Dark Mark/ Re: Snape the Traitorous D.E. (WAS: Three Missing Death Eaters)

[nobodysrib <nobodysrib@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52891

> SeventhSqueal wrote:
> 
> 
> This [Snape=traitor in graveyard scene] doesn't mean Snape is a 
good guy now, just because he ratted on Voldemort and appears to have 
defected beneath Dumbledore's wing. 
<snip>
 Snape doesn't appear to be entirely loyal to Dumbledore either. He 
still withholds information from Headmaster. (Dumbledore withholds 
information from Snape, too, so Dumbledore is still suspicious of 
Snape.) His clandestine meeting with Quirrel in the forest is good 
evidence of this. Why wouldn't he have turned Quirrel in the moment 
he suspected that Quirrel was going for the stone? 
<snip>
He bypassed Dumbledore to personally threaten Quirrell in secret. He 
asked Quirrel to remember where his loyalties lie. If Snape is a 
traitorous DE, he's not talking about Voldemort. If Snape bypassed 
Dumbledore to threaten Quirrell, he wasn't talking about Dumbledore. 
I think Snape is talking about a third party or himself. 

Me: 

I really like the non-Dumbledore and non-Voldemort options for 
Snape's loyalty quote, but there is another option to consider, 
relating to Snape questioning Quirrell's loyalty to _Dumbledore_ , 
for which I partially use the following situation as evidence:

When they learned about Voldemort rising in GoF, Dumbledore said to 
Snape "you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready... if you 
are prepared..."  To which Snape's response was not surprise, 
but " "I am," said Snape./ He looked slightly paler than usual and 
his cold, black eyes glittered strangely."  (GoF hardcover, pg. 713)

Possible situation:  In SS, Snape knows that if/when Voldemort rises, 
that Snape will be asked to do something difficult, such as beg V for 
forgiveness and attempt to redeem double agent status.  Considering 
how V treated Pettigrew, a faithful but cowardly servant, how much 
worse would he treat a traitorous one!  Snape dreads this 
confrontation and knows that if he were to go to Dumbledore with his 
suspicions about Quirrell, Dumbledore might ask him to ready himself 
for V-reconciliation.  So Snape instead chooses to reason with 
Quirell, hoping to stop the situation (Snape having to go back to V.) 
before the possibility rises.  Just a possibility.


Also, about the Dark Mark: 
I believe that Snape showing Fudge the Dark Mark in the end of GoF 
has great significance.  Snape gives an incredibly detailed 
explanation: "There. The Dark Mark.  It is not as clear as it was an 
hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it.  
Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord.  It 
was a means of distinguishing one another, and his means of summoning 
us to him.  When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to 
Disapparate, and Apparate, instantly, at his side.  This Mark has 
been growing clearer all year" (GoF hardcover pgs 709-710).

After Voldemort's fall, I would assume that the Marks would fade, 
thus during the trials, this would not be readily available as 
evidence.  I would also assume that Snape's lengthy explanation means 
that information about the Dark Mark has not previously been well-
known in the WW.  [Perhaps the only ones who were aware of it were 
DEs themselves (who would not profit from describing it), and 
possibly Dumbledore (who would know this information from Snape, but 
telling others about the Mark would mean incriminating Snape and 
losing him as an ally/ turning him in).]

I might go as far as too assume that Snape has just given high-up 
officials in the WW/MoM VERY important information about DEs, should 
they choose to believe it.  Couldn't they now force all those 
suspicious of being DEs to show their arms and prove their 
innocence?  Suddenly auror's jobs have become much easier.  (And if 
the mark were removable or coverable, wouldn't Snape or Karkaroff 
have figured out a way to do so?)

Fudge's reaction to the Mark was to "recoil" (pg 709), and "stare, 
apparently repelled by the ugly mark on Snape's arm" (pg 710).  This 
leads me to believe that he has NEVER seen/heard of the Marks 
before...  unless Fudge is a DE and the reaction was either (a) a 
cover or (b) disapproval of Snape letting out the secret and making 
it easier for DEs to be rounded up.

If information about the Mark does not leak out to the WW (or at 
least to the aurors) in OoP, does this mean that Fudge has chosen not 
believe its validity and that Dumbledore has concocted it (Fudge's 
verbal response to the Mark: "I don't know what you and your staff 
are playing at, Dumbledore, but I have heard enough" pg 710) or that 
Fudge, as a DE, is purposefully repressing the information?

(And if Bagman were a DE, wouldn't someone have seen the Mark when he 
was in the Quidditch lockerroom?)

- nobody's rib