The death of Emmeline Vance (WAS: Re: Snape the Spy (WAS Re: Who Killed Sir...)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 167802

Carol:
> Carol, who is rather partial to the idea that the door *was* being
> guarded by Emmeline Vance and would like to hear more about that
> theory from the person who posted it

zgirnius:
Oh, OK, twist my arm, why don't you! <g>

As I said before, I read the idea somewhere else and no longer recall 
exactly where, but the details presented herein may be different,as 
they represent my own considered view on the subject.

We know that on at least a couple different occasions, an Order member 
on guard duty at the DoM ran into trouble. It seems Sturgis Podmore may 
have been Imperiused by Lucius Malfoy while on duty, and of course 
Arthur Weasley was bitten by Nagini under like circumstances.

However, there was no sign of an Order guard the night Harry and 
company showed up. One possible explanation for this lack is that there 
*was* an Order guard, and he or she was neutralized by the Death Eaters 
in preparation of their ambush for Harry. 

There is only one Order member whose death is not accounted for - 
Emmeline Vance. She was not in the rescue mission, and did not appear 
later in OotP, so she could have been missing from before Harry showed 
up at the MoM. 

What we know of her death comes from two sources. The Muggle Prime 
Minister indicates she was found dead of unspecified causes near his 
Downing St. residence, and Snape comments on her death and his own role 
in it.

> HBP, "The Other Minister":
> "And then Emmeline Vance, maybe you did not hear about that one-"
> "Oh yes I did!" said the Prime Minister. "It happened just around the 
corner from here, as a matter of fact. The papers had a field day with 
it, 'breakdown of law and order in the Prime Minister's backyard-'"

> HBP, "Spinner's End":
> "The Dark Lord is satisfied with the information I have passed him on 
the Order. It led, as perhaps you have guessed, to the recent capture 
and murder of Emmeline Vance, and it certainly helped dispose of Sirius 
Black, though I give you full credit for fninishing him off."

zgirnius:
Snape's remark reveals an interesting bit of information not known to 
the Muggle Prime Minister - *capture* and murder. This suggests that 
she was first captured and held somewhere by the Death Eaters, and 
later killed. That this last was done in the Prime Minister's backyard 
was probably a calculated element of the terror campaign in which the 
Death Eaters are engaged at the start of HBP. She could of course have 
been captured somewhere else doing something else, but supposing it was 
the DoM answers questions like 'why was there no guard?' and 'what did 
Snape have to do with it?' using information we already have.

The other thing I note is that Snape speaks of her death in the same 
sentence as he brings up Sirius's. This again seems to make it 
reasonable to me to suggest that the deaths were consequences of the 
same incident. If Snape passed information to Voldemort during the 
planning stages of the DoM operation, and both Vance and Black were 
casualties of that mission, then this statement by Snape would ring 
true to Bellatrix. 

As far as the nature of the information he passed - I would suggest it 
was not specific to Vance, since if she was captured while on guard 
duty, the same would have befallen anyone else in her position. So it 
could have been anything that would be seen by Voldemort as furthering 
that mission. The same, naturally, applies to Black, since, again, 
anyone might have found themselves duelling Bellatrix once they rode to 
the rescue. Neither the capture of Vance (supposing it happened then) 
nor the death of Sirius were planned outcomes of that raid.