kerravonsen | (Reply)

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I think that the prophecy would still have got to Voldemort somehow.

Agreed. Because it was one of those self-fulfilling prophecies, it would only have been given to Trelawny in circumstances that would ensure that Voldemort found out enough about it to take the actions that sealed his doom.
This doesn't mean that the prophecy would have to be the same prophecy, just a sufficiently triggering prophecy.

As for Snape, without the owing a debt to Dumbledore*, I'm not convinced that he would have stayed at Hogwarts.

In regard to Snape and teaching, the only thing I'm certain about is that Potions is his passion. I don't think his numerous applications for the DADA position had much to do with his interest in the Dark Arts, and more to do with fighting Voldemort (whether that be by making sure they had a competent DADA teacher, or by placating Voldemort by pretending to want the position, doesn't really matter to me).

I think he still would have had a reputation as a fearsome teacher, because, being the youngest professor on staff, he was too close in age to his students to get their obedience unless he came down hard on them at first, and since he found that worked, he wasn't going to change his methods. Because there's more chance of a catastrophic accident in Potions, it's more important to make sure the students behave, IMHO.

The question of whether Snape would become a teacher at all is an interesting one. We don't know enough about the Wizarding world to know what Snape's opportunities would have been. I don't think he'd be able to start his own Apothecary because he would have needed capital for that, and he was poor. He wouldn't have wanted to work for the Ministry, and we don't know what else was out there. I've seen some stories where it's mentioned that he's made money from patents on potions he's invented, but patents are a relatively modern concept, and I'm not so sure that the Wizarding world would use them.
It's possible that Snape might consider teaching as a trade-off for the opportunity to do his own Potions research in his spare time.

As for travel, I think he would do that if he considered it a symbol of freedom, but he wouldn't necessarily be burning to do so.