Vengeance on Snape?Re: Snape--Abusive?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115893


Sigune wrote: <snip good evidence that Snape, though a spy for
Dumbledore, was not a member of the original Order>
> I agree that Snape appears a loner etc, but I don't think that 
precludes a certain craving for recognition. I also have a problem 
with the assumption that the WW at large knows that Snape was a DE. If
that is so, certainly a number of his students would know so, too ("My
dad says Snape's a nasty piece of work, he used to be a Death Eater,
you know; Papa doesn't want me to take Potions with him, he's sent
Dumbledore several owls already"), and it wouldn't have been much of a
discovery in GoF. 

This I agree with. Clearly the parents *don't* know that Snape was a
DE or three/quarters of the parents would withdraw their children and
send them to Beauxbatons.
> 
> Sigune quotes Syroun:
> < Does canon actually provide any proof that it was common knowledge 
> that Snape was a DE? In fact, canon shows that Snape himself has to 
> physically prove to Crouch Sr. that he was a DE by showing Crouch 
> his dark mark to convince him, albeit unsuccessfuly of LV's return. 
> It seemed to be quite a shock to Crouch.>
> 
> Sigune pointed out an error:
> He shows the Mark to *Fudge*. By that time, Crouch Sr is dead.
Crouch Sr, by the way, KNEW about Snape's former DE allegiances: he
had been the prosecutor in the DE trials, and though we aren't shown
Snapes, we are shown Karkaroff's 'information session' in which Crouch
hears DD mention, yet again, that Snape has switched sides.
> In fact, the point I was arguing in the paragraph you quote was that 
> NO, the public did not know about Snape's DE activities.
> 
> Seyroun asked: 
> > So, how could we conclude that a person like Crouch who travels in  
> many circles, would not know about Snape's DE past, if it really had 
> been common knowledge?>
> 
> Sigune  answered:
> As I said, Crouch Sr DOES know.


Carol adds:
Right. Crouch Sr. knows. He presided at the hearing at which Snape was
cleared and again at the hearing where Karkaroff testifies against
Snape and Dumbledore states that Snape is "now no more a Death Eater
than I am." But as I think Seyroun meant to say, *Fudge* apparently
doesn't know. And if Fudge (who also "travels in many circles")
doesn't know, it can't be common knowledge.

That first hearing in which Snape was cleared of charges must have
been very secret, involving only Snape, Crouch Sr., Dumbledore,
possibly Alastor Moody, and perhaps an entity we haven't seen yet, a
WW lawyer. The problem is not with that unpublicized hearing but with
Karkaroff's testimony and DD's response, which must have been
witnessed by about 200 people (probably not including Fudge, who at
that time was a very junior MoM minister). Granted, Karkaroff's
hearing was not open to the public (no Rita Skeeter reporting her
biased record of events for the Daily Prophet's readers), but wouldn't
those 200 people have spread the word somehow? How is it that Sirius
Black (admittedly not in touch with Snape at that point but still a
member of the Order) and the parents of Snape's students and Fudge and
just about everyone in the WW does not seem to know about Snape's
past? Would the witnesses, including the real Alastor Moody, have kept
their mouths shut to protect Snape, Dumbledore's unlikely protege,
because he would be in great danger from unjailed DEs if the word got
out that he had spied for Dumbledore? That seems unlikely in the
extreme, and yet clearly they have *not* spread the word. 

Why hasn't Alastor Moody, who was at Karkaroff's hearing and dislikes
Snape, spoken out? Snape is not surprised that Crouch!Moody, whom he
thinks is the real Moody, knows his DE past (and rubs it in), and the
real Moody is very suspicious of Snape's loyalties during Karkaroff's
hearing. Quite possibly it was Moody who arrested Snape and brought
him to trial. So how was Moody silenced? How were all those other 200
people silenced? Was there, as Pippin suggests, a mass memory charm
that erased the knowledge of Snape's past from all their minds (even,
possibly, Alastor Moody's)? Were they sworn to secrecy before the
hearing, not to protect Snape (whose name no one knew would come up)
but to protect Karkaroff, the MoM's witness, with some sort of binding
magical contract? That seems possible but again unlikely.

All I can think of is that Severus Snape was little more than a boy at
the time of the hearing, a young unknown of 22, and his name may have
gone in one ear and out the other for those among the 200 witnesses
who, unlike Moody, didn't know Snape. He was not a well-known figure
like the rich and socially prominent Lucius Malfoy, whose name was
actually reported in the papers as a victim of the Imperius Curse
cleared by the Courts. Snape's name clearly was not on that list or
Fudge would have known about it. So I think it must have been his
youth and anonymity that protected Snape. The few people present who
were parents of children at Hogwarts must have trusted Dumbledore's
judgment in hiring Snape as a Potions Master and believed him that the
young man was reformed. And the rest of the WW didn't know about his
past because the mention of his name was just an obscure detail in a
hearing that revealed the well-known and well-regarded Augustus
Rookwood to be a Death Eater. They remembered Rookwood and forgot
they'd ever heard of Snape.

Does that make any sense? Is it more plausible than a mass memory
charm or a magically binding pledge of silence? I know of no evidence
that anyone besides Dumbledore, Karkaroff, HRH, a few Order members
(including Moody, Lupin, and the now-dead Sirius Black) knows about
Snape's DE past, though it's a safe bet that Lucius Malfoy, the
Lestranges, and the rest of the inner circle DEs know. Can anyone
provide evidence that someone outside these two small groups is aware
of it? Does anyone have a better explanation (short of a Flint) as to
why they don't?

I'm not saying, BTW, that I think Snape was unimportant as a DE. He
must have been a member of the inner circle, as Karkaroff also was,
given Karkaroff's deference to the much younger Snape at Hogwarts (not
to mention the probablility that Snape is "the one who has left
forever" in the graveyard scene). I'm only trying to account for the
apparent fact that his DE past is not well-known within the WW, even
to people like Fudge who are fairly well-acquainted with him. 

Carol, who thinks that Sanpe's boggart is the specter of his DE past
and that he'll have to face it in Book 7