When did Snape join the Death Eaters?

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When did Snape join the Death Eaters?

'And then, barely a week after the Fidelius Charm had been performed --' [PoA ch.#10; p. 153]

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. [cut] He opened his mouth and let out a scream. [GoF ch. #01; p. 19]

Harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about [cut]
... there had been a snake on a hearth-rug ... a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail ... and a cold, high voice ... the voice of Lord Voldemort. [cut]
... there had definitely been an old man; Harry had watched him fall to the ground.
there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. [GoF ch. #02; p. 20–24]

Dumbledore had got to his feet. 'I have given evidence already on this matter,' he said calmly. 'Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk.' [GoF ch. #30; p. 513]

'The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June,' continured Bagman. [GoF ch. #26; p. 440]

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron [cut]
Lord Voldemort had risen again. [GoF ch. #32; p. 558]

'There's me,' said Moody, unnecessarily pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakeable, though his hair was slightly less grey and his nose was intact. 'And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side ... that's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice Longbottom --' [OotP ch. #09; p. 158]

'Now,' said Umbridge, looking up at Trelawney, 'you've been in this post how long, exactly?'
Professor Trelawney scowled at her, [cut] she said in a deeply resentful tone, 'Nearly sixteen years.' [OotP ch. #5; p. 280/281]

'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; p. 323]

       'The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly.'
       'Who heard it?' asked Harry, though he thought he knew the answer already
       'I did,' said Dumbledore. 'On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher ...' [OotP ch. #37; p. 740]

'... 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 ch. #02; p. 32]

'Think!' said Snape, impatient again. 'Think! By waiting two hours, just two hours, I ensured that I could remain at Hogwarts as a spy! By allowing Dumbledore to think that I was only returning to the Dark Lord's side because I was ordered to, I have been able to pass information on Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix ever since! Consider, Bellatrix: the Dark Mark had been growing stronger for months, I knew he must be about to return, all the Death Eaters knew! I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted to do, to plan my next move, to escape like Karkaroff, didn't I?' [HBP ch. #02; p. 33/34]

'I am pleased to say, however, that Dumbledore is growing old. The duel with the Dark Lord last month shook him. He has since sustained a serious injury because his reactions are slower than they once were.' [HBP ch. #02; p. 36]

But Harry had not packed. It just seemed too good to be true that he was going to be rescued from the Dursleys after a mere fortnight of their company. [HBP ch. #03; p. 47]

Thank you, thank you, for Harry's birthday present! It was his favourite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, [cut]
We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda, who has always been sweet to us and who dotes on Harry. We were so sorry you couldn't come, but the Order's got to come first and Harry's not old enough to know it's his birthday any¬way! James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell -- also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much. Wormy was here last weekend, I thought he seemed down, but that was probably the news about the McKinnons; I cried all evening when I heard. [DH ch. #10; p. 149]

James Potter, born 27 March 1960, died 31 October 1981
Lily Potter, born 30 January 1960, died 31 October 1981
[DH ch. #16; p. 268]

       'Every month at the full moon?' said Snape.
       'I know your theory,' said Lily, and she sounded cold. [cut]
       'I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag,' she said, cutting across Snape. [DH ch. #33; p. 540/541]

'You and you preciuous little Death Eater friends -- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You Know Who, can you?'
       He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.
       'I can't pretend any more. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.''No -- listen, I didn't mean --'
       '-- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?'
       He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole ... [DH ch. #33; p. 542]

he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone ... [cut]
Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. [cut]
leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them [cut] [DH ch. #33; p. 542/543]

When Harry was born, it was at the very height of Voldemort fever last time so his christening was a very hurried, quiet affair with just Sirius, just the best friend. At that point it looked as if the Potters would have to go into hiding so obviously they could not do the big christening thing and invite lots of people. [Edinburgh Book Festival, 15^th August 2004]

JKR: At the time that they christened Harry, they were in hiding. This was not going to be a widely attended christening, because he was already in danger. So this is something they were going to do very quietly, with as few people as possible, that they wanted to make this commitment with Sirius. And — yeah. Can’t say much more. [Spartz-Anelli interview, 16^th July 2005]

Calculation of when Snape joined the Death Eaters in fact depends mostly on rationalising one of Rowling's notorious calculation errors: but if we don't rationalise it we have to assume that Snape is as bad at maths as his author, and if that were so he would miscalculate his ingredients and blow himself up. Here's what we know, and don't know.

In summer 1976 Lily accuses Severus of wanting to join the Death Eaters. He doesn't refute this, but we see that he is struggling to speak as she talks over him, and we also see from the previous scene in the courtyard that she is coldly dismissive of his opinions. We cannot assume therefore that "Silence gives assent": he may just be tongue-tied with nervousness because she makes it hard for him to speak at the best of times, and this conversation is paralysingly important. So we cannot say for certain that he did want to join the Death Eaters when he was sixteen: only that Lily thought that he did, or said that she thought that he did, and that he was friends with a lot of people who became Death Eaters later.

In autumn 1995 Trelawney says that she has been teaching at Hogwarts for nearly sixteen years. Assuming that she started teaching at the beginning of a term, which is likely, that means she began teaching in early January 1980, and her job-interview, at which Snape, who was not quite twenty, overheard the prophecy, was presumably in December 1979. Unless Snape used the prophecy to buy membership, we can assume he was already a Death Eater by that point. So we can be 99% certain he became a Death Eater some time between summer 1976 and winter 1979.

Against this, in June 1996 Dumbledore says that the prophecy was made sixteen years ago, which would place it in summer 1980, but if taken literally that would clash with what Trelawney says about when she started teaching. It's unlikely she would tell a Ministry official she had been teaching for nearly sixteen years if in fact it was only fiteen years and a couple of weeks, so it seems more likely that it's Dumbledore who is speaking loosely and the prophecy was made sixteen and a half years ago, as at June 1996.

Although no firm date is given for Snape's defection it appears to be in the winter of 1980/81, after Harry's birth and before the Potters' deaths, and probably around late November or early December 1980, because the trees are bare – which doesn't happen in Scotland before mid November – but the leaves are still dry enough to blow about. Yes, it's very windy, but it's not likely the wind could be strong enough to strip green trees bare and him and Dumbledore still be standing, so the trees are bare because it is winter.

It is not, as some people have assumed, October 1981 just before the Potters went under the Fidelius, for various reasons: and not only because the trees would not be bare that early. The Potters were already in medium-level hiding at or just after Harry's first birthday party (James can't leave the house without his Cloak but they are still having visitors), and we know Harry's party was held on or around his birthday at the end of July, not at the end of October when they were under Fidelius. How do we know? In the letter written by Lily shortly after Harry's first birthday party, the death of the McKinnons is referred to as a recent event, we know they died two weeks after the Order photograph was taken, and we know that an enormous number of things had time to happen between the taking of the Order photograph and the end if the war (including, apparently, Sirius growing his hair out). It makes far more sense if the Order photo' was taken in June than if it was taken in late Septemebr.

In fact, according to interviews Rowling gave in 2004 and 2005, the Potters were already in hiding, or about to go into hiding, at the time of Harry's christening, which would normally happen when the baby is a few months old. In addition, Dumbledore speaks of Snape's time as a spy as if it was something far more significant than spying for just the last week or two of the war, and if indeed he only defected just before the end of the war it would mean that either he started teaching in the middle of a term, or Dumbledore hired a Death Eater. So it's safe to assume, I think, that Snape defected around the start of December 1980, give or take a couple of weeks. The Potters went into medium-level hiding immediately, and Harry was christened during December 1980, at about four and a half months old and either just before or just after they went into hiding.

In autumn 1995 Snape says he has been teaching at Hogwarts for sixteen years. Again, assuming that he started teaching at the start of a term, he began teaching in September 1981.

[Some people have asked, if Snape defected at the end of 1980 why didn't Dumbledore hire him until September 1981? The obvious answer is that Dumbledore didn't want to give him the DADA post he had been sent to apply for, because it was cursed, and the Potions job wasn't vacant yet.]

The Potters went under Fidelius around the 24^th of October 1981, presumably because Snape had warned Dumbledore that Voldemort was about to strike, and they were killed on the 31^st. Voldemort was disembodied at the same time.

We know that Voldemort returned to the Riddle House in a distorted, inadequate corporeal form, warped enough to make Frank Bryce scream at the sight of it, after Peter's escape at the end of PoA in June 1994, and before mid August 1994, because Harry witnessed the murder of Frank Bryce through Voldemort's eyes two weeks before the start of term.

Voldemort returnd to a more human, presentable form about an hour after the end of the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, on 24^th June 1995 – or possibly after midnight and into the 25^th. Even if they are using Greenwich Mean Time, and there is a large mountain to north-west bringing the sunset forwards by nearly an hour, dusk, when the task started, would still have been at around 8:30pm, and then the task itself presumably took at least a couple of hours, then there's however long the ritual took. If the resurrection is still on the 24^th it's very late.

Finally we come to the scene at Spinner's End. It must be in early July 1996 because Snape refers to the fight at the Ministry as "last month", then to a serious injury which must be the damage to Dumbledore's hand when he retrieved the Horcrux ring, then after that scene we see Harry thinking that he has only been back with the Dursleys for a fortnight, which woud usually mean it's around 10^th July.

So in early July 1996, Snape says that as at Voldemort's return he had sixteen years' worth of information about Dumbledore to give him. He's almost certainly referring to Voldemort's resurrection in June 1995, not to his return to the Riddle House a year earlier, because June 1995, after the Mark began to burn, was when Snape himself presented himself to Voldemort.

That means that Snape is counting his information-gathering from mid 1979. He's not counting from Voldemort's disembodiment because that was in autumn 1981. He'd not counting from his defection, which Voldemort believes was him cosying up to Dumbledore to coax information out of him, because that happened in late 1980 (it was definitely after Harry's birth). He's probably not counting from when he overheard the prophecy, because that was at the very end of 1979. The only thing that we know happened between him and Voldemort, and for which we do not already have a different date, is when he joined the Death Eaters.

It is possible that he joined earlier, and that summer 1979 was when he started to make Dumbledore his personal project. But if he had already been researching Dumbledore for months you'd expect Dumbledore to hear about it, which would make Dumbledore's failure to Obliviate him after he overheard the prophecy even more problematic than it already is.

It's just about possible that he means that the scene where he overhead the prophecy was the start of a Dumbledore Project, and he is using "sixteen years of information" loosely when he really means "fifteen and a half years". But given that we have this mystery count starting some time in 1979, and we also have no date for his joining the Death Eaters, it makes sense to combine them in the absence of other evidence.

'Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head Boy an' Girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before ... ' [PS ch. #04; p. 45]

'But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater -- not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape's certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble.' [GoF ch.#27; p. 461]

Snape strode forwards, past Dumbledore, pulling up the left sleeve of his robes as he went. He stuck out his forearm, and showed it to Fudge, who recoiled.
'There,' said Snape harshly. 'There. The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burnt black, but you can still see it. Every Death Eater had the sign burnt into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing each other, and his means of summoning us to him. When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to Disapparate, and Apparate, instantly, at his side.' [GoF ch.#36; p. 616]

'Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing his name -- look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time. You weren't in the Order then, you don't understand. Last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one ...' [OotP ch. #09; p. 161]

'No, you were once again absent while the rest of us ran dangers, were you not, Snape?' [HBP ch. #02; p.34]

Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed. [HBP ch. #27; p.556]

       Harry thought he knew why Greyback was not calling Voldemort. The werewolf might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only Voldemort's inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been granted this highest honour. [DH ch. #23; p. 367/368]
       'If she means so much to you,' said Dumbledore, 'surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?'
       'I have -- I have asked him --' [DH ch. #33; p. 543]

'That boy's soul is not yet so damaged,' said Dumbledore. 'I would not have it ripped apart on my account.'
'And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?' [DH ch. #33; p. 548]

'To give Voldemort what appears to be valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you.' [DH ch. #33; p. 549]

'Dont be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?'
'Latterly, only those whom I could not save' [DH ch. #33; p. 551]

Apart from Harry, Snape is my favourite character because he is so complex and I just love him. Can he see the Thestrals, and if so, why? Also, is he a pure blood wizard?
[cut] Muggle borns are not allowed to be Death Eaters, except in rare circumstances. [cut] He can see Thestrals, but in my imagination most of the older people at Hogwarts would be able to see them because, obviously, as you go through life you do lose people and understand what death is. But you must not forget that Snape was a Death Eater. He will have seen things that… [JK Rowling at the Edinburgh Book Festival, 15^th August 2004.

'Also, James and Lily turned him down, that was established in "Philosopher's Stone". He wanted them, and they wouldn't come over, so that's one strike against them before they were even out of their teens.' [Pottercast #130, 17^{th December 2007]}

In the scene where Dumbledore is killed, other Death Eaters defer to Snape and behave as if they are even rather scared of him. By this point he is most definitely Marked, and according to Harry the Mark is the mark of a member of Voldemort's inner circle.

At the same time, we know that during Vold War One even Sirius, an Order member who hated him, had not heard even a rumour that Snape was a Death Eater, and Bellatrix later accuses him of being all talk and no action. It's fairly strongly indicated that he never killed anybody before Dumbledore: he is concerned that kiling Dumbledore may damage his soul, and when Dumbledore is trying tio reclaim the moral high ground he asks how many people Snape has seen die, not how many he has killed. Rowling said that he could see Thestrals because as a Death Eater he had "seen things", not done things.

All of this suggests that as a real Death Eater he was pretty low key, and he was nineteen or twenty, and only one amongst at least four hundred. Depending on whether you include Snape himself and Peter or not, there were either twenty or twenty-two Order members in Vold War One, and Remus says the Death Eaters outnumbered them twenty to one.

The only indication of status, while Snape was still a real Death Eater, is the fact that Voldemort agreed to try to spare Lily as a favour to him. But that might just be a thank-you for having relayed the prophecy, and also Rowling has said that Voldemort wanted to recruit Lily (and, in the text, Hagrid isn't aware of any reason why he wouldn't want to recruiit her, so recruiting Muggleborns was clearly a Thing, even though rare). So by agreeing to try to spare Lily, Voldemort was bestowing largesse by doing something he wanted to do anyway.

So, why was somebody who had been just a teenage foot-soldier Marked? Well, there's no indication that Snape had the Mark before he defected, and we know that Dumbledore had him feeding titbits of true information to Voldemort in order to cement his position as a spy. So perhaps he earned the Mark during the last year of Vold War One, when he was actually working for Dumbledore.