I was rereading HBP today when I came across something I had never really took in before. It says in HBP, chapter 2 Spinner's End, that when Lord Voldemort returned Snape had 16 years of information of Dumbledore. But, Harry was only 14 when Lord Voldemort returned. So Snape had already been working at Hogwarts for nearly two years before Lord Voldemort attacked Harry. Which also means, that the prophecy was nearly two years old. So Voldemort would have had to have waited for at least 1 year after reading the prophecy before attacking Harry. I think we all originally believed that Voldemort had attacked Harry almost immediately, but if this timeline is taken into account that means he waited for something. What could he possibly have been waiting for? The books try to make it sound as if he acted rashly, but he seems to have waited.

What do you guys think (including if you think im a raving lunatic, I'm used to it by now !)

in the HBP Harry is 16 years old not 14 so the timeline would still work

No, no, no it says Snape had 16 years info on Dumbledore when Lord Voldemort RETURNED in GoF. Harry was 14 when he returned in GoF.

This thread will now be apparating to the Princely Nook


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SoonerGryffndor,
LL Moderator

well the prophecy would have been made in the months before harry was born. Maybe theres a date for it in GoF.
But without a date we can assume it to be made up to 11 months before he arrives.
Then After he is born, he is 1 year and three months old when his parents die.
So there is room for nearly a two year gap between snape hearing the prophecy and Voldemort finding them.
Maybe it took voldemort a long time to find where they were.
I realise that this gap overlaps with a year of harrys life so there is still room for another year. maybe snape was spying on dd a year before the prophecy was made.
It could well be that snape was working at hogwarts as a spy to begin with, and then switched sides after telling lv about the prophecy

The prophecy was made somewhere in the fall/winter before Harry was born, and LV's attack on the potters were made in Halloween when he was just over one year old. This means the prophecy was made two years before LV downfall, aproximately, and by the end of GOF Harry's just weeks from turning 15 - wich makes a round figure of 16 years. On the other hand does this seem to imply that Snape actually has worked for AD ever since he overheard the Prophecy. That's a quite controversal thing, though, since it casts shadows of a doubt on AD and his involvement in the Potters destiny.

Yes, it's true, but I don't believe it to be impossible. The prophecy said nothing about the Potters dying. It said that the child having powers to defeat LV, would be born to parents whom had thrice defied him. DD (and Snape) could have presumed that both the child and his parents had to live on for the prophecy to fulfill itself. Logically, a baby wouldn't defy the worlds most powerful black wizard - he had to be adult and fully qualified to do so... DD might have believed that Harry would grow up in hiding, then being able to fight LV down - and he might have wanted LV to know that such a person, able to fight him down, existed.

I think it is a simple arithmetical mistake by Jo. 16 years back from Voldemort's return is before the prophecy was made, and Snape must have been working for Voldemort then or else he would never have told Voldemort about the partial prophecy. Also, it makes no sense for Snape to tell Cissy and Bella that he had been keeping back information for the two years before Voldemort fell when the only reason that Voldemort didn't kill Snape on his return was that Snape was able to convince Voldemort that he had always been loyal.

This actually makes perfect sense to me. I always assumed that Snape started working for the order soon after overhearing the prophecy (he's clearly a talented double agent)...Dumbledore implies that he came to them after realizing how Voldemort intended to use the prophecy, because he didn't want Lily and James to die (or that's how I've always read it).
Something else interesting I've just noticed...In OOtP, Snape tells Umbridge that he's been working at Hogwarts for 14 years, some six months after Voldemort's return. So that means that he was working for the Order for some time prior to coming to work at the school. Which I guess fits with my idea that Snape joined the Order after hearing the prophecy but before the Potters' murders...if I have the timeline right, book 5 would be 1995, so Snape would have started working at Hogwart's sometime in 1981, the year after Harry was born, and the year his parents died. But for him to have been working with Dumbledore for some 15 years at the end of book 4 (also 1995) he would have had to have joined Dumbledore sometime in the spring or summer of 1980, (presumably) before Harry was born. I had thought that part of the reason for the delay was that Voldemort was attempting to decide which family to go after--however, if Snape did come to the Order only AFTER the decision was made to target Lily and James, then this still leaves quite a gap. Can all of that gap be explained by seeking out the Potters? At what point did Pettigrew become Secret-Keeper, and was he working for Voldemort then?
This is a really interesting topic, and I hope we get some clarity :-)

I like this topic. I also wonder why Voldemort waited two years after hearing the prophesy to attack Harry. It raises the question of Pettigrew's history as a death eater. Was he working for Voldemort when he was made secret keeper? It seems to me that he is the reason for the time gap; maybe his loyalty to the Order wavered some time after he was made secret keeper. This would explain why Voldemort could not find the Potters for two years (assuming of course that he did not purposefully wait for reasons unknown to us). This may be unrelated, but I also wonder how the Potters "thrice defied" Voldemort. Did they defy him within the two years of the prophesy and their murder? Could that be the reason that Voldemort did not attack them immediately upon hearing the prophesy? Maybe he waited for all of the terms of the prophesy to be fulfilled before attacking (the portion he heard at least). Also, does the mysterious RAB come into play at all? Did he somehow learn of the prophesy and begin seeking and destroying Voldemort's horcruxes in hopes that the "chosen one" would one day destroy Voldemort? I believe Regulus Black died sometime within that two year gap if I'm not mistaken. This is a great topic, I can't wait for the seventh book to answer all of these questions! I hope my post made a small amount of sense, i've got a two year old competing for my attention so I'd better let him have it!

Regulus Black (*1961) left Hogwarts june 1979 and died the same year. The prophecy was made between october/november 1979 (HBP/Snape-timeline) and april 1980 (OotP/Trelawney-timeline). Pettigrew was working for Voldemort for about a year, so he was recruited shortly after Harry was born (september/october 1980). The Fidelius charm was cast around october 20th 1981. The Potters as most likely targets were in hiding before that time.
Assuming that wizard parents don't ask a seer for the exact birth time of their child, most Muggle parents don't ask for the sex; Voldemort had to wait for august 1rst 1980 to know which baby to target. Harry could have been born a few hours later and therefore out of the range.
Voldemort's steps:
- decide to target an unborn child, the part of the prophecy he knows says 'born' not 'will be born'
- remember the names of those of his countless enemies who defied him thrice and are likely to have a child end of july
- wait for the birth
- decide between pure blood and half blood *
- recruit Pettigrew*
- get the jackpot with his spy being made secret keeper
* interchangable
The security measures while the Potters were simply in hiding may have been much better than after the Fidelius charm was cast. The couldn't have been found unless the secret keeper betrayed them.
Sionna

Sionna_Raven - I like your analysis.

When LV returned, the fourteenth year was coming to a close, making it almost fifteen years for Harry (2 months before his birthday). I figure the prophecy would have been made in the fall, almost a year before Harrys birth (1979, the lexicon says she was hired in 1979). Therefore it would have been ~15 1/2 years since the prophecy was overheard and Snape was trying to get a job at Hogwarts. I can see how he could round it up to 16 during a conversation. LV could have figured out by spring (1980) who among his enemies was expecting and when they might be due, leading Snape to regret giving him the information when he learns the girl he cares for (Lily) and her husband who he has a life debt to (James) might be at risk. At that time he would then go to Dumbledore and offer his services, this is what would have caused James and Lily to go into hiding. Snape started teaching at Hogwarts in 1980 (Lexicon), right after Harry was born. After Harry was born it took over a year to find them, and this was after deciding it was him and not Neville.

Now I have just talked myself out of it. Snape has only worked for Hogwarts for 15 years when LV returns (sring 1995), but it was 16 years since the prophecy. The previous year he would have been working for LV without any apparent contact with Dumbledore. Even after he went to AD (spring 1980) he would not have had a convincing exuse to be spending time communicating with him until he started teaching (fall 1980), which was probally his suggestion to LV, knowing then that he could get the job after talking to AD. At the time of the conversation in HBP it has been ~16 years since the prophecy, but almost 15 years that Snape has been collecting information on AD. I guess this is just another one of JKs time Flints. He told Umbridge that he has taught for 14 years. The OP was the start of his 15th year, so that makes sense (95-96).

Do we know for certain that Regulus did leave Hogwarts in 1979, or might he have still been at school when he became a death eater and died (unlikely but not impossible). If he was still at school then we don't know when in 1979 he was killed, but if he had left school that would tell us his birthday was between January and August.

Snape actually started teaching at Hogwarts in 1981, as instructed by Voldemort, and claims to the Black Sisters to have been at Hogwarts when Voldemort fell, so he most likely started in September.

I agree with Roonwit that this is one of JKR's notorious math oopsies. Regardless of when Snape began spying, Voldemort didn't fall until Halloween 1981. Unless Snape was inexplicably not speaking to his supposed master for the two crucial years before this, there is simply no way he could have had sixteen years worth of info to catch LV up on.

However, this slip of JKR's is revealing because it does likely mean that, as far as LV is concerned, Snape was spying on Dumbledore for the better part of a year before Harry was born. The key here is not to confuse when Snape became a teacher with when he became a spy.

He started teaching in the fall of 1981, but was almost certainly spying long before this. As has already been mentioned, he could have gone to DD almost immediately after the prophecy was made. Though he wouldn't have been teaching yet, he could certainly have told LV that he'd found a means to gain DD's confidence and spy on him.

The Lexicon says that Snape started teaching in c1980, but in Snapes profile it says 1981 (OoTP ch 17). Chapter 17 does not give the date, he just says he has been teaching for 14 years. If you count actual school years, the end of Harrys 4th year (GoF) would have been Snapes 14th year as a teacher. The begining of the OoTP, when Umbridge interviews him in October, would be the begining of his 15th year, so saying he has taught for 14 years would be correct either way, if he was counting years completed or including the current year. I am not sure 1981 is entirely correct myself. If he didn't start teaching until 1981, that would have been 2 years since he heard the prophecy. What was he doing that second year if he did not get the job? Also, Trelawney says in her interview that she has been there Nearly 16 years. This would be accurate if she was counting part of the current school year. Trelawney might be more inclined to inflate the time by counting the current year, wheras Snape would not.

I mis-counted. 1981 works out all right. That means there was 1-1/2 to 2 years after the prophecy before Snape started working for AD. He should have told Bealitrix that he had 14 years of information.

The additional two years' information may have had nothing to do with Snape teaching at Hogwarts - it could be information gained generally about Dumbledore's activities. This would inflate his worth to Voldemort.

The other reason that Voldemort delayed in acting could be explained by his attempts to create the many horcrux and he was not yet immortal and therefore not willing to risk dying in an attempt on a family in the Order.

Make any sense?