Questions about English Grammars in Harry Potter Movies.

Now I’m obsessed with Harry Potter movies and I’m watching my fav scenes so much over and over again that I almost memorized all the lines in those scenes. But there are a few grammars that I don’t understand why they can be correct in them.

The first is Snape’s line, “I assure you that were you in Slytherin and your fate rested with me, the both of you would be on the train home tonight!”

Why is it “that were you” instead of “that you were”?

And the second is again Snape’s line to Lupin, in the scene where he found Harry wandering the corridors at night, and Lupin showed up after Harry read the insults to Snape that appeared on a map: “Out for a little walk in the moonlight, are we?”

why is it “are we” not “are you”?

Sorry for my bad explanation and English tho😅

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DeadSophie · F

The first is because it’s a hypothetical, he is implying that if they were…if he had said “that you were in xxx” that would have been stating a fact which would be incorrect.

The second is what is known as the royal we…in English the word we is sometimes used to mean a single person as the king used to when speaking for himself and the state.

SilkandLace2 · 46-50, M

@DeadSophie i didn't know the "we" had an actual term, that's really cool!

Arukas3 · 18-21, F

@DeadSophie thanks, I didn’t know about the “royal we” at all!

And about the first one, I know that the past tense is used because it’s a hypothetical, but my question was why the order of “were” and “you” changes in the sentence…