Snape joining Hogwarts

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 96894

Hitesh wrote:
> In PoA (Page 261,Chapter 18, Bloomsbury Paperback) Lupin mentions
> Snape. Sirius interrupts him and says 
> 'Snape?'..."What's Snape got to do with it?'
> 'He's here, Sirius,' said Lupin heavily. 'He's teaching here as well.'
>> Doesn't this exchange imply that Sirius did not know that Snape had
> ever become a Hogwarts teacher? Sirius went to Azkaban in early
> November 1981. So Snape would have become a Hogwarts professor only
> after Voldemort's downfall. I wonder why there is some controversy
> about whether Snape joined Hogwarts before or after the fall of
Voldemort.

Carol:
I'm behind on posting and don't have time to check all the replies to
this post, so my apologies if I'm duplicating anybody. As I've said
before, Sirius was not at Hogwarts in the days before Godric's Hollow.
He was presumably in his own house (the one he bought with Uncle
Alpherd's money, not Grimmauld Place) or at the old headquarters of
the Order, wherever that was. We know from other evidence (the
conversation in the cave in GoF when HRH bring him chicken legs) that
he didn't know (or suspect) that Snape had ever been a Death Eater. He
would have had no reason to know where Snape was or to inquire about
him. So his not knowing that Snape was at Hogwarts is weak evidence
(and certainly not proof) that Snape was not teaching at Hogwarts at
the time. 

Snape tells Umbridge that he's been teaching at Hogwarts fourteen
years, not "fourteen years this November). It's highly likely, as I
said elsewhere, that he applied for a vacancy (probably the DADA post)
in late summer and received the Potions position instead (with DADA
perhaps going to the former Potions teacher). It's most unlikely that
a teaching post would have become vacant just as Voldemort was
vanquished, and very likely that Snape needed to be at Hogwarts for
his own safety (and as a cover) before that--at least if he, as I
suspect, is the one who informed Dumbledore that the Potters were
about to be attacked.

Carol