Snape the Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?!

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 93279

Potioncat:
<snip>
> Have you come across any canon that says Severus was hanging around 
> older students? The portion I found doesn't say the others were 
> older than he was. <snip>

Carol:
I realize that Lucius Malfoy isn't mentioned as a member of this gang,
but I see him (based on his relationship with the others in the MoM
scene) as its natural leader while he was there. And yes, we have
canonical evidence that he's 41 at the end of GoF whereas Snape is 35
or 36 in that book according to an interview, so he is five years
older than Snape (assuming that Snape starts out 35 but turns 36 at
some point during GoF).

As I mentioned in another post, we have canonical evidence that
Bellatrix is about three years older than Sirius, who is roughly the
same age as Snape. Sirius says to Harry (who is fifteen and about to
enter his fifth year at Hogwarts): "I haven't seen her since I was
your age, unless you count a glimpse of her coming to Azkaban" (OoP,
Am. ed., 114). This remark seems to indicate that Bellatrix's seventh
and last year corresponded with Sirius's and Severus's fourth year.
(Either that or she left school early.) As I said earlier, it's safe
to assume that Rodolphus is about the same age, probably in the same
year. (Since Rabastan is part of their little trio, he is probably
close to the same age, maybe a year or two younger, but I'm just
guessing now based on his apparent subservience to Bellatrix.)

Another indication that the "gang" members are older than Severus is
that they all seem to have left before the Pensieve scene--either that
or they're a bunch of cowards who don't come to their friend's defense
when he's being hung upside down by a pair of Gryffindor berks. Had
they been in the same year as Severus, they would have been taking the
same DADA O.W.L. exam and would almost certainly have witnessed the
scene, but he seems to have become a loner by that point.

Carol