Who was with Voldemort at GH? /quick PoA question./Real child abuse

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 145776

Ceridwen wrote:
<snip> 
> I'm not convinced that the Order spy (we know it's Peter) came to DE
meetings.  LV may have wanted to keep him under wraps in case there
was a traitor in his midst.  Or, Peter may not have been a full-
fledged DE at the time, in case he would have turned, himself, and
reported back to the Order, or if it turned out he was a plant.  The
events at GH would have blown his cover, since he was the Secret
Keeper and neither he nor LV had an absolute way of knowing that the
Potters or Sirius hadn't told Dumbledore about the switch.  I think
that would be the occasion when he was fully initiated, right before
going to GH.  He would not be able to return to the Order after he was
exposed like that.  And, possibly, it would mean that he wouldn't turn
defense witness against other DEs and LV if things went south.

> So, Peter or Sirius, I don't think Snape would have known who the
spy was, since I don't think the spy would have been in the DE ranks
at meetings.  I don't think LV would expose his ace in the hole that 
way, to so many followers, not just Snape, who would have seen Peter>
at school. <snip>
> 
Carol responds:
Exactly. Just as Severus Snape spied for DD without being a member of
the Order, I think PP spied for LV without being a Death Eater. He
certainly *became* a DE at some point before the graveyard scene in
GoF, but exactly when that was, we don't know. I agree that it was
essential in LV's view to keep both PP's identity and his Animagus
abilities secret and it's unlikely that Snape knew about them.

Also, and this point is crucial, being the spy is not the same as
being the Secret Keeper. I don't think there was a Secret Keeper at
all until a short time before the Potters were killed. It's unclear
whether Sirius was the Secret Keeper at first and was replaced by
Peter, or whether Peter was the only SK. But he was SK for only about
a week before Godric's Hollow, and Voldemort only knew about the SK
arrangement because PP told him. It's possible that LV told Bellatrix
about Peter being the SK (trusting her with his most important
secrets?), which would explain why she and her three cohorts (the
Lestrange brothers and Barty Jr.) were talking about Wormtail in
Azkaban, but he (Peter) could not have told Snape because Snape was
already teaching at Hogwarts. So if Snape knew there was a Secret
Keeper, it was because *Dumbledore* told him, and DD would have told
him that Sirius was the SK because that's what he believed himself.
And the Daily Prophet story that Black had murdered PP and twelve
Muggles (as well as betraying the Potters) would have confirmed
Snape's mental image of Sirius Black beautifully. ("He tried to kill
*me* when he was sixteen!")

Snape's treatment of Peter in "Spinner's End" may have some bearing on
all this. I personally think it reflects his contempt for Peter's
betrayal of the Potters. As he sees it, he repented his role in
revealing the Prophecy to LV and tried to protect his enemy by going
to Dumbledore, whereas PP aided and abetted the murder of his own
friends. DDM!Snape would see PP's role as beneath contempt and his own
as noble or nearly so. I can't come up with a reason why OFH! or
ESE!Snape would hold Wormtail in contempt.

Ceridwen wrote:
> I think that once the secret's been betrayed and the place is in 
rubble, the protection is no longer in place, but that's just me and 
I don't know how it would work.  But, for Snape to have been there
before the actual killings, he would have had to have heard the 
secret from the SK, or have read a note from him (unlikely IMO, but
not impossible).  <snip> So, though it would be BANGy, even for a
DDM!Snape caught off his guard, I don't think the person, if any, at
GH with LV, would be Snape.

Carol responds:
I agree that Peter couldn't have told him, and in any case, we know
from "Spinner's End" that Snape was already at Hogwarts when the
Potters were killed. He couldn't have known that the secret had been
betrayed and LV would try to kill the Potters that night--until his
Dark Mark began to fade and he knew it was too late to save them.
(Can't prove it, but I think Snape sensed a change in the Dark Mark,
watched it fade, and ran immediately to Dumbledore with the news.)

Ceridwen wrote:
> My guess would be Peter Pettigrew himself.  Until LV entered, there
was no reason to suspect him, so he could have knocked and gotten
James or Lily to open the door, and then in comes LV.  Pure surprise,
made even moreso by the fact that they trusted Peter and wouldn't have
foreseen this event.  Also, Peter is still alive and able to tell what
happened if Rowling doesn't use the Pensieve idea for a trip back to
that night. <snip>

Carol responds:
Good points. But it's also possible that PP watched the events in rat
form after leading LV to the house since neither James nor Lily calls
out to PP for help or screams out that he's a traitor. James's "It's
him!" makes it sound as if LV *appears* to be alone.

But hasn't JKR already confirmed in an interview that PP was present
and that he hid LV's wand and returned it to him later? Even if she
didn't, it's clear that Peter returned the wand to LV when he restored
his body, and I don't know how he could do that unless he had hidden
the wand from Aurors and Muggles and was able to retrieve it after his
escape in GoF. (I think he must have left his own wand behind after he
blew up the Muggles as evidence of his own "death.")

One semirelated point regarding the Prophecy: It seems to me that
young Snape, having been caught eavesdropping, would run immediately
to LV to tell him the part of the Prophecy that he had overheard
without thinking much about the contents of the obscurely worded
prediction. He would be preoccupied with rewards and punishments.
Would he be Crucio'd for being caught and hearing only part of the
Prophecy or rewarded for bringing his master a valuable bit of news? I
don't think he thought in terms of a baby and his parents being
murdered. This was just a warning for LV to be on the lookout for a
future enemy or rival, someone born in July. As DD pointed out, he
couldn't have known who it applied to or how LV would choose to
interpret it, much less that LV would try to prevent its fulfillment
by murdering a baby. *We* know what the Prophecy means, more or less,
because we've heard it so many times. But to Severus Snape, aged 20 or
21, hearing it for the first time and probably more concerned with
LV's reaction to the news than with the news itself, it cannot have
been nearly as clear.

Carol, certain that PP was at Godric's Hollow but Snape was at
Hogwarts that night, having "slithered out" of all DE-related
activities for ten months out of twelve by becoming a teacher and
ostensible spy