Black Widower!Snape - repost from TOL (long)

[dungrollin]

Kneasy:
> Eavesdropper!Snape.... why does  that cause me to shuffle in my 
seat?
> Yes, from HBP it does read as cut-and-dried, but it isn't really 
> compatible with a few other bits and bobs.
> 
> 1. OoP - DD plays with his Pensieve, up pops Sybill and does her 
> party piece - uninterrupted. No break for Snapey bursting in after 
> the first few lines, no extraneous sound-track noises impinging on 
> her presentation.
> I suppose DD could have done a bit of memory splicing, but still....
> 
> 2. If she really had been in a prophetic trance, would she remember
> an interruption? Unlikely, given how she behaved during her second 
> recital in PoA.
> 

Dung:
Weeeell
 DD hears a commotion in the middle of the prophecy and 
quickly seals the door with a silencing charm, at the end of the 
prophecy he lifts it, and hears a loud altercation between Aberforth 
and Snape going on outside the doorway, and Abe bursts in holding 
Snape by the ear. 

I know it's not very interesting, but I can't think of a good reason 
for there to be something amiss here, unless it's to set up 
NeverReallyWasADeathEater!Snape, which takes *all* the fun out of it 
for me.

Kneasy:
> Do we know exactly when Sybill made her pronouncement?
> I don't think we do, do we?
> There's a hint from DD in OoP when he says "Sixteen years ago.." he 
> held the interviews, followed closely by "... was born at the end 
of July nearly sixteen years ago ..." 
> How much difference between the two events? One month? Two? 
> More?
> It sort of has implications for your suppositions. 
> 
> Note: DD seems to contradict the accepted timeline that the 
> interviews were held in 1979 [see Lexicon], whereas the difference
> implied by "nearly" is only a few months at most, meaning they 
> occurred in 1980. Is this a known Flint/Rowling mathematical cock-up
> that has since been sorted without my noticing? Is DD being a bit 
> sloppy with his dates? Or is he accurate?
> 
> The whole timeline of the Herod!Voldy process is puzzling.
> Yes, he learns that in July will be born the sprog who'll put a 
crimp
> in his ambitions, yet he apparently takes no action for 15 months 
after
> the event. 
> Why?

Dung:
We've got


1. The prophecy was delivered anything up to half a year before Harry 
was born.
 "On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at 
the Hog's Head inn."
- OotP ch37 UK p740.

A cold, wet night strongly suggests winter, but you know what 
Scotland's like
 

"Now," said Umbridge, looking up at Trelawney, "you've been in this 
post how long, exactly?"
[
]
"Nearly sixteen years."

Which, given that this is at the beginning of the autumn term, 
suggests that she was hired somewhere around Christmas.

2. Regulus died some time in the year that Harry was born.
"Sirius jabbed a finger at the very bottom of the tree, at the 
name `Regulus Black'. A date of death (some fifteen years previously) 
followed the date of birth."
- OotP ch6 UK p 104

3. We don't know when Snape started working at Hogwarts.

`"Now 
 how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" she asked, her 
quill poised over her clipboard.
"Fourteen years," Snape replied. His expression was unfathomable.'
- OotP ch 17 UK p 323.

and

"Hardly," said Snape, "although the Dark Lord is pleased that I never 
deserted my post: I had sixteen years of information on Dumbledore to 
give him when he returned
"
- HBP ch2 UK p 32.

In the first quote he makes it sound as though he's just started his 
fifteenth year of teaching, but in the second quote, less than a year 
later, he claims an extra year of information, one in which he wasn't 
officially on the Hogwarts staff, and so could not admit to Umbridge. 

Did he disguise himself and teach DADA for a year, before being outed 
through the curse, swapping sides, dumping the disguise and taking 
the potions position as himself? I think that could work, 
particularly if his first mission was to discover the names of the 
magical babies born at the end of July so that Voldy could make a 
little list. 

Snape peeks at the book with the magic quill and DD catches him 
looking, stricken, at the crossed-off name of his own son. DD gets 
the story out of him, and makes him do the right thing (i.e. not tell 
Voldy that there are two potential prophecy boys), and start spying 
for the Order, and thus seek revenge. He and DD cook up a story that 
Voldy will believe (that Snape failed to get the names, but managed 
to convince DD that he'll turn double-agent), and Snape takes up the 
potions position, thus relieving himself of the DADA curse, (it'd be 
quite fun if he'd had to suffer it twice). That's why it took Voldy 
so long to discover the Potters. Perhaps.

Alternatively herself still can't perform simple mathematical tasks.

But anyway, to make it all fit:

1. The prophecy must be given to Voldemort before Snape knows that it 
applies to his own offspring, or before it occurs to him that it 
possibly could (since he hasn't yet defied Voldy), which is just 
about plausible if it happened at Christmas.

2. Snape is caught helping Reg at some point during the year the 
child (and Draco and Harry and Neville) were, or would have been 
born. 

3. Voldy finds out about the kid, about Lucius also knowing the 
prophecy, and about helping Reg any time before say, a month prior to 
GH. (Though I like Snape having the extra year between the murder of 
his family and turning to DD, to give him time to seethe and rankle 
and scheme.)

Kneasy:
> But for Blackwidower to be valid, his offcut had to have been 
killed 
> before he swapped sides yet had to have been old enough to be 
> depicted as 'a small boy', (not a baby) in the memory flash.
> So to work, Snape!Son would probably have to have been born at 
> least 6 months before Harry.
> Which would suggest that a July-born Snape!Son theory (therefore 
> potentially Voldy's!Bane, so I'd better knock him off, signed 
Voldy) 
> might have a glitch.
> Assuming I'm correct, any chance you can nudge it back on track?

Dung:
Ah. I hadn't actually tied in Snape's memory in the occlumency 
lessons to this, but now I come to think of it, it was the original 
prompt for the theory, wasn't it? Damn. Hang on.

::muted sounds of swearing as books are hurled across the room::

It could work if Voldy didn't detect Snape's hand in helping Regulus 
until a while afterwards. The latest it could happen anyway would be 
say, a month before Harry was targeted, we need time for Snape to 
turn to DD, and spy at great personal risk for a bit before GH. Then 
we're talking about a 14 month-old baby Snape. 14 month-olds look 
pretty much like babies, too, rather than `small boys'.  

I'm not too sure that it's terminal for my version, though. It, um, 
*could* actually have been a memory of Eileen and Tobias...

> In truth, the original Blackwidower/Snape!Son doesn't necessarily 
> require that that they be killed, just that they die in 
circumstances 
> where Sevvy can credibly hold Voldy responsible.
> But that's not so Bangy.

And I do like the light it throws on Snape telling Harry that he is 
not special when we *know* he knows at least the first bit of the 
prophecy. Not to mention tying up the Lucius connection. 

Dung