Two Plot Problems

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187652

Carol earlier:
> > In GoF, Sirius Black makes it clear that he doesn't know Snape was ever a DE, and if he didn't know, Lupin wouldn't have known, either. <snip> I don't think that Snape's having been a DE ever got beyond
> > Dumbledore and the Wizengamot. 
> 
Mike responded:
> OK, I guess we have a different interpretation of canon. 

Carol again:

Yes, I agree with that much! :-)

Mike:
For one, and here again I agree with Alla's take, Sirius spent 12 years in prison where I don't think there were a lot of visits from outsiders bringing him a Daily Prophet. So there are a lot of things that Sirius wouldn't have known *for sure*. 
> 
> As to whether SB knew that Snape was a DE, he certainly suspects him, but he doesn't know that he ever got *caught*. Well, he didn't, did he? Dumbledore recruited him and vouched for him to the Wizengamut sometime after the windswept hill scene.

Carol responds:
As I've said in another post, by the time Black was arrested, Voldemort had already been vaporized and Snape had been working with or for Dumbledore for quite some time. He was already teaching at Hogwarts. If Black didn't know by then, Lupin wouldn't have known, either. Snape's hearing clearly wasn't publicized. How could Lupin have known?

And Black doesn't think that Snape was a DE despite his association with known DEs. Black tells HRH in GoF, "But as far as I know, Snape was never accused of being a Death Eater." He states that Snape was clever enough to keep himself out of trouble, but adds, "There's still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape, and I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't but I can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever worked for Voldemort" (GoF Am. ed. 531-2). I suspect that Lupin thought much the same way.

Mike: 
> Back to Lupin; Clearly, Dumbledore knew Snape was a DE by the time of the windswept hill scene. 

Carol responds:
*Dumbledore* did, but he also knew that Snape had overheard the Prophecy, which no one else knew. (Even Aberforth and Trelawney only knew that he'd been eavesdropping on the job interview.) That's no indication that anyone else knew. (In fact, I'm not even sure how DD knew. Snape was a *spy,* and he could hardly have done that job effectively if his being a DE was widely known.)

Mike:
Also, we know that a lot of people were accused of being DEs after Voldemort's fall, and a lot of them got off through various tactics. I'm sure that Snape was suspected right along with Malfoy, the Lestranges, etc. But Snape got off via Dumbledore's testimony.

Carol responds:
See above. Snape's hearing wasn't publicized, and even if Lupin suspected him of being at DE at some point because of his friends, his being hired by Dumbledore to teach Potions would have ended those suspicions, just as they ended Black's (and Black hated Snape more than Lupin did).  

Mike: 
> Does that mean that nobody else besides DD thought that Snape was a DE? I'd doubt it. Could they prove it? Probably not. So don't you suppose that Lupin along with some others thought that Snape had been a DE that got off somehow? Ron, because of his dad, is sure that Malfoy was a DE. I would think that Lupin, being much closer to the situation with Snape, was sure that Snape was a DE that got off somehow. And isn't that take exactly the same thing that Sirius was telling HRH in the cave?

Carol responds:
But Malfoy and Snape are different cases. Malfoy is a known Pure-Blood supremacist who throws his money and power around; Snape is a Hogwarts teacher. Whatever his reputation for knowing about Dark magic and whatever his associations with known DEs, Snape was, in Black's words, "clever and cunning enough" to keep his DE membership hidden (which, no doubt, was why Voldemort wanted him as a spy. So, like Black, Lupin may at one time have had his suspicions, but his behavior toward Snape in PoA indicates that he now attributes any enmity Snape still feels toward MWPP to boyhood rivalries and the so-called Prank. There's no indication whatever that he distrusts or suspects him (in fact, it's the other way around). I don't see how he could have known that Snape had been a DE before he showed his Dark Mark in GoF, the point at which Black found out. We can be sure that Black reported that information to Lupin, who, like McGonagall, only trusted Snape after that point because Dumbledore did.

Mike:
> <snip> JKR painted a picture of Snape's time at Hogwarts being a little more wild west than Harry's. It's not hard for me to believe that the hexes, jinxes, and curses were a little more savage at that time. So it's not hard for me to believe that the inventor of Sectumsempra did use the curse more than once during his time at school. 
> 
> Lily complains to Sev that his 'friends' used dark magic on Mary McDonald, it seems they weren't expelled. Why couldn't Snape have used Sectumsempra a few times and not gotten expelled? Snape knew what the curse did, he didn't have to chop off a person's arm with it. Besides, Harry *did* use Sectumsempra at Hogwarts, and he did a bang up job on Draco with it, and Harry didn't get expelled.

Carol responds:
Actually, Lily says that Mulciber *tried* to use Dark Magic on Mary McDonald. He didn't succeed. Dark Magic isn't tolerated at Hogwarts. Even Durmstrang, which expelled Grindelwald, had limits on the spells that it would tolerate.

Sectumsempra could have killed Draco, and would have done so had it not been for Snape (who, we notice, does not request Harry's expulsion on this occasion). If Draco had died because of Sectumsempra, Harry would not only have been expelled, he would almost certainly have gone to Azkaban (unless Dumbledore could somehow have prevented that). 

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > If it's Dark Magic, and Snape, it's inventor says that it is, neither Molly nor Madam Pomfrey should have the knowledge to stop the bleeding. <snip> It's clear that Molly didn't perform Snape's complicated countercurse. 
> 
> Mike:
> Like I said above, it's not a killing curse. 

Carol responds:

It's a curse "for enemies" that *can* be used to kill. Draco would have bled to death if Snape hadn't saved him. Madam Pomfrey, who couldn't have saved either Katie Bell or Dumbledore, could not have saved Draco, either. As I said, only Snape, who invented the spell, would have known that complicated countercurse, which he also must have invented.

Mike:
Clearly it doesn't perform exactly as it's Latin name implies, it doesn't 'cut ever'. Or maybe it does cut ever but it doesn't bleed ever. Maybe you can't ever repair the cut, but you can stop the bleeding from the cut and you are left with an open wound, or in George's case, without an ear. That is unless you know the countercurse.

Carol responds:
Or maybe JKR is just inconsistent, as she was with Dittany. I agree that George's ear could not have been restored without the countercurse, and, of course, he still had a hole in his head because of the ear canal, but Molly should not have been able to stop the bleeding, either. But, then, the spell does mean "cut always," not "bleed always," so maybe Madam Pomfrey could have stopped Draco's bleeding but not magically stitched him back together, so to speak. Just as Molly couldn't have restored George's ear, Draco would have had unhealable gaping wounds that probably wouldn't have been survivable. 

Teen!Severus could not have performed that spell without being expelled, and I doubt that he would have made the incantation known to anyone else. He may have been planning to use it on MWPP once he got out of Hogwarts, but clearly, that never happened. They as Order members never confronted Snape as a DE or we'd have heard about it, and Lupin would never have trusted Snape to make his wolfbane potion.
 
> > Carol:
> > 
> > At any rate, it makes nonsense of Snape, a healer of Dark Magic spells that even Dumbledore can't cure, if Molly (or Madam Pomfrey) can heal Sectumsempra.
> 
> Mike:
> How about if they can stop the bleeding, but they can't heal (or cure) the wound?
> 
> 
> Mike, who knows that JKR has inconsistencies but doesn't find this particular case as one of them. :-)
>
Carol:
I suppose we can compromise on that notion, but it still seems just as inconsistent to me as the depiction of Dittany in books six and seven.

Carol, who is mainly concerned with Lupin's statement about Snape being known for casting Sectumsempra, which makes no sense to her for the reasons already stated