Blackwidower!Snape - repost from TOL (long)

[Barry Arrowsmith]

Under the weather?
Not more plasmodium, I hope?
Apologies of my own.
I fully intended to follow up your reasoning/proposed scenario
in my last post, but real life intervened.
So, belatedly, into the detail:
(extracts are from 2 of your previous posts so there's some 
jumping around)

> The two major bits of relevant canon we were given in HBP are:
> 1. Snape was the eavesdropper.[1]
> 2. When Snape realised how Voldemort was interpreting the prophecy,
> his remorse made him 'return' to the good guys' table.[2]
>

I've mentioned my reservations re: Eavesdropper!Snape previously, so 
no need to repeat. But "how Voldy was interpreting the prophecy"....

We're told that Bigears (whoever) only caught the beginning - up to 
"...born as  the seventh month dies...". Interestingly, this fragment 
doesn't mention if it'll be male or female contender for top spot, and 
the original Nemesis was female IIRC. Still, it's safe to assume that 
among his other faults Voldy is also a sexist pig, so he'd dismiss the
thought of losing to a girly as preposterous. 
Mind you, with La Bella Dame sans Merci gleefully carving swathes
through the WW population and matching notches on her wand, 
t'ain't such a given.

So - he's got the stork arriving at the back end of July, to those 
who've defied him thrice. Those - plural. It's not much, but he 
should  be able to draw up a short-list of candidates. 
"Who's in pod that's pissed me off?" he cries. 
Put that in the WW equivalent of Google and he's in business. 
'Course, 'defied' might need refining a bit. More than just opposing
His Nastiness as a matter of principle, I'd think; has overtones of 
specific acts, though what they may be we don't have a clue, not 
for the Potters nor the Longbottoms. Even so, can't be too long a 
list and apparently DD only bothered checking against members 
of the Order. 
(Why does that cause my ears to perk up? 
'Cos it fits with Puppetmaster!DD fixing the whole shebang, that's why.)
   
>
> Just try to imagine for a moment that you're a power-hungry psychotic
> (easier for some than others) and someone has just told you a kid
> with the clout to pulp you is going to be born; you'd start getting
> twitchy around *any* pregnant women, wouldn't you? Oh, and you'd
> utterly forbid the minion who brought you the news to tell anybody
> else.
>

Well, maybe.
Certainly he might keep the troops in the dark about a possible 
vanquisher, but there again he might consider it an opportunity to 
demonstrate his supremacy. Depends if he's read the Rules. But what 
he'd want more than anything else is information, and to get that 
he'd have to pass the word that there were certain classes of 
intelligence that he's particularly interested in.

> So let's say that it's about now that Snape's wife [5] discovers that
> she is pregnant. Narcissa's pregnant too! How nice. Snape works out
> immediately that both children are due at the end of July. Lucius is
> his friend [6], Snape warns him of the problem, and tells him the
> first two lines of the prophecy [7], pleading with him to not let
> Voldemort know that Narcissa is pregnant, because it will put her in
> danger. But Snape is too late, Voldy already knows that the Malfoys
> are expecting the patter of tiny feet.
>
> The two couples are understandably worried, Voldemort has not told
> Snape anything about how he's interpreted the prophecy, so Snape has
> *no clue* what he intends, and no clue exactly how he's reading `as
> the seventh month dies'. At the beginning of June, Lucius and/or
> Narcissa panic and induce their baby early (however they do such
> things in the WW). Draco is born dangerously premature on June 5th,
> [8] but it's better that he should struggle through his first year of
> life (Magical Medicine should be enough to see him through) than that
> Voldy should even consider the possibility that he's the prophecy
> baby.
>

It's a truism that run-of-the-mill dictators do tend to worry more 
about a coup emanating from their own ranks rather than getting a 
kicking from the outside opposition. And then there's the fact that 
it's a prophecy. Oh, dear. If he's got any historical perspective, then 
he'll be aware how twisty those things can be. Downfall could end up 
meaning he trips on a fluffy bunny spilled from a cot and impales 
himself on his own wand; at least 'vanquish' implies some sort of a 
contest, but it still could be tricky. One good  thing from his 
perspective - there's no rush. A mewling babe isn't likely to be a 
serious competitor for a few years yet.
 
> The Malfoys are very grateful to Snape for the warning he gave them,
> and know that he's risked a lot for them by disobeying Voldy's
> command to tell no one about the prophecy. The Snapes, for some
> reason (difficult pregnancy?) do not want to risk inducing their baby
> prematurely. They've got around the problem so far by not letting it
> get out that Mrs Snape is pregnant, so Voldy doesn't know.
>

Stepping back outside the plot - how likely do you think Jo is to get  
pregnancy and induction into the story? So far we haven't come across 
a single gravid female in six books.

> 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.)
>
> Snape and Reggie are old pals, united in their hatred of Sirius at
> school, 

Um.
Reggie.
The Lexicon surmises that there's only a year or so between him and 
Sirius, so it's possible that he could have teamed up with Snapey, even
given the propensity of schoolboys to stick mainly with others of their
own intake. As usual, we're a bit in the  dark on timings. When did he
do his sleight of hand stunt with the hosscrux, when did Voldy find out,
when did he cop it in the neck? (He's in 3 entries in the Lexicon - 2 say
he died in '79, one says '80. That gives a spread of between 2.5 years 
and zero between the swop and the critical podding period. Seems 
reasonable (until more info emerges) to go mid-period, unless Voldy
was into last-minute hosscrux production on a just-in-case basis. 
Does that cause you a problem?

> so Snape (foolishly – he hasn't learned too much about Voldy
> yet) tries to help Reg, save him, hide him, whatever. Voldemort knows
> that Snape and Regulus are thick as thieves, so he questions Snape,
> who is still wet-behind-the-ears, [11] and as yet unable to hide his
> lies with Occlumency [12]. Voldemort knows he's lying, Regulus is
> quickly discovered and killed within days of Voldy shouting "Off with
> his head!" [13]
>
> Voldemort is therefore very much displeased with Snape. He orders
> Snape to be killed (that'll learn him!). However, Lucius Malfoy,
> still grateful to Snape for his tip off about the prophecy,
> intervenes (at great personal risk) to persuade Voldemort to spare
> Snape. Lucius's strategy involves pointing out to Voldy how very
> useful a talented young wizard like Snape could be. [14]
>

An altruistic Malfoy...
Goes against the grain, somewhat. As does his arguing a case 
against His Paranoid Evilness. 
Given the situation (i.e. he's been warned that there's a big problem 
on the way) he'd be more likely to zap everybody in sight just to 
nip any potential conspiracy in the bud to be on the safe side, 
wouldn't he? After all, he's supposed to be topping Snape!Son and 
eventually the Potter and Longbottom kids on just that basis - 
prevention is better than cure.

Now Voldy wiping out the missus and off-spring because he 
thought Sevvy had let him down by failing to keep a sufficiently close
eye on Reggie is a possibility of sorts - a "pour encourage les autres" 
moment. But Malfoy intervening... dunno. From the text the only 
person who tries to get Voldy to change his mind is Peter, the rest 
just suck up to him and probably manoeuvre amongst themselves 
to bask in his approval. And Lucius is such a self-serving little creep.

Moving on...

>
> DD, however, suspects that Snape is a Death Eater (though he doesn't
> let on), and refuses him the job since he suspects that Snape is
> there on Voldy's orders. But he leaves options open, because he
> doesn't want Voldemort to kill Snape for failing to secure the job.
> Perhaps he says that he's already filled the post for that year, but
> cheerfully invites Snape to reapply in the future [21]. Voldy
> grudgingly gives Snape one more year's grace.
>

Even if he suspects he's a DE and therefore his motives, DD could 
well bring Sevvy into Hogwarts on the basis of keeping your enemies 
close, but would he trust him as he's supposedly done? Not without 
pretty substantial proofs involving frequent and sustained Legilimancy,
info from trusted informers and a long probationary period IMO. 
Though if the prophecy is a DD scam he could feel a bit responsible
for Snape's nearest and dearest ending up as collateral damage.

>
> He is therefore in a much stronger position when he discovers, months
> later, that Voldemort would very much like to kill the Potters and
> their son who was born at the end of July, because of the *same*
> prophecy which got his own wife and child killed. 

The more cynical among us reckon it's the other way round - DD used 
Snape as a conduit to inform Voldy of the existence of targets Harry and
Neville as part of a ploy to lure Voldy to his destruction. In that scenario
it's immaterial whether DD trusts him or not. Better not to, I think, he 
can't be scanned for info he doesn't have.

We're left wondering if Snape is a turncoat (once, twice?) a spy, a 
double-agent, or triple or what?
In a faction fight where the two main protagonists are Legilimancy
maestros, it's difficult to imagine anyone can get away with anything. 
Block probings and you're immediately under suspicion. Unless - partial 
mind-wipes are engineered by depositing incriminating memories in a 
Pensieve - and it would require the use of one at each end of the chain. 
Messy.

Have to do some more brooding.

Kneasy

Not strictly this thread, but  a thought impinged while compiling 
this response.
Are the DEs Voldy's invention?
Jo once revealed that originally they were The Knights of Walpurgis and
then she changed the name.
That seems a very Germanic name to me - too German? Hinting at a 
connection to Grindelwald, perhaps? 
A nice continuity link that could tie in with an immortal Sally!Spirit, if so.