Why Snape turned

[puduhepa98 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 159764

>Carol
>snip>
>I don't
>want to get into the complex question of Snape's  motives, which IMO
could involve both the life debt to James and concern for  Lily and her
unborn child, with the death of Regulus Black as added incentive  (a
revelation of how ruthless the DEs really were, perhaps).

I just  want to say that I agree that young Snape would have been hired
around July  of 1981 (don't the booklists usually come out then, and DD
would have  advertised for a new DADA teacher, the post for which Snape
was applying,  around the end of June?), but I think your first guess
at the timing is more  likely than the second to be accurate. After
all, Snape spied for Dumbledore  "at great personal risk," which
implies a fairly extended period, not just a  month or two, and his
spying on Voldemort would have begun just after Harry's  birth on July
31, 1980, effectually ended when he began teaching at Hogwarts  on
September 1, 1981, some thirteen months later. 

I'm not sure why  Dumbledore waited so long to try to persuade the
Potters to use the Fidelius  Charm or how Snape, who was at Hogwarts,
could have known that they were in  danger at that point (though how
else could Dumbledore have  known)?

Nikkalmati
 
I tend for a number of reasons to think SS is DDMan and I am perfectly  
willing to see him spying for over a year before he took the job at  Hogwarts.  I 
would think DD would not have much faith in a spy who worked  for him for only 
a few months.  But remember ST said SS was applying for a  job at the time he 
was at the Hog's Head in say 10/79.. Presumably  then LV put him up to making 
the application.  If DD and AD unwisely let  him go off to LV at that time, SS 
had to come back to apply for the DADA  job again (but of course got 
Potions).  It seems there is a bit of a  gap here.  If he switched sides once Harry 
was born, 7/80, why didn't  he start teaching 9/80 instead of 9/81 or some 
earlier time.  We have  seen MM and ST started teaching in midyear.  He would have 
been  replacing Slughorn, right?
 
Something must have happened just after the time SS started teaching to  
alert DD that the attack on the Potters was imminent. There was much concern  that 
there was a spy in the Order.  Snape seems to have been aware that  James 
preferred Sirius as SK over DD.  That means he was in on the initial  planning f
or the SK.  I have always been puzzled how DD knew so much  about what had 
happened at GH.  Did he read baby Harry's memory?  Did  he have a spy there and if 
so why didn't that person help Harry?  Why  did DD have to send Hagrid? Was 
it a portrait?  Supposedly, DD no longer  even knew where the Potters were 
hiding, after the FC was  cast.     

Nikkalmati (lots of questions  too).


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