Rosier, Rookwood, Snape's gang of Slytherins

[spotsgal]

No: HPFGUIDX 144737

> Carol responds:
> (big snip)
>  
> 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). 

> Becky asks:
>    
> How do you know that Lucius is six years older and that Bellatrix is
> three years older and that Sirius last saw her at the end of his 
> fourth year? I am sure you are right, I just can't remember reading
> it and am interested to know how you know.

Christina:

Lucius's age comes from the news article in chapter 15 of OotP that
says he is 41.  The Marauders were 35/36 during OotP, so Lucius was
about six or seven years older than them.

The canon for the last time Sirius saw Bellatrix comes from chapter
six of OotP, where Sirius says:

(OotP, Scholastic, page 114)
"I haven't seen her [Bellatrix] since I was your age, unless you count
a glimpse of her coming into Azkaban."

A lot of people take this to meant that Bella was two or three years
older than Sirius, and the last time he saw her was when she graduated
from school.  That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, however, when
you factor in the new information from HBP.  We now know that
Bellatrix is the oldest Black sister.  Even if Andromeda was just a
year younger, she'd be (at most) two years older than the Marauders,
making her (at most) 38 in OotP.  Assuming that Auror training takes a
minimum of three years, Tonks can't be any younger than about 22 when
we meet her in OotP.  That would mean that Andromeda would have had to
have had Tonks when she was 16.  Now, is that completely unrealistic?
 Not really, but Sirius's comments about the tapestry suggest differently:

(OotP, Scholastic, page 113)
"Andromeda's sisters are still here because they made lovely,
respectable pure-blood marriages, but Andromeda married a Muggle-born,
Ted Tonks, so--"

That suggests that Andromeda was wiped off the family tree because she
married Ted, not because she got pregnant while still in school.  And
while we've seen a lot of marriages that presumably took place soon
after leaving Hogwarts (Lily/James, Molly/Arthur, Fleur is also
recently graduated), we've not heard of any students marrying while
still in school.

I think that Sirius's comment about the last time he saw Bellatrix was
in reference to seeing her at some sort of family function.  He
wouldn't have seen her after that not because she graduated, but
because he ran away from home and had no further contact with his family.

In any case, I agree with Carol concerning Lucius's status as the head
of the little gang of Slytherins.  I think he would have recognized
talent in Snape and taken him under his wing.  It would also explain
why the "gang of Slytherins" is mysteriously absent during "Snape's
Worst Memory."  They'd all graduated.

Christina