Rosier, Rookwood, Snape's gang of Slytherins

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 144675

Elyse wrote:
>
> While rereading HBP, I was struck by the a couple of sentances 
> uttered by Dumbledore that confused me thoroughly as to Rosier's age.
 
<snip quote>
> 
> And as a side note is Rookwood's name Augustus or Algernon?
> He is referred to as Augustus in GoF, but in the Daily Prophet, it 
> is Algernon Rookwood. Siblings, or the same man? Or a FLINT?

Carol responds:
Hi, Elyse. I'm behind on posting, so your Rookwood question may
already have been answered (I found only one response, which guessed
that "Algernon" was a Daily Prophet error), but in fact "Algernon
Rookwood" is an error that occurs only in the British first edition. 
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/a-z/r.html
The American editions have "Augustus" consistently, and presumably the
error was caught and corrected in the later British editions as well.
Why Augustus rather than Algernon? Probably because we already have an
Algernon: Neville's Uncle Algie.

Regarding Rosier, et al.: I know you've had several responses, but
I'll just add my little bit. Clearly, being a DE is a family tradition
for some families, including the Rosiers and the Lestranges (and, as
we see, in HBP, the Malfoys). The Rosier who was part of the gang of
Slytherins mentioned by Sirius Black is clearly the son of the Rosier
mentioned in that scene. Elsewhere in HBP, I think a Lestrange is
mentioned who would have to be the father of Rodolphus and Rabastan
(Bellatrix's husband and brother-in-law). Nott Sr. (Theo Nott's
father) we know to be older than most of the DEs (about Voldemort's
age). Possibly Avery (the MoM employee), Mulciber (the Imperius
specialist who's sent to Azkaban), and Dolohov (a vicious murderer,
IIRC, also sent to Azkaban) are also of Voldemort's generation as
they're not mentioned as being part of the Slytherin gang.

Re the gang itself, I'm guessing that Lucius Malfoy was the original
leader but is not mentioned by SB because he is six years older than
Severus Snape and the Marauders and would only have been at Hogwarts
for a year or two while they were there. I think he "adopted" the
precocious eleven-year-old Severus into his gang (the "lap dog"
reference) because the little boy knew so many hexes and was clearly a
genius. Bellatrix Lestrange is also older than Severus by about three
years (Sirius last saw her at the end of his fourth year, which means
that she must have left Hogwarts at that point, or earlier). Her
husband, Rodolphus, and his brother Rabastan must have been about the
same age. Perhaps Wilkes and Rosier were somewhere between Lucius
Malfoy's age and Bellatrix's. Regardless, all of them would have been
older than Severus Snape, which explains why no one stood up for him
when Sirius and James hexed him--they had all graduated, or at least,
they weren't in his year and so would not have been among the fifth
years who had just taken the DADA OWL.

My apologies if all this has already been discussed. As I said, I'm
behind on posting.

Carol