[HPforGrownups] OOP: Snape, Lucius, (WAS also: characterisat, Harry/Snape, Wormtail, sayings)

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 62935

> And Kirstini again (me):
> Well, I dunno. The only people we saw in the flashback were those in
> Snape/MWPP's year, having just finished their exam. I think Lucius
> is about a year older than Snape et al, because Snape was supposed
> to be 35 in PS  - ie in 1990.  And Sirius describes him as
> Lucius's "lapdog", a detail he can only have known from his
> schooldays, as their lives didn't cross after this point. Plus,
> there's that "gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be
> Death Eaters." Sirius mentions in GoF - Rosier, Wilkes, Avery and
> two (not three) Lestranges. Why, given this age evidence, wasn't
> Lucius in there? And where were they after the DADA exam?
> Something occurs to me. We accept the timeline that James and Lily
> (thus also Snape, MWP) were 21 when Harry nixed Voldemort the first
> time. This means that the vast majority of the DEs were this age
> too - as we have seen from Sirius's handy little recantation in GoF.
> Including Lucius, as the Daily Prophet informs us. So - they were
> all at school for most of the eleven years of Voldemort's rise. And
> from the little information we've been given in OoP (Pensieve, Remus
> and Sirius recanting), it seems to have been a fairly battle-free
> place - James safely hexing everyone, and nothing happening back. So
> who did Voldemort rely on when they were in school?
>
Kelly:
If I recall correctly, someone else posted earlier that the interview that
mentioned Snape's age came out not long after GoF was released.  Meaning
that if Snape was 35-36 in GoF, he'd be 36-37 in OotP.  And since Lucius is
said to be 41, that's at least a 4 year age difference.  If Snape was in his
fifth year in his flashback, that means that Lucius would no longer have
been at school.  As for the lapdog comment, remember, Sirius and Snape had
both been going to Order meanings the entire summer, and perhaps even while
school was in session there were meetings the kids didn't know about.  I'm
sure the Order knows what Snape is exactly up to, even if we don't.  I
actually have my suspicions that what Snape is doing is more closely related
to maintaining a good relationship with Lucius than it is to hanging out
with V himself.  If he has talked about how his mission is going, Sirius
would know about it and therefore the "lapdog" comment.  I don't think that
comment goes back to their school days, although there's nothing saying a
first year Severus couldn't have followed around a sixth year Lucius.


> I don't understand. There were some other DEs - to wit Rookwood -
> but he was undercover the whole time.  Lucius, who was 22 when
> Voldemort disappeared last time, is now pretty much Head DE. They
> all just seem too young to have risen to power so quickly. Barty
> Crouch Jr must have been sixteen when Voldemort toddled off the
> first time - and yet he calls himself "the Dark Lord's most faithful
> servant"? I also don't like all this sprogging at an early age.
> There was a thread doing the rounds pre-OoP speculating on the age
> of the Weasleys, and some people made a very convincing argument for
> them being in their 60s or 70s, saying that, as wizards live longer,
> they wait longer to have children. Not this lot! We have all these
> very young couples, fresh out of Hogwarts, very actively working for
> either the DEs or the Order, possibility they could all get killed
> any second, and yet they're all pausing to have kids? I suppose it's
> al plausible. It just doesn't make a helluva lot of sense to me.

There is one interesting thing that comes to mind after I read this.  Here
we have a lot of people becoming DEs just out of school or apparently even
while they're still at school.  This would fit in with the logic of, "Get
them while they're young.  Once they're in, they won't leave."  Then you
have the Order, who won't let in even Fred and George because they're too
young.  I know that MWPP and Lily were let in, but I think I can be safe in
assuming even they were out of school first, and speculate that they might
not have even gotten in until they defied V their first time.

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova