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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