Voldemort's rise to power Re: Lily. Was: Prank revisited.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 99526

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Susan" 
<teilani2002 at y...> wrote:
> --- 
Pippin, not  Renee:
> > I think, too, that in assessing Snape's use of the M-word, we 
 have to remember that at this time although Voldemort had 
 begun his rise to power,  he was not yet  openly advocating or 
 committing atrocities. He might even have been making a great 
show of condemning them, similar to Lucius Malfoy in CoS. 
 What I'm saying is the context for the word might have been 
different. It might not yet carry the implication of  violence that
 it would acquire later.

Susan:
> Ok guys, I'm a bit behind in the posts, so I hope this hasn't 
been  mentioned before, but what makes you say that LV wasn't 
advocating or  committing atrocities, or moreover, that he may 
have been condemning  them?  In Ch 1, pgs 10-11 in SS, DD 
says twice that the WW has had  precious little to celebrate in the 
past 11 years.  The WW was  frightened of him so much for the 
past 11 years that DD's been trying to convince them to call him 
by his real name, Voldemort.  So  obviously, regardless of if 
teens at Hogwarts were being recruited,  LV was already doing 
his thing when the Fab Four et al were still in school.
> 
Pippin:
"There were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his 
true colors, who thought he had the right idea about things...They 
got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get 
power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right 
little hero for joining up at first." --Sirius, OOP ch 6

 "I bet my parents thought" puts the time of Regulus's joining 
after Sirius became estranged from his parents at age sixteen. 
So I'd guess that when Snape and Sirius were fifteen, about the 
fifth year of Voldemort's rise to power, the Dark Lord was still 
keeping his intentions hidden, and his agents were publically 
deploring violence against Muggleborns the way Lucius Malfoy 
does in CoS.

Dumbledore says in GoF ch 30 that the years of Voldemort's 
ascent to power were marked by disappearances. Voldemort did 
a lot of his dirty work in secret. If the Blacks, a wealthy pureblood 
family, didn't know what was going on, how could Snape?

 Dumbledore, speaking after the fact on the Dursley's doorstep, 
would not want to ignore the suffering that had been taking place 
before the wizarding world at large became aware of it.

Pippin