Lily WAS: First lesson

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185712

Alla <snip>:

> But now I just realized something, and thank you for that, I 
speculated for quite some time that Snape may have joined DE while at
school. But believe it or not, I never took this quote as additional 
hint for that speculation. I think I am now. "You and your previous
DE" to me can nicely support that Snape indeed became a part of them 
literally.
>
Carol responds:

"You and your precious little Death Eater friends" simply indicates
that his *friends* have either become or openly expressed a desire to
become Death Eaters. She doesn't like his associating with such people
and has had to defend him against it. But if he had actually joined
them at that point or expressed such a desire himself, she would
already have dropped him. All it took was for him to call her a
"Mudblood." If he'd shown her a Dark Mark, her reaction would have
been a lot worse than a snub. She'd have ended the relationship then
and there and possibly hexed him into the bargain.

She doesn't call *him* a Death Eater. She speaks of his Death Eater
friends and accuses him of wanting to join them, an accusation that he
doesn't deny.

BTW, I'm trying to think of a comparable accusation--"You and your
little Crip friends," maybe? At any rate, she doesn't like him
associating with people who are openly cruel and bigoted and enamored
of Dark Magic (whatever that is, exactly). If she'd known that he'd
invented Sectumsempra, assuming that he had done so at that time (and
I think that "for enemies" marks it as later, during sixth year),
she'd have broken off their friendship earlier, too.

Just as he at this point distinguishes her from other Muggle-borns,
she at this point distinguishes him from his "little Death Eater
friends." I imagine that the distinction ended once she'd permanently
broken off with him, and whether he had actually joined or not, he
became either a DE or a wannabe DE in her mind.

Nevertheless, not even Sirius Black, one of his worst enemies, knew
that Severus Snape had actually become a Death Eater, only that he ran
with a gang of them, including Avery, the now-dead Wilkes and Rosier,
and (oddly) "the Lestranges," defined as Bellatrix and her husband,
both of whom were evidently older than Severus. (Maybe it was really
Rabastan who was part of that gang.) Again oddly, Mulciber isn't
mentioned though he was surely one of the gang members ("gang" defined
as "group," not necessarily "gang" in the sense of a group of
antisocial lawbreakers).

Carol, now wondering if "gang" has the same connotation for British
readers as for Americans and whether MWPP are also referred to at some
point as a "gang"