Blackwidower!Snape - repost from TOL (long)

[dungrollin]

> Think of what it implies if the Longbottoms didn't go into hiding.
> DD is lying to Harry again, either about there being two possibles
> based on birth date and about Voldy picking Harry because he 
> identified with him, or Neville was a possibility but DD kept it 
very 
> close to his chest while placing Harry at ground zero.
> Does not compute - *unless*  there is some other identifier we
> don't know about.
> 

No, not necessarily. The Potters knew that Voldy was after them, but 
we don't know whether they knew from DD because DD guessed that Voldy 
having the first line of the prophecy and Harry and Neville's dates 
of birth would put them in danger, or whether a certain double agent 
warned them of Voldemort's specific intentions. If one of 
DD's "useful spies" warned them that Voldy was specifically after the 
Potters and not the Longbottoms, there would not necessarily be any 
need for them to go into hiding. Voldy could still choose.

I have difficulty believing that
> the DEs picking on the L's was sheer coincidence. Somebody knew
> enough to consider them a potential source of information.

Sure, I've got no problem with that, I think so too. I just don't 
think that it means lots and lots and lots of DEs knew about the 
prophecy.

> But this holds true even if they had been keeping their heads down -
> and that's what's hinted in OoP - the DEs pounced 'when everyone
> thought it was safe'. Safe for whom? The Longbottoms or the WW at
> large? I'd assumed the former, 'cos there were still large numbers 
of
> Voldy's cheering section running around loose. 

I'd assumed the latter. Not many people knew that the Potters knew 
Voldy was after them (someone says so in PoA, in the conversation 
Harry overhears in the three broomsticks) so it's hardly likely 
that "everyone" knew the Longbottoms were on the list either. If, in 
fact, they were.

> Difficult to believe that the DEs knew nothing about the prophecy
> and I can't really see how it would affect the plot all that much 
if they 
> did. So why the corrections and clarifications?

Ah, but it does make a difference if SCOWLING POTIONEER holds, coz 
that implies it was Lucius (or at an outside stretch Narcissa) who 
sent the Lestranges to the Longbottoms. It puts Neville in a similar 
position with respect to Lucius as Harry is with respect to Snape.