PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181620

Alla quoting:
> > "....I expect...an' executioner, Macnair, he's an old pal o' 
Malfoy's..." - p.241
> 
> Potioncat:
> I don't know why, but I always thought this MacNair was Riddle's 
comtemporary---but it's more likely he is from Malfoy's generation. 
Yes, I'd say he found an "honest job" doing what he liked best.

Carol responds:

I don't think he's from Riddle's generation, not only because of the
"old pal of Malfoy's" reference but because of the description of him
in PoA as a strapping man with a black mustache. Seems to me like he's
in his prime, exercising his muscles by "executing" dangerous beasts
(or wrongly accused beasts), not to mention that he's one of the DEs
who negotiated with the giants as a representative of Voldemort. (The
representative from the Committee for the Disposal for Dangerous
Creatures, OTOH, is represented as an old man.)

AFAIK, the only DE from Riddle's generation is Theo Nott's father, who
seems to be sixtyish.

In Slughorn's HBP memory (both versions), we see Lestrange and Avery,
evidently the fathers of the current generation of DEs with those
names (Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange and Severus's friend Avery).
In DD's memory of the DADA interview, DD mentions Nott, Rosier,
Mulciber, and Dolohov as companions of Riddlemort (HBP Am. ed. 444).
Clearly, Mulciber and Rosier are the fathers, respectively, of the
current Mulciber (the Imperius specialist and school-friend of Severus
Snape and the now-dead Evan Rosier, who was part of the same gang but
may have been older.) Nott, I think is Theo Nott's father, one of the
few remaining first generation DEs. Dolohov may be Antonin Dolohov of
the twisted face or his father; there's no clear indication of
Antonin's age.

No Macnair is not mentioned as a first-generation DE, though that's no
indication that there wasn't one. Avery Sr. and Lestrange Sr. must
have become DEs, but they're not among Riddle's companions in the
Hog's Head (identified by and reported to Albus DD by Aberforth, I
suspect).

OTOH, Sirius doesn't mention Macnair as a member of the gang that
Severus ran around with at Hogwarts. He names Wilkes and Rosier (both
dead), the Lestranges ("a married couple"--Rabastan forgotten as usual
and Bellatrix Black's identity obscured because Sirius is ashamed of
being related to her), and Avery. Oddly, he doesn't mention Mulciber
(though Mulciber is mentioned by Karkaroff in the Pensieve scene) or
Lucius Malfoy, whom we know to be five or six years older than Snape.

Maybe Macnair is a bit older, too, about Bellatrix's age and for that
reason not a member of the gang when Severus entered school (though
Bellatrix also should have left by that time). Or maybe Sirius didn't
think him important enough to include.

However, his occupation, his strapping build, his still-black hair,
his mission to the giants, and the reference to him as a friend of
Lucius Malfoy's suggests to me that he's no more than forty at the
time of POA and possibly younger (if he's Snape's age, he'd be about 
34 at that point. He could even be as young as Regulus Black and Barty
Jr., the youngest DEs that we know of in the first war, which would
make him about 31 or 32. The Malfoy reference makes me think that he's
Lucius's age, though, 39 or 40 at the time of this scene.

Carol, who spends way too much time worrying about things like the
ages of minor characters