Yes, Virginia, there is a traitor

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 159306


> pippin:
> > > <snip>
> > > If Draco didn't know  until then that Dumbledore would be out of 
> the castle that night, why wait for an hour in the RoR?  Wouldn't he 
> have gotten out of there in case Trelawney came back?

wynnleaf
I don't think Hogsmeade is an hours walk from Hogwarts.  Granted, some
comments about it are contradictory, but if you look at the photo of
the map JKR drew of the area (it's in the Lexicon), the outskirts of
Hogsmeade start right outside the gates of Hogwarts.  

> Ceridwen:

> A traitor would be interesting and I wouldn't rule it out, since it 
> was mentioned (by Sirius?) that no one felt as if they could trust 
> anybody else at the height of VWI.  Though, it would make for more 
> complications in the story and lengthen the last book so that it 
> might as well be released as a 10-volume series.  ;)
> 

wynnleaf
Since JKR has managed to have some sort traitor (or at least "good guy
is really bad guy") in every single book so far, I really think she
can and probably will have another one in book 7.  Why should she need
any more than one book to produce another traitor?  She never needed
more than one book in the past.

If as Pippin suspects, Lupin is the traitor, then he knew in advance
that DD was going to be gone that night since DD must have recalled
Lupin specially from his assignment with the werewolves.  Draco would
know that DD was going to be leaving at some point during the evening,
and would simply be waiting for some sort of signal that he had gone.
 The signal would presumably come from Hogsmeade -- although it
needn't go directly to Draco, it could instead go to Borgin and Burkes.

You know, the more I think of it, one has to wonder about the state of
readiness of the DE's.  They were obviously ready at practically a
moment's notice to go.  If Draco and the DE's only learned that DD was
going to be gone when a signal came from Hogsmeade, then they had
extremely little time to get a contingent of DE's together for the
raid.  It would actually make more sense if they had already received
some information that DD was going to be gone that night and were
simply waiting for notice of the exact timing, but supposedly only
Harry and the Order members knew.

wynnleaf