Blackwidower!Snape - repost from TOL (long)

[dungrollin]

> > Dung
> > I'm going by one of JKR's faq polls:
> > 
> > The Lestranges were sent after Neville to kill him.
> > No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent after Neville's 
> > parents. I can't say too much about this because it touches too 
> > closely on the prophecy and how many people knew about it, but 
the 
> > Lestranges were not in on the secret.
> > 
> > Which strongly suggests, firstly, that the information was highly 
> > restricted (if precious Bella didn't know), and secondly, that 
who 
> > *did* know about the prophecy before OotP will be important. The 
only 
> > certainties we have are Snape, Voldy and DD, and *not* the 
> > Lestranges. 
> > 
> 
> Yeah, but the situation had changed by the time of the 'let's go and
> play at the Longbottoms' incident. They wanted to know what had
> happened to their glorious leader. Neville was not their main 
interest,
> in fact he couldn't be "the one" because "the one" had already done 
> something nasty to their Lord and Master. 

But but but
 JKR specifically said that the Longbottom attack team 
*didn't* know about the prophecy when they went on their crucioing 
spree, and so they didn't know there even *was* a "one", let alone a 
potential other.

Neville was therefore 
> irrelevant but his parents might know something since he had been
> considered to be a possibility  for the  starring role. Highly 
likely 
> then, that they'd been involved in discussions, plans and had 
> knowledge of why DD picked on these two particular kids and how
> any protective spells DD may have emplaced may have worked.

Um
 isn't that precisely what JKR ruled *out*? They can't have 
suspected that the Longbottoms were "involved in discussions" since 
they didn't even know that there was a prophecy to be discussed. The 
person who suggested they target Frank and Alice may have known, but 
the ones who did the crucioing didn't.

> Some information was widely known among the DEs, it must have
> been, why else drop in on the Longbottoms?  That they did suggests
> that they knew Neville was one of the critical pair and his parents
> would know what had happened to Voldy at GH.

But it beggars belief that something so important, that was "widely 
known" amongst the DEs didn't make it to the ears of Bella or hubby, 
because the Lestranges very specifically *didn't* know. Besides, "I 
can't say too much about this because it touches too closely on the 
prophecy and how many people knew about it" suggests that who *did* 
know is going to be important.

Have some chocolate; they're gin flavoured.

> What's also irritating is that we're none too sure of just when the 
two
> families went into hiding. It makes a difference to the theorising.
> Was Voldy looking for them for 15 months (unlikely IMO) or did 
> something stir him up later? If so, what? Puppetmaster!DD?
> If DD was in the business of setting a Voldy trap then it'd be no 
damn
> good unless Voldy had some idea of where the bait was. By the same
> token, unless the families were planning on staying in hiding for 
years,
> the situation had to be brought to a conclusion. Either 
accidentally or
> deliberately the news must eventually leak. DD would prefer a leak 
> he could control, either through a known Voldy agent or one of his 
own.

Actually, we don't even know that the Longbottoms went into hiding at 
all, and we don't know if Voldy even knew they had a son of the right 
age. All we know is that the Potters knew that Voldy was after them 
and went into hiding. I've always wondered exactly why Voldy chose 
Harry over Neville (assuming he knew of Neville's existence), and I 
don't trust DD's implication that it was just because he was a half-
blood and Neville was a pure-blood. There's more to it, I'm sure, but 
just what I don't know.