Trelawney's interview (was Re: CHAP DISC, HBP 25, The Seer Overheard

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161784

Julie wrote:
<snip>
> 
> It appears Dumbledore wasn't taking Trelawney too seriously as
teacher material until she spoke the prophecy *and* Snape was caught
eavesdropping. Suddenly Dumbledore offers her a job at Hogwarts. We
know in part it is to protect her, but this recall by Trelawney
(assuming it is accurate) suggests two things.
> 
> 1. That Dumbledore believes Snape will take the prophecy back
> to Voldemort, which will put Trelawney's life in danger as
> Voldemort would want to get his hands on her and force her
> to recount the prophecy in full. I.e., Dumbledore knows or
> suspects strongly that Snape is a DE.
> 
> 2. That Dumbledore didn't bring Trelawney into the interview
> *expecting* to hire her. I.e., Dumbledore didn't arrange the
> whole scenario in advance (and Snape wasn't already on 
> Dumbledore's side at this point), because if it was set up
> so Trelawney would spill the prophecy and Snape would take
> it back to Voldemort intentionally to put into motion Harry
> being marked as the savior of the WW (as some fans have 
> suggested) then why wouldn't Dumbledore be acting as if he
> is going to hire her from the beginning? Why does he need 
> to use subterfuge on Trelawney who, aside from her unbidden
> spurts of prophesying, is about as perceptive as a rock?
> He doesn't, from my POV.
> 
> What this all means to me is that Snape *was* on Voldy's
> side at that time, and not already a spy for Dumbledore. 
> And that Dumbledore didn't expect the prophecy, but once it
> was uttered by Trelawney he recognized it as genuine, then
> devised his plans from THAT point.
> 
> It also means that Dumbledore *let* Snape take the prophecy
> back to Voldemort. Maybe it was because Dumbledore simply
> didn't have solid proof that Snape was a DE, even though he
> certainly would have suspected it strongly, so he stayed 
> within the "letter of the law" (much as it seemed he did
> with Draco) and let Snape leave without using an obliviate
> or other memory-erasing spell on him. (One has to wonder 
> though why he didn't just look at Snape's arm.) Or he
> couldn't prove Snape hadn't actually taken a wrong turn,
> as he claimed, or that Snape had actually heard anything
> (without invading his mind with Legilimens anyway), so
> again he stuck with "innocent until proven guilty."

Carol responds:
I agree with you that the evidence does suggest these conclusions. The
only part that still troubles me is the discrepancy between Trelaawney
seeing Snape after her Prophecy is completed and DD saying earlier
that the eavesdropper was *thrown out of the Hog's Head halfway
through the Prophecy.* It does not compute. (Also, I doubt Trelawney's
explanation that young Snape was seeking a job at Hogwarts at the
wrong time of year, almost two years before he was actually hired. We
see the unreliability of part of her explanation: DD certainly didn't
hire her for her unassuming manners in contrast to Snape's pushiness.
Even if he were applying, it wouldn't be for the Divination position.)
But, yes, it does seem that Snape was really a DE and DD was afraid
for Sybill's safety, whcih could only mean that he expected Snape to
report the Prophecy to Voldemort and reveal the Seer's identity.

As to why DD didn't look at Snape's arm, I'm not sure that the Dark
Mark was widely known to exist among anyone other than the DEs, who
used it to identify each other, according to Snape in GoF. Otherwise,
all that Crouch Sr. would have to do to determine the DE status of
anyone caught before Voldemort's fall would be to examine the person's
left arm. It doesn't appear that he did so.

But why would DD let Snape take the partial Prophecy back to
Voldemort? I can think of only two reasons. Either he believed that
the part of the Prophecy Snape heard didn't clearly relate to a child
and he expected Voldemort to wait until the Chosen One showed himself
as an adult wizard (Harry's view of the logical thing for LV to do) or
he wanted Voldemort to act to thwart the Prophecy in order to empower
the child who would ultimately defeat him. Much as I hate to say it,
the second seems more likely.

DD, of course, would know that it referred to a child but he could not
know which child considering that Harry was not yet born and IMO had
just been conceived (I think the Prophecy took place on Halloween),
but DD might have had some ideas regarding the identity of the
prospective parents (surely Order members or Aurors if they had defied
or would defy the Dark Lord thrice). Possibly, he intended to keep any
eye on any couples who fit this description and warn them of their danger.

The only way I can justify this thinking is that if the Prophecy was
not activated and the Chosen One empowered, Voldemort could not be
defeated. (DD, it appears, does believe in Prophecies despite his
apparent skepticism. I think he believed that this one had to be
activated despite the risk to the nameless parents of the unknown
child; otherwise, the WW was condemned to permanent darkness under the
reign of the immortal Voldemort. Not a happy choice, no better than
snape's choice on the tower, but IMO a choice of the lesser evil over
the greater one. He could certainly warn the couple of their danger
and take measures to protect them once he learned their
identity--nothing in the Prophecy states that the parents had to be
killed--but he also had to give the child a chance to defeat Voldemort
if this idea is correct.

Julie: 
> Or it could be because Dumbledore is a great believer in
> letting people making their own choices for good or bad, 
> even a DE such as Snape, and he didn't foresee Voldemort 
> taking the prophecy so seriously, nor getting so far at 
> stopping the prophecy in its tracks. Again, much like the
> Draco situation where Dumbledore assumed there was no way
> Draco could get DEs into Hogwarts, he assumed there was
> no way the Secret Keeper would betray the Potters. 

Carol:
What Secret Keeper? Dumbldore didn't even suggest the idea until Harry
was more than a year old, and PP was only Secret Keeper for about a
week before he betrayed the Potters. We're talking about a time when
neither Dumbledore nor Snape nor Voldemort nor anyone else could
possibly know which wizard child or children would be born at the end
of July, some nine months away by my calculations and certainly some
time in the future based on both the Prophecy and the weather (a cold,
wet night, suggesting late fall through early spring). We also have
Trelawney's statement that she'd been teaching for *almost* sixteen
years at a time when Harry is fifteen, suggesting that the Prophecy
coincides roughly with his conception. Maybe he did think he could
stop the Prophecy in its tracks by letting Voldemort hear part of it,
but the SK plan was definitely not in place and would not be until
Harry was almost fifteen months old.
> 
Julie:
> Or maybe Dumbledore *did* foresee Voldemort's belief in the
> prophecy being his downfall, and let Snape set the events in
> motion, even though he knew it would mean the loss of good
> people, because in the end it would mean the salvation of 
> the WW. While I don't like this puppetmaster!Dumbledore,
> anything is possible. 

Carol:
If allowing the Chosen One to acquire powers from Voldemort is the
only way that Voldemort can be defeated, wouldn't this be his only
option? After that, he could discover the identity of the couple and
try to help them, try to prepare them for the inevitable confrontation
and help them somehow survive it. Maybe if he'd been Secret Keeper, he
could have managed that? It doesn't appear, though, that James and
Lily knew the Prophecy. Otherwise, James wouldn't have told Lily to
take Harry and run. Or maybe their child's safety was more important
to them than his role as the future savior of the WW and they were
just trying to keep him out of Voldemort's hands in case the Prophecy
was wrong or he was the wrong child.

As for Snape, I don't think he realized the full implications until he
knew both the identity of the child and what Voldemort intended to do
(kill the child and probably the parents, who would presumably fight
to protect him--no on anticipated Lily's unarmed sacrifice and its
consequences). At that point, it appears that he went to Dumbledore
with what could not have been a mere fabricated story of remorse. LV
would not have wanted Snape to reveal his plans. It must have been a
real change of heart for young DE Snape, who realized, as DD says,
that he made a terrible mistake. Yes, he hated James, but he didn't
hate Lily or their innocent child, and the fact that he knew these
people made it real to him as it would not have been if they were mere
anonymous victims who had to die for the Dark Lord's reign to be
permanent. (Of course, there may have been other factors motivating
Snape's change of sides, including Regulus Black's death, but the
knowledge of LV's plan to go after the Potters gave him a reason and a
motivation for his change of sides. That it took place some months
before Godric's Hollow is clear from his spying for DD at great
personal risk before applying to teach at Hogwarts when Harry was a
year old. I think it must have been soon after Harry's birth, which
explains Snape's slip of "sixteen years of information on Dumbledore'
when he'd only been teaching for fifteen.

What Snape was doing in the Hog's Head in the first place, I have no
idea. It certainly wasn't getting tips for job interviews. But I think
his motivations are fairly straightforward, both in reporting the
partial Prophecy and in regretting that revelation. Dumbledore's are
another matter, and I'm not entirely happy with the conclusions I've
drawn about him.

Julie: 
> Again, the only thing that seems certain out of this scene
> is that Snape wasn't DDM at the time. His change of heart
> came later (or, if one believes in ESE or OFH, he still 
> hasn't had a change of heart). 

Carol:
I agree that the change of heart came later, soon after Harry's birth
when he knew how Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy (Harry Potter is
the One Who Can Defeat the Dark Lord) and what LV intended to do about
it (kill the Potter child). I don't for a moment think that Dumbledore
was wrong about Snape's remorse or that he was wrong to trust him
throughout the books. But his own role in helping to bring about the
Prophecy could explain his hesitation in revealing his reasons for
trusting Snape.

It also occurs to me that DD may have wanted to keep the Potters,
especially Harry, safe until Harry was old enough to know the Prophecy
and confront Voldemort on his own rather than having LV attack him as
an infant. That would explain his belated suggestion of the Fidelius
Charm and his offer to make himself Secret Keeper. Or maybe, he, too,
was having second thoughts about the wisdom of revealing the partial
Prophecy to Voldemort?

Carol, wondering if the greater good of empowering Harry to defeat
Voldemort and temporarily disembodying LV could have been accomplished
without the Potters' deaths