be due to it taking time to phoenix-fire back from whereever and then repoint himself.
Hmm, this does appear to be a hole in my logic, and also the response of “the wards only trigger on death” to “if Dumbledore had show up seconds sooner things would have been different.” The text from earlier:
Something else interesting, from Chapter 84:
Grievous bodily injury, unfortunately, is not covered under that warranty.
Also,
Now I guess we know why it started with her legs.
The portkey would only work if she was taken outside Hogwarts.
Not true. Portkeys can work in Hogwarts—cf., the end of Goblet of Fire. It’s only Apparation that doesn’t work.
In HPMOR, portkeys do not work in Hogwarts (chapter 63).
Right. I was thinking of the “rip the playing card” portkey, but in retrospect that said to get beyond the wards first.
It seems reasonable for the Headmaster to be able to make portkeys that can bypass those wards.