DD trust in Snape again. WAS: Evil Hermione

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154896

AD:
<snip>
> Snape's got a job--probably a much better one than he could get
> anywhere else, given his history--and Dumbledore's continuing
> protection, right up until Dumbledore decides he was wrong about
> Snape, after all.  Snape needs to preserve that relationship for as
> long as he can.  <snip>

Carol responds:
While I agree with you that all varieties of snape want to preserve
Dumbledore's trust, I'm not sure why you think that Snape's history is
known to the entire WW. As Pippin pointed out, there's no indication
that anyone at Hogwarts (except HRH) suspects Snape of evil motives
(wanting to kill Harry) when he referees the Quidditch match. No
parents are refusing to send their children to Hogwarts because an
ex-Death Eater is teaching there.

There's no indication that Rita Skeeter is present at Karkaroff's plea
bargaining session, which does not seem to be a public event like Ludo
Bagman's trial (or what passes for a trial). I doubt that there was
any publicity surrounding his release or his testimony, and the
Wizengamot would have known that they were endangering Snape, who had
already risked his life spying for Dumbledore, by revealing what
Dumbledore told them--not to mention that Dumbledore was Chief Warlock
of the Wizengamot and they were unlikely to reveal what he wanted hidden. 

Unlike the DEs who pleaded Imperius and were found not guilty, Snape
was cleared of all charges. There was no public record nor, despite
what he suggests to Bellatrix, any chance that he'd be sent to
Azkaban. You can't be arrested, much less tried, for a crime you've
been cleared of. Nor, as I've said before, did his name appear in the
paper along with those of Malfoy, Avery et al--the DEs who pleaded
Imperius--an entirely different matter from being cleared by Crouch
himself under Dumbledore's protection. If the Daily Prophet knew about
it, they'd have mentioned it in their article attacking Dumbledore's
hiring policies. Sorry to repeat, but this is important. There simply
is no evidence that knowledge of Snape's background was known beyond a
very small circle. 

Dumbledore himself knew it only because Snape had told him. Sirius
Black didn't know it, which means that at the time of the Potters'
death, the Order didn't know it. (I don't think that Snape was an
Order member. I think he was reporting to Dumbledore directly, as
secretly as possible.) Karkaroff knew because he was himself an ex-DE
(though not all DEs knew each other's identity). Umbridge seems to
know as of OoP because Fudge told her. Fudge knows because Snape
bravely showed him his Dark Mark to prove that Voldemort was returning. 

McGonagall know as of HBP, but when did she find out? She was present
when Snape revealed his Dark Mark to Fudge. Maybe that's the first she
knew of Snape's Death Eater days. There's no indication of her
treating him as anything other than a colleague and fellow HoH (an
Quidditch rival) before that time (despite the marked difference in
their ages). Possibly her doubts stem from the knowledge, which she
must have had by OoP, that he had returned to Voldemort to spy on the
Death Eaters for the Order.

At any rate, whether McGonagall knows about Snape's background before
the Order reforms at the end of GoF or not, it's clearly not common
knowledge. If parents will withdraw their children because he's hired
a werewolf, or at least protest to Dumbledore and demand the
werewolf's resignation, the non-Slytherin parents would have much the
same reaction to an ex-DE, no doubt believing as Sirius Black does,
"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."

At any rate, it never occurred to anyone except Hermione that Snape
would hex Harry Potter's broom. Hagrid, who mentioned the possibility
of Dark Magic, dismisses the idea that Snape would hurt Harry or try
to steal the Sorceror's Stone: "Nonsense. He's a Hogwarts teacher."
(It's not clear whether Hagrid knows that snape was a Death Eater. If
so, he's doing an uncharacteristically good job of keeping the
secret.) Even Quirrell--speaking as Voldemort's loyal servant but not
his puppet or mouthpiece--doesn't suggest that Snape's background
would make him a likely suspect if Harry had died despite Snape's
disliking Harry. He merely says that he, Quirrell, wanted Harry dead
and that Snape "does seem the type" to go after the Sorceror's Stone,
"always swooping around like an overgrown bat." 

Carol, noting that *Quirrell* knows where Snape's loyalties lie, and
Snape is very lucky that Voldemort believed the "unworthy Quirrell" story