How much do the DE kids know? (was Crabbe as potential job applicant)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 116634


Pippin said in Crabbe as potential job applicant - 116632:

Assuming DoubleAgent!Snape, then Voldemort thinks Snape is
spying for the Death Eaters while pretending to spy for the Order.
So if Harry turns to Snape for help, that merely proves to
Voldemort that Snape has been doing a good job maintaining
his cover, which is, of course that he is spying for the Order while
pretending to spy for Voldemort. (Confusing, I know. But I can't
think of a way to state it plainer.)

Since Harry found his way to the Ministry without hindrance from
Snape, Voldemort has nothing to complain of. If Snape allowed
Goyle to damage Neville, he would not be maintaining his cover,
besides which if Goyle has a black mark on his record it *will*
make it difficult for him to get a job, which will not help Voldemort
or please the Malfoy family.

Assuming that Umbridge is not a DE, Voldemort is not going to
approve of handing her a bottle of veritaserum. It wouldn't do for
her to discover that Harry really did see Voldemort's return.


Dungrollin:
This has got me thinking about how much the DE kids at Hogwarts are 
told by their parents.  Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Nott were all at 
the graveyard, all mentioned by name by Voldy, all in the inner 
circle, and all have kids at Hogwarts in Harry's year.  
Did they tell their kids all about it? 

Bearing in mind how little Lucius told Draco about the chamber of 
secrets, I would have thought that they wouldn't let on too much.  
Although, I suppose there's a big difference between twelve years
old in CoS and fifteen going on sixteen in OotP. But if LV was using 
the dark mark to summon the DEs throughout the summer, surely the 
kids would have noticed that Daddy kept having to disapparate in
the middle of dinner.  

However, thinking about it a bit more, after what DD says at the 
feast at the end of GoF, I can't imagine Draco not wheedling as
much information as he could out of Lucius.  
I just wonder whether Lucius would tell him.

Draco does appear to have believed DD's leaving feast speech, as 
it's his 'They'll be the first to go now the Dark Lord's back!'
speech that earns him the hexing at the end of GoF.  But then, it
was over the summer that other people started changing their minds
about it, too, wasn't it?  If he got home, and his father said 
'Don't be ridiculous, Potter's insane.'  Wouldn't Draco believe 
him?  If you were a DE, would you trust them with sensitive 
information like that?  Particularly with Umbridge around?

The kids could have been instructed by their parents to help 
Umbridge as much as possible, in order to get DD kicked out.  
That wouldn't necessitate them knowing for sure that Voldy was 
back.  But then there's that remark of Draco's on the train,
`I'll be *dogging* your footsteps in case you step out of
line', which makes it look as though Malfoy senior's been
telling Draco a good deal.  Actually, it could also be interpreted 
as Draco knowing something of Umbridge's plans for the coming
year.

The other big question is what the DE parents have told their kids
about Snape.  If the kids are in the know about Voldy's 
I'vegotanewbody party, then it would make sense that they've been
told *something* about Snape.  And it clearly can't be that he's
a traitorous Judas who's going to get rubbed out in the next dark
alley he chances upon.

Could some of Draco's anger at the end of OotP be that Daddy
being chucked in the slammer was the first time he actually knew for 
*sure* that LV was back?
(Personally doubt it, myself, but would be interested to read what 
others think, and to know if there's any obvious canon that I've 
missed.)

Dungrollin
(who has just eaten a whole packet of chocolate hobnobs, and doesn't 
regret a single one)