[HPforGrownups] Whose Man Snape?

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 69702

derannimer wrote:
> 
> Anyway, though, here it is: unless the eavesdropper in the Hogs Head is important, 
> there is no reason to have an eavesdropper at all. Because there was *another* 
> channel for Voldemort to have plausibly found out about the Prophecy -- Rookwood. 
> Why didn't JKR just have *Rookwood,* who works, as we know from GOF and OOP, at 
> the Department of Mysteries, tell Voldemort about the Prophecy? There is simply no 
> reason to go through all of this rigamarole about a mysterious eavesdropper unless 
> the mysterious eavesdropper is important for reasons *other* than the plot necessity 
> of Voldemort's discovering about the existence of the Prophecy. 

Merely working in the department of mysteries does not mean that 
Rookwood would have access to the prophecy.  That department is 
highly classified.  Not only do others in the ministry not know 
what it is up to, but people in one section of the department 
won't know that the other sections are up to.  In the real world 
this is know as Special Compartmented Information (SCI).  Not 
only do projects have code words to hide their purpose, but the 
codewords themselves are classified. (LBJ once caused a stink 
when he was photographed holding a folder marked "Top Secret 
Umbra", 'Umbra' being (up until that time) a classified code word 
for certain communications intelligence.)

Even if Rookwook worked in the prophecy section, there are 
probably access controls on everything so that he either couldn't 
get the prophecy, or if he could he couldn't do it undetected. 
In the magical world these controls probably are more effective 
than in the real world.