Snape and Marauders WAS :Draco and Intent

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186944

 
> Lealess: 
> > Dumbledore in the Prince's Tale did not even seem surprised that Snape relayed the prophecy to Voldemort. He only asked how much Snape told.  
> 
> Carol:
> Right. And that surprises me since no one else seems to know that Snape was a Death Eater at that time. I doubt that he showed up to talk to DD in Death Eater's robes. So DD knew, somehow, that young Snape was a Death Eater (or at least knew that his friends Avery and Mulciber had become DES--they would have made no secret of it--so that would make Snape at least a DE associate) and yet he didn't stop him from reporting the part of the Prophecy that he had heard.

Pippin:
It's possible that Dumbledore first found out that Snape was a Death Eater when Snape contacted him to arrange the meeting, ostensibly on Voldemort's behalf. "Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?" 

And it's possible that Dumbledore had been fooled about whether Snape had heard any of the prophecy. Once he realized he'd been fooled about Snape being a DE, he would have to wonder about the eavesdropping also. But before then?

Snape is an expert occlumens, while Dumbledore believes he can usually tell when people are lying. Snape denied he had been eavesdropping and  burst into the room where Dumbledore and Trelawney were meeting, evidently expecting it to be his own.  How many Death Eaters would have the presence of mind or the nerve to put on such a performance, even if they had the occlumency skills to make it possible? Most of the DE's were terrified of Dumbledore. Even Snape was, when he wasn't  acting. 

We don't know if Aberforth  caught  Snape unmistakably with his ear to the door. Snape could have heard him coming and straightened up. In any case, I doubt Dumbledore can modify a memory that's being hidden from him by occlumency, even if he fears that it exists.

Dumbledore does not act as if he believes the prophecy, IMO. He acts as if *Voldemort* believes the prophecy, once he has been told that Voldemort knows of it.  He appears to take no action on account of it until Snape begs him to protect Lily. 

The Potters had other reasons to be in hiding; Voldemort was trying to recruit them.  (We can imagine the idea of James's character that Voldemort had if he got his information from Peter and Snape.) That appears to be the reason the Potters were spared three times. Also, of course, if his close friends were dead, Peter's sources of information would dry up.

I don't think it's because Harry was the prophecy boy that Dumbledore made such an extraordinary effort to try to save him. I think it was because Harry was completely innocent and yet had been chosen specifically to be murdered -- he was not an enemy of Voldemort who had chosen to risk all by defying him, nor was he a random victim  whose innocence (as regards the state of their souls, not their legal culpability for crimes) could not be determined in advance. I am sure that Dumbledore's obsession with saving innocent lives stems from his guilt over his sister's death, but also I am reminded of the ancient Jewish belief that the world is allowed to exist only for the sake of the innocent among us.

Pippin