Snape's "source" (again) (Was: Dumbledore lied to Harry... AGES ago)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175988

Eggplant wrote: 
> I still can't quite figure out how Dumbledore knew the exact time 
Harry would evacuate Privet Drive so he could tell Snape so he could 
tell the Death Eaters. <snip>

Carol responds:

This information can only come from Snape, who, in turn, has received
it from an Order member. Portrait!DD could not know it on his own. And
surely "the source" that Snape refers to in "The Dark Lord Ascending"
is Mundungus, the only Order member who still has any contact with him
after the "murder" of dumbledore. Whether Dung still believed
(rightly) that Snape was loyal to the Order, or, rather, to DD (Dung
was not present when Harry told his version of events on the tower to
Lupin, McGonagall, et al.) or was tempted by gold or was Imperio'd by
Snape is unclear, but he had clearly agreed to meet Snape in "an
unfamiliar tavern" (688) at the time that Snape Confunds him. If they
met once (as they obviously did), it seems likely that they met more
than once. Moreover, the unprincipled Mundungus would certainly be a
believable source of information regarding the Order's plans, one that
Snape could let Voldemort see using Legilimency (as we see happening
when Snape calmly allows the Dark Lord to look into his eyes, using
his skills as a "superb Occlumens" to block the crucial information
that he has also Confunded Mundungus and planted the Polyjuice
suggestion, 3-4). The only odd thing is that LV asks Snape's source
*after* he looks into Snape's eyes (a Flint?). It would make more
sense for LV to actually see him receiving the information.

At any rate, Portrait!DD's source of information is clearly Snape.
Snape himself has a "source," whom he has already identified to
Voldemort (4). And since that "source" has to be an Order member, and
it's not Lupin, Hagrid, Mad-Eye, a Weasley, Tonks, Fleur, or Kingsley,
it pretty much has to be Mundungus. Moreover, we actually see Snape
and Mundungus together when Snape Confunds him (688).

I'm guessing that Snape has met at least three times with Mundungus
since the death of DD: once to establish him as "the source we
discussed" (DH Am. ed. 4), once to discover the information about the
escape plans (which Snape then reveals to Portrait!DD), and a third
time to Confund him and plant the Polyjuice suggestion. It's possible
that there were only two meetings and that Snape's reference to "the
source we discussed" simply refers to a suggestion on Snape's part ("I
believe that I can obtain information from Mundungus Fletcher, my
lord") rather than to previous conversations. In any case, if Snape
can arrange to meet Dung once in "an unfamiliar tavern," he can do it
more than once. And it seems to me that he must have done it at least
twice.

Carol, trusting to Snape's brilliance and Dung's stupidity (and
conspicuous lack of ethics) to make such meetings possible and glad
for Harry's sake that Snape was on his side