Snape, Voldemort, and teaching (was: Question..)

mooseming josturgess at eircom.net
Thu Jul 28 10:09:24 UTC 2005


No: HPFGUIDX 135355

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "huntergreen_3" 

<Snip>
> Hmm, but this is starting to confuse me a bit. Was it Snape's or 
> Voldemort's idea to go to Dumbledore? Because, before HBP, my 
theory 
> had been that something horrible had happened in the course of 
> Snape's DE duties that made him change his mind about everything 
and 
> he left and ran to Dumbledore where he either worked as a spy or 
went 
> under Dumbledore's protection. This theory seems to still work, 
> except for one bit. 
> In OotP, Snape told Umbridge he had been teaching at Hogwarts for 
14 
> years, which would be since Harry was about one. If he started at 
the 
> beginning of the term, that would have been about two months 
before 
> Voldemort's fall. Voldemort, at that point, would have been 
plotting 
> and planning a long time about the prophecy (since it was made 
over a 
> year before), and would have been planning which boy to murder (if 
it 
> was, as Dumbledore says, a choice, rather than going for the boy 
he 
> could find), if Snape got cold feet about that, than right then 
would 
> have made sense for him to want to switch sides. EXCEPT, according 
to 
> Snape (and he implies that this is easy-to-confirm knowledge among 
> DEs), he went there on *Voldemort's* orders, not by his own 
decision. 
> 
> Sooo....what happened? Had he already decided to change sides and 
> then the teaching assignment was just a lucky concidence ("Great! 
> Thank you Dark Lord, I had wanted to quit anyway! I'll just go 
tell 
> your biggest enemy, at this moment, all your secrets!")? Had he 
> already defected, in secret, and him and Dumbledore somehow slyly 
> gave Voldemort the idea of sending Snape to Hogwarts? Or did he do 
as 
> Voldemort asked, then decide to *actually* defect as he was 
> pretending to? (which seems like it would make Dumbledore have 
> trouble believing him). Or was the whole defecting thing *only* an 
> act, (as I believe), and he was never on Dumbledore's side while 
> Voldemort was still alive?
> 
><snip>
> 
> 
> -Rebecca / HunterGreen

The timeline for Snape's change of heart, the protection of GH and 
Voldy's attack on same is difficult to explain in terms of good!
Snape but I've come up with a model.

The problems are:

Why did Voldy wait so long to attack after the prophecy?
Why didn't the Potters go into hiding immediately?
Why was the secret keeper thingy only activated a week before 
Voldy's attack?
Why did DD accept Snape as a teacher when he did?

Essentially this timeline is based on a completely non canon 
assumption that the *only* record of births is kept at Hogwarts. 
Plus the entirely cannon justified second spy Wormtail known from 
POA to have been operating for a year.

After the prophecy Voldy has to wait to see who fit's the criteria, 
even if he identifies one candidate he cannot be sure it is the 
*only* candidate (given the portion Snape overhears they can't even 
identify gender). So he needs to identify all potentials and rule 
some out, or attack multiples simultaneously. Gathering information 
on the ground would be time consuming and also would never be 
conclusive (there may always remain another yet to be identified). 
This means he needs to get into Hogwarts to access the complete 
record of births

The Potters/Longbottoms don't go into hiding precisely because this 
would mark Harry/Neville as a/the prophecy boy.
 
 So timeline is:
 
 Snape overhears prophecy
 Tells Voldy 
Voldy needs to identify who is prophecy boy
 Something happens to Snape/Voldy dynamic which makes DETraitor!Snape
Snape joins DD becomes double agent
 Voldy sends Snape to find info on babies at Hogwarts (possibly at 
Snape's suggestion)
 Snape fails to get info from Hogwarts citing DD mistrust as reason
 Voldy sends in Wormtail to get info, he is successful
 Snape learns of Voldy update, tips off DD
 Secret keeper made
 Secret keeper blabs
 Snape goes to GH to warn Potters but James doesn't believe him  
('You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you  
might be mistaken in Black' Snape in POA)
 Harry + Voldy = Vapour!Mort
Snape remains at Hogwarts
 Voldy reborn
 Snape pays a visit and has a lot of explaining to do, but he is 
skilled in Occlumency and there's an antidote to Veritaserum. So he 
could pull it off. Snape reactivated as double agent.
 
 Regards
 Jo
 
 I may be as woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who believed the 
 time was ripe for a cheese cauldron.








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