Dumbledore and the Spy in the Order

[sunnyskywalker]

An idea sparked by Oryx's "Appendix B" post on the Order of the Phoenix during VoldWar I.

Why didn’t Dumbledore figure out who the spy was, if he’s even a halfway decent Legilimens? Was Peter a fantastic Occlumens? Was Dumbledore actually a total failure at Legilimency?

Or did he think he knew exactly who it was, and so didn’t realize he needed to look again? More to the point, why do we assume there was only one spy in the mix?

A while ago on her Red Hen site, JOdel floated the possibility that Remus started spying on the werewolves for Dumbledore during the first war, and returned to the job in HBP (or had been doing it off and on all along, but started living with them full time in HBP). Fenrir Greyback and co. would hardly have let Remus hang around if he came on openly declaring that he was there to persuade them away from their evil ways. No, that would be slowly introduced, one-on-one, in secrecy. To be accepted, he would have to prove he belonged. Partly this would be some story about his hypocritically lycanthrophobic friends who hang around with each other being rich and not helping him or trusting him, but still thinking they can call him up for an adventure if they're bored, the two-faced jerks. Running with the pack at full moons, quite possibly.

But what else do spies often do to gain trust, again? Right. They pass on legitimate information occasionally.

Fenrir and his band want Voldemort to win so they can gain power. But Voldemort doesn’t help you out of the goodness of his heart — it’s quid pro quo. So one obvious way for Remus to prove his worth and loyalty to the werewolf cause is to provide information on his anti-Death Eater friends. He'll be their mole in the Order to further the bright future of werewolves everywhere!

Maybe Dumbledore totally meant for the Order members he outed via the Remus channel to get rescued just in the nick of time. Maybe he underestimated how many DEs Voldemort would send the first time or two. I’m sure whatever messed up his plans, it was someone else’s fault.

And if a few Order members he hadn’t compromised also got hit, well, Voldemort was targeting lots of people by that point, and their family associations alone might be reason enough. No reason to think one of his followers is passing along names without his say-so. Coincidences do happen.

Oops.

Comments

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I REALLY wish I could buy this. It makes the suspicion of Remus much more sensible.

Unfortunately, I really got the feeling from his apparent bitterness and complaint about being the 'ready-made' spy in bk6 that this is the first he has ever done it.

I unfortunately think that the only reason to suspect Remus was merely because they couldn't believe Peter capable enough to pull it off.

This also unfortunately leaves us with the question of just WHY Albus couldn't figure it out from a peek into their brains? I can only guess that ALL the Marauders gave off the impression that they were hiding something (which they were - being animagi and letting Remus run free).

Alternatively we never see Albus apparently legilmenize Order members in VW2 either, so perhaps he never did in VW1 either? It really messes with the idea that he's this great general, but.... I suppose it works with the idea that these are all people he 'trusts', which then makes it all the more reasonable that Sirius still distrusts Snape, After all, he knew HE could hide things from Albus, so naturally Snape must do so as well (in Sirius' mind)

BTW - while I don't think JKR hints at what you are suggesting, I really WOULD prefer it. The bit about hypocritical friends fits well with what I see as the info that James supported Sirius, but she never says he funded Remus.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The difference in Remus' attitude to Severus' brewing of Wolfsbane between POA and HBP suggests to me that something very dramatic happened in Remus' experience of being a werewolf. Based on this, I don't think he had much contact with feral werewolves prior to POA. Definitely not on or around the full moon.

Do we have any evidence that werewolves other than Fenrir were involved with Voldemort in the first war? or the second?

Another, somewhat related question: How many Order members knew Remus was a werewolf during the first war? By the second his status was widely known, or course. In POA Remus said 'most' of the teachers knew, not all. Does Hagrid's response to Remus' outing sound like he had been in on the secret earlier?