Who's the third dead death eater? / 'One who's left me forever...'

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 106259

kandbmom wrote: 
This whole chapter leaves me with unanswered questions. I 
> am also considering the idea that Snape could have been the man 
> standing next to the space that separated Lucius and "the next man".  
> I have a feeling Snape is "the next man"  We know he had the mark and 
> he surely felt it burn and turn black. <snip>

Carol responds:
Unless we go with the time turner theory--and it's most unlikely that
Snape had one--he could not have been at the graveyard. He was at the
Tri-wizard tournament, and you can't apparate from Hogwarts. We also
have his words to Karkaroff earlier--something along the lines of
"Flee, then! Flee! I will remain at Hogwarts." He also reports that
Karkaroff fled at the end of the tournament, when Cedric and Harry
disappeared.

JKR has said somewhere that we should be able to figure out who the
three DEs are (the loyal servant, the coward, and the one who has left
 forever). I really see no reason why we should strain ourselves to
interpret this passage in any way other than the one we know to be
true, Barty Crouch Jr. was the loyal servant at Hogwarts (but not for
long!), Karkaroff was a coward who fled, Snape was disloyal to
Voldemort and had long ago left him forever (a discovery Voldemort was
belatedly making).

The only problems here are Voldemort's prediction that the one who has
left forever will be killed and the fact that Snape is still alive.
These problems are in fact easily resolved. First, Voldemort is not a
prophet and we don't need to believe that Snape will die just because
he said so. Second, Snape has a legitimate excuse for not being
there--as he and Hermione keep saying, you can't apparate from
Hogwarts. All he has to do is to explain to Lucius Malfoy why he
wasn't there and have Malfoy pass this information on to Voldemort and
he's back where he started (under some suspicion, maybe, because he
tried to prevent Quirrell from getting the philosopher's stone, but
not proven to be disloyal because he didn't know that Voldemort was
inside Quirrell's head).

I really think we're reaching too far for explanations with this one.

BTW, other Death Eaters remain unmentioned. Why does the narrator
describe a gap large enough for two people when LV talks about the
Lestranges (and elsewhere Sirius refers to them as "a married
couple")? We know that there are three Lestranges and that Rabastan as
well as Rodolphus and Bellatrix was a loyal servant who tortured the
Longbottoms and tried to find Voldemort after Godric's Hollow. Why
praise Rodolphus and Bellatrix for their loyalty and promise them a
reward and not do the same for Rabastan? (Not that I think Rabastan is
a good guy and deserves a reward--I just wonder what he's doing in the
story and why he's been overlooked twice.)

I agree with other posters that the third DE missing in LV's service
is probably Travers. The others mentioned by Karkaroff in the Pensieve
scene are all accounted for.

Fudge says later, when Harry lists Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Macnair,
Avery, and Nott as being present at the graveyard, that Harry is only
naming people who had been charged with being Death Eaters and cleared
(presumably by claiming that they'd been Imperio'd). It's interesting
that LV names only *those* DEs--and the Lestranges, who are known to
be in Azkaban. He doesn't even name the coward, etc. As Karkaroff said
in the Pensieve scene, the DEs themselves didn't know the names of
everyone present, and LV seems to be naming only those whose names
would already be known to everyone present.

What I can't remember is how many escaped from Azkaban. Wasn't it ten?
 But only twelve people participated in the MoM raid, and five of
those were "Death Eaters who walked free"--five of the six named by LV
in the graveyard (not counting Wormtail, who is not exactly named and
is still presumed dead by the WW at large). So seven of the ten(?)
escapees participated in the raid; three(?) did not. Neither did Goyle
or Wormtail. So we have five(?) DEs plus an unknown number (surely not
more than a dozen) who were skipped by Voldemort in the graveyard.

As I've said before, this limited number doesn't fit very well with
the statement by one of the Order members in OoP that the Order
members (of whom there were about twenty) were outnumbered by the DEs
ten to one, especially if only three DEs died in Voldemort's service.
How many died in Azkaban. Over a hundred? And do they not count as
dying in his service because they died after they were caught? Surely
the original circle must have been much bigger? (Unless, as has been
argued, these DEs constituted LV's "inner circle.")

Can anyone point me to the chapter that mentions the escape from
Azkaban? I don't have time to hunt up the reference now, but I want to
know if I'm right about seven out of ten of the escapees participating
in the raid and three (not counting Bellatrix) being still at large.

Carol, who will bet at least five knuts that Snape is "the one who
will not return" even though she doesn't have them handy at the moment