GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182265

Alla wrote:
> <snip>
> Well, no. I gave examples of marauders first of all. Any indications 
> of James having unhappy family life? Or Remus? Besides him being 
> werewolf? And the war was already on. As to RL example, that is not 
> completely true either - they live in the country which is affected 
> by war, at any time, at any place act of terror can happen and does 
> happen, at any city, be it their city or anybody else's. They are not 
> on the frontlines **right now**, but war can hit home at any time.
> 
> And they still live normal life pretty much. They go to work, child 
> goes to school, they go out, etc, etc.

Carol responds:
The kids at Hogwarts in VW1 are safe at school (and Muggle-borns can
still attend) for one readon only: Dumbledore, the only one that
Voldemort ever feared. Outside of Hogwarts, Pure-Bloods like Sirius
and James are probably perfectly safe unless they or their parents
openly resist Voldemort. Meanwhile, he's picking off the Order members
one by one, but that's of no concern to the Marauders, who seem to
care only about running with a werewolf on full-moon nights. Remus, we
can be sure, was neither happy nor particularly safe outside Hogwarts.
 His only protection would be LV's wish to have the werewolves on his
side. And who kows? Maybe Peter as a Muggle-born felt himself in
danger outside Hogwarts. Maybe that, as well as the awareness that LV
was the biggest bully on the playground and far more powerful than
James Potter, caused him to go over.

We *know* that life outside Hogwarts was not enjoyable for most of the
WW during VW1. The Order members were being picked off one by one, the
DEs were killing people and leaving the Dark Mark above their houses.
No one trusted anyone outside their immediate families. (The
Marauders, it seems, didn't even trust Dumbledore to be their Secret
Keeper, a mistake if they wanted to survive! OTOH, the Prophecy
wouldn't have been fulfilled if they'd made him their SK, so the
Voldie War would have continued unabated.) Once the Potters joined the
Order, opposing Voldemort by that very action, their lives became much
more dangerous. The same is true for Lupin, Black, and the cowardly
Pettigrew, who, unlike the others, didn't enjoy risking his own life
(though he didn't mind risking the lives of others, whether it was the
people of Hogsmeade or his own dear friends, Lily and James and their
child).

Very few people (DD, the Order, a few Ministry employees) were
opposing Voldemort. He was using Inferi and Fenrir Greyback and
giants, and he had more DEs then than later. The WW was not a safe or
enjoyable place. We get a glimpse of what it was like in HBP, when LV
is returning to power and Hannah Abbott's mother is murdered, along
with Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones, and the Montague sisters'
five-year-old brother is killed by Fenrir Greyback.

All that it took to go from that point to the conditions of DH was the
death of Dumbledore. Had Snape been a loyal DE and Harry not had the
power to defeat the Dark Lord, conditions would quickly have
degenerated, with a complete and permanent takeover by LV of the
British WW, and, from there, the European WW. (Granted, he wasn't as
brilliant as Grindelwald, but that didn't matter. With DD out of the
way and no Harry destroying his Horcruxes, not to mention weakening
him through the power of his self-sacrifice, the WW would be doomed to
misery.)

Take the years before Godric's Hollow and then skip to HBP and DH.
That's what happens if there's no Vapor!mort, no fourteen-year
respite, and no Dumbledore, who cannot win the battle against
Voldemort; he can only prolong it and protect the students at Hogwarts
while he lives.

I'm leaving Snape out of the equation because I want to focus on LV
and Harry, but, of course, if there had been no eavesdropper, there
would have been no Godric's Hollow, and if the eavesdropper hadn't
been Snape, there would have been no chance for Lily to live and no
rebounded AK, no scar, and no blood protection. So Snape is
inextricably tied into the story of the Chosen One. But my point is
that no one but the Chosen One, with Harry's peculiar insight into
LV's mind and so on, could have defeated Voldemort. 

Harry's life as an ordinary Wizarding boy whose parents were risking
their lives fighting LV and the Death Eaters *might* have been more
enjoyable than it was at the Dursleys', but given the risks that they
were taking, the likelihood that their best friend, Sirius Black,
would be killed fighting the DEs, and the likelihood that their other
best friend, Peter Pettigrew, would betray their whereabouts if for
some reason they went into hiding (he was giving information on the
Order members for a year before Godric's Hollow0, the chances of a
happy, normal childhood seem slim and the chances of a victory against
Voldemort completely nil.

Carol, apologizing for being stuck in a rut but utterly convinced that
normal life in the WW under Voldemort was simply impossible outside
the protection of Hogwarts with Dumbledore in charge