Who knew Snape was a DE Re: What if other teachers behaved like Snape?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 101853

> Potioncat wrote:
> It has always seemed odd to me that Sirius talks about the DE's 
> grumbling about Pettigrew, yet he never heard anything about Snape.  
> Also, that no one else ever heard them talking about Pettigrew.  Of 
> course the Dementors probably didn't care.
>

Carol:
First, I think it's likely that the DEs that Sirius heard talking
about Pettigrew would be the three Lestranges, who were the only ones
sufficiently motivated to try to find their "master" after he
disappeared. (Barty Jr. would have come in with them, but based on the
Pensieve scene, he was focusing on his father's rejection of his pleas
and would quickly have become too demoralized to talk.) 

Anyway, I don't think that all of the DEs were together or that they
were talking to each other off and on for the whole twelve years
Sirius was there. Probably they did most of their talking when they
first came in, before they fell too deeply under the influence of the
Dementors, and, in the Lestranges' case, when what they viewed as
Pettigrew's treachery was fresh in their minds. Also, of course, they
would have blamed him for Voldemort's vaporization or defeat, which
would have been much more important to them than anything Snape might
have done (like not being sent to prison). They themselves had gotten
off with lies earlier, as Malfoy also did. It was what they expected a
fellow Slytherin to do, and I don't think it would be worth
mentioning. (Rookwood, when he came in, probably talked about
Karkaroff's betrayal, if he talked at all. But they had no reason IMO
to talk about Snape.)

Anyway, I don't think the DEs talked about Snape for two reasons: At
first, he was the last thing on their minds. All they cared about was
what had happened to Voldemort and why (and, of course, their own
presence in Azkaban). Later, and not much later, by the way Sirius
describes his experience, they would have been too demoralized by the
Dementors to talk much. Barty Jr. would have died there within a year
if his father hadn't yielded to his mother's desperate dying wish to
rescue him. Sirius was only able to keep from going insane or dying of
despair by focusing on the one thought that he was innocent (and much
later, the obsession with getting out and murdering Pettigrew).
Bellatrix probably stayed "sane" (or at least functional) by focusing
on Voldemort, silently stewing in her own brooding resentment. Maybe
Rabastan and Rodolphus did the same. It's hard to say whether they had
any contact with the others who were brought in earlier or later, for
example Dolohov and Macnair (both of whom were so steeped in evil that
that were probably stewing in their own malice). And also, even if the
other prisoners were in any shape to talk when the Lestranges came in,
there may have been no opportunity. Some of them may have been in
solitary confinement. The Dementors might even have separated those
who talked too much. 

Sorry. Too wordy and detailed as always. Sorry. But, anyway, I think
the DEs Sirius overheard talking about Pettigrew were the three
Lestranges when they were first brought in. And I think the talk would
have stopped very shortly without ever getting around to why young
Severus Snape was not keeping them company.

Carol, who thinks this rambling post is a sign that she should go to bed.