Dumbledore does Lie-Part II, Snape Turned

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 159983


Neri wrote:
<big snip>
> I'm not sure what I have to concede here. That Dumbledore suspected
> Snape? Of course he did. Canonically, during VW1 you suspected
> *anyone* you didn't know well (and if you had any brain, also some
> people you did know well). Suspicion isn't much help when
everybody's a suspect. As for Leglimency, Voldemort is an expert
Legilimenn himself so he's well aware of the problem, and I doubt he'd
send Dumbledore a spy who isn't a good Occlumenn. <snip>
> 
Carol responds:
I agree with you about Dumbledore's not being omniscient, but I have
to disagree here. The whole point of Snape's being a "superb
Occlumens" able to lie to voldemort without detection is that LV
*doesn't know* that snape is an Occlumens. If he did, Snape would be
dead. (Imagine snape trying to practice easily detected Occlumency
like Draco's on Voldemort. Very, very bad move.)

BTW, if you'll forgive me, it's "Occlumens, not "Occlumenn." ("Mens"
is Latin for "mind." "Occlu-" apparently means "closed." Cf.
"occludere," to close.) Ditto for "Legilimens," which is "mens"
("mind") plus "legili-," apparently JKR's adaptation of "legilbilis,"
"capable of being read or deciphered," from "legere," to read. (Don't
know what this etymology does to Snape's statement that "the mind is
not a book to be examined at will," but never mind that now.)


> > Mike:
> > I refer you to Carol's post, 
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/159793
> > 
> > and my argument in the original post. I don't see Snape with a
good cover story at all.
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> I'm not sure to which of Carol's arguments you refer, and no post of
> yours appear in that thread. Most of Carol's canon in this post
isn't very conclusive. We don't really know when the meeting in the HH
took place, we don't know how much time after that Trelawney was
actually hired, we don't know what posts were open then, and we don't
know for what Snape was applying.  He may have been applying for a
replacement teacher position, or for the Astronomy post, or for the
Ancient Runes post, or for the DADA position because the DADA teacher
that year had incurred an early bad luck. Or there wasn't any post
open but Snape still had some reasonable cover story. Trelawney tells
us he was looking for a job at that time and we don't have any special
reason to doubt this part of her story (except if our theories require
> otherwise, that is
). Since both Snape and Voldy aren't complete 
idiots, I assume they had a reasonable cover story for Snape. <snip>
>
Carol responds:
On the contrary, we do have reason to doubt Trelawney's story simply
because it doesn't match well with Dumbledore's. One or the other is
incorrect; both are incomplete, but it's the parts we do have that
don't match, as both Mike and I have pointed out.

Note that Trelawney has been working at Hogwarts, by her own account,
"almost sixteen years," whereas Snape has been working there for
fourteen. Clearly, she was not hired at the usual time. She was hired
on a wet, cold evening, which does not fit the usual hiring date of
the summer between terms, nor does her "almost" indicate that she was
hired before the term started. She was apparently hired some few
months into the school year, probably in late fall or early winter
given the weather. Any later than that, say spring, when the weather
would again be rainy, and she would have said "fifteen and a half
years" or "a little more than fifteen years." Her description and the
weather fit perfectly with a date of Halloween for the Prophecy
(Harry's presumed conception date). If he hasn't yet been conceived,
as would be the case if she had applied at the usual date or even in
September or most of October, the statement that "the one who can
defeat the Dark Lord approaches" makes no sense.

So she must be applying at an unusual time for a sudden vacancy. There
is no reason for young Snape to be applying at this time (the DADA
positions always become vacant near the end of the year, usually in
June) and Slughorn was still Potions master. I think that Snape's
listening in to get hints for job interviews is Trelawney's own
after-the-fact explanation. She seems to be forgetting that he was not
 hired the following fall (the term that started a month after Harry's
birth) but the fall after that. Maybe young Snape tried and "failed"
to get a job as DADA teacher at that point (DD would not have given
his own spy the cursed DADA position), but he was not actually hired
for the uncursed Potions position until nearly two years after
Trelawney began teaching.

It's possible that young Snape applied for the DADA position on LV's
orders at about the same time that he became a spy, but the cover
story (the DADA position would tempt him to return to his old ways)
would make it absurd for him to reapply the following year. After all,
Dumbledore would say the same thing. So unless he applied and was told
that he was too young (cover story for LV because DD didn't want him
in that cursed position), the first time he applied must have been
when he was given Potions rather than DADA, Slughorn having most
conveniently retired.

Carol, who still thinks that Trelawney is supplying her own
explanation for Snape's eavesdropping, which she can't otherwise
account for as she doesn't know that he was a DE