Caring about people

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184575

Montavilla47 wrote:
<snip>
> And it's harder to explain how Snape still has a contact within
> the order than it would be for him to explain to Voldemort why
> he doesn't.  He freakin' killed Dumbledore!  No sane person in
> the Order would trust him.  He has to go confund Mundungus 
> in order to get his information--which is, again, silly.

Carol responds:
I'm not quite sure that Mundungus qualifies as a sane person,
especially if he's good and drunk or Confunded. Certainly, he has few
if any moral scruples and no particular reason to be loyal to the
Order now that Dumbledore is dead. Maybe Snape paid him good money for
his information. And Snape can always slip some Veritaserum into his
pumpkin juice, er, firewhiskey if he wants to be sure he's getting a
straight answer. I agree that it's all a bit hard to swallow, but I
didn't write the story. I'm just trying to figure out how Snape (who
can do it if anyone can) could be getting information out of an Order
member. Obviously, even he would have no luck with anyone but
Mundungus. (He might be able to persuade Hagrid of his true loyalties,
but getting Hagrid to keep the secret would be another matter
altogether.) Why does Snape need to find out what the Order is up to?
Because they're protecting or escorting Harry, and both Voldemort and
Portrait!DD want that crucial information. And, yes, killing
Dumbledore was a big deal. But if Snape fails to provide information
on LV's next intended victim, the Chosen One, his past accomplishment
won't matter. Dumbledore may be the only one LV ever feared, but Harry
is the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. So Snape's
information is crucial to LV, no one but Snape can obtain it, and he
must not fail to provide it. (And, of course, the same applies to
Snape and Portrait!Dumbledore for altogether different reasons.)

Montavilla47:
> Why is Dumbledore's killer able to stroll into random pubs to bend
elbows with someone who just broke out of Azkaban?  Isn't the Ministry
looking for these people? <snip>

Carol responds:

Good question. I wondered the same thing. However, Rufus Scrimgeour is
preoccupied with studying Dumbledore's will to try to figure out why
DD willed HRH a Snitch, a Deluminator, and a children's book. He's
also pretending that the Azkaban break-out never happened. Dawlish has
been Confunded. I don't know what the other Aurors are doing, but the
Ministry is already being infiltrated by people like Runcorn. Umbridge
is still there, and Pius Thicknesse is apparently on sufficiently good
terms with Yaxley that it was easy for Yaxley to hit him with an
Imperius Curse. 

Meanwhile, Rita Skeeter has already raised questions as to whether
Snape really killed Dumbledore. Harry is the only witness testifying
against him. Since the reading public of the WW seems to believe
whatever they read, whether it's Rita Skeeter's biography of
Dumbledore or the Daily Prophet or the Quibbler, they probably believe
that Snape is guilty one day and innocent the next. Mundungus is small
potatoes--no one cares about a man arrested for impersonating an
Inferius. And people who knew Snape may well react the same way that
Hagrid and Slughorn did, not believing or not wanting to believe that
he's Dumbledore's killer. The WW is in a state of confusion in those
few weeks between Dumbledore's death and the DE takeover of the MoM.

Meanwhile, Snape, Yaxley, and others who might be arrested are being
extremely cautious in their movements outside certain places they know
to be safe. Notice that they both draw their wands and then put them
away as they recognize each other. The narrator describes the meeting
place of Snape and Mundungus as an unfamiliar pub. I suspect that
there are many such shady places, a cross between Knockturn Alley and
the Hog's Head, where Dark Wizards and criminals are used to meeting,
probably hooded and cloaked for secrecy. Snape need only arrange to
meet Mundungus there, perhaps using his Patronus to carry the message.
(He must be a loyal Order member under cover if he can use his
Patronus, right? Right.)

Anyway, JKR apparently didn't think it all the way through or imagined
that we'd fill in the details to our own satisfaction.

BTW, I brilliantly said in another post, "Snape *did* reveal the Seven
Potters plan to LV." Obviously, I forgot to type the all-important
word "not." I assume that anyone who's been reading my posts in this
thread had no trouble deciphering my intended meaning, but of all
words to omit!

Carol, who doubts that she's persuaded anyone with her speculations in
this post but had fun with it, anyway