[HPforGrownups] What Snape knew

[Amanda]

No: HPFGUIDX 35301

Mercia wrote

> I've been re-reading for the umpteenth time POA (my favourite). In
> the Shrieking Shack as Remus is launching into the story he breaks
> off because there is a 'loud creak behind him' and the bedroom door
> opens of its own accord. The point at which Snape enters in Harry's
> invisibility cloak. That means he hears all the story of the three
> illegal animagi and from that point knows Sirius is an animagus.

Yes, but not much else. This is all he learns. Just for the purpose of
edifying the masses (waves at the masses), I have yet again lifted the text
of my original post #15233, What Snape Knew and When.

So before any of you start ragging on Snape again, that he heard the truth
and just chose to ignore it, look and see what it can be said with certainty
that Snape really did hear. He was either not yet in the room, or out cold,
for the revelations that would have allowed him to entertain any of what
*we* know is the truth. I do not believe that he'd lurk outside the door to
listen....he's invisible, he hears Lupin's voice and knows he's human, so he
can't be scented, and he's too eager to catch both Sirius and Lupin (as
accomplice) that I think he'd come straight in when he got to the door.

But onward. All you old listies, who have heard this over and over again,
you can stop reading now and save yourself some quality time. For you lucky
folk who have never had the immense pleasure of reading this, I sat at the
computer and went through the chapter paragraph-by-paragraph. Wonder how I
had the time...?

Begin quoting earlier message:

Okay, I did this once before, but I don't seem to be very good at the
message search. I didn't do it in such detail, anyway. So here is the
sequence of events in the Shrieking Shack, with the section that Snape
heard pointed out. He didn't hear much.

In the Shrieking Shack--
Sirius drags Ron in, Harry & Hermione follow. They find Ron & Sirius in
human form, and discover than Sirius is an animagus. Much arguing, Harry
attacks Sirius, Crookshanks protects Sirius, Lupin arrives. Lupin and
Sirius come to understanding of what happened with the Potters,
mystifying our Trio who think this means Lupin's bad, too. Hermione
reveals Lupin is a werewolf. Lupin gives wands back to the Trio, and
gets them to agree to listen to him and Sirius. Lupin reveals he helped
write the map, says he is Moony. Tells them that Scabbers is Peter
Pettigrew.

Sirius loses it and tries to attack Scabbers. Lupin restrains him and
gets him to agree to explain things to Harry first.

Lupin says the map showed Scabbers as Peter Pettigrew, that the map does
not lie. Hermione says Pettigrew isn't on the list of registered
Animagi.

****HERE is where the door creaks and Snape comes invisibly in, under
Harry's cloak. Now is the point where he starts hearing things. He has
heard none of what went on before. He has not heard that Scabbers is
supposed to be Pettigrew, or that Sirius is an animagus.

Snape now hears:

Lupin tells about contracting lycanthropy, that there was no cure, and
even the potion Snape's been making is a recent discovery. Before the
potion, he was uncontrollable every month as a wolf. But headmaster
Dumbledore let him in with precautions. The Shack and the Whomping
Willow were there to keep Lupin isolated during his wolf phases.

Lupin reveals that his great group of friends was Sirius, Peter, and
James, who figured out his secret and became animagi to be with him. It
took until their fifth year to learn how. He *does not* say what their
forms were--he mentions only that Peter was the smallest, so he
manipulated the Willow, and that James and Sirius were large animals,
able to keep his wolf form under control. He does reveal the other
Marauders' aliases--Padfoot, Wormtail, Prongs. Harry tries to ask what
sort of animal his father was, but is cut off by Hermione.

Lupin agrees with Hermione that even with friends who could control him,
it was still a really stupid thing to do and a betrayal of Dumbledore's
trust, and he still feels guilty. He reveals his inner struggle of the
past year, too, about whether to reveal Sirius's animagus ability to
Dumbledore, and that he has not. He still didn't want Dumbledore to know
how he had betrayed his trust then, because he doesn't want to damage
the trust that is there now. He *still* has not mentioned what form
Sirius takes. And here is where he mentions Snape, "In a way, Snape's
been right about me all along."

Sirius asks what Snape has to do with it, and Lupin says, "He's here,"
which made me, in the first reading, remember the door opening and
wonder if he really WAS, whether Lupin was "speaking the truth without
realizing it" (I forget the literary term). Lupin continues, though, and
we see he means at Hogwarts.

Lupin says Snape, as a fellow teacher, fought against Lupin's
appointment. And that Snape, as a fellow student, didn't like Lupin and
his friends. Especially James, and thought he was jealous of James'
Quidditch ability. Snape had seen Madam Pomfrey taking Lupin to the
Willow once, had wondered why, and Sirius had told Snape the way to get
past the Willow. Snape followed Lupin to find out what the deal was, but
James had gotten wind of the trick, went after Snape, and pulled him
back, but Snape had seen Lupin and knew the truth. Dumbledore forbade
him to tell anyone. Harry asks if that's why Snape dislikes Lupin,
because he thought Lupin was in on the joke?

****HERE is where Snape reveals himself to the others in the Shack. Thus
far, the only new thing he has heard is that his old enemies, whom we
now call the Marauders, were unregistered animagi, and that they wrote
the map which so nastily insulted him earlier.

Snape says he saw the activated map on Lupin's desk, when he went to
Lupin's office with the potion which Lupin forgot to take. He saw Lupin
on the map running along the passageway. He follows. The Shrieking Shack
is *not* on the Hogwarts grounds, so it would not appear on the map, so
Snape could not at this point have seen Peter Pettigrew's name on it.
Even if he'd waited to examine it closely, instead of chasing after
Lupin right then.

Lupin tries to get Snape to listen. Snape won't, ties and gags Lupin,
and holds Black at bay. Our Trio try to reason with Snape--they want to
hear the rest of the story--but it seems to irritate Snape that they
aren't even grateful at his saving them, and will not listen.

Black says he'll come quietly if Ron's rat is brought, too. Snape
threatens him with the dementors with no chance to speak, and threatens
Lupin, too. Harry blocks the door. Snape offers to *make* Harry move,
and simultaneiously, Harry, Hermione, and Ron all do the Expelliarmus
charm to disarm Snape. The combined charms knock Snape back against the
wall, injured and unconscious.

****THIS IS THE END of what Snape hears in the Shack. He misses
*entirely* the whole scene where Lupin and Sirius make Pettigrew reveal
himself, tell what happened, and pretty much confess and grovel. He
doesn't even hear that Sirius is Harry's godfather, so I don't know that
he knows that, either.

Snape does not regain consciousness after they all leave the Shack,
after Lupin transforms, after Sirius transforms into a dog to control
him, after Pettigrew re-transforms and escapes, and after Sirius goes
after him. He does not regain consciousness until after Harry's Patronus
dispels the dementors, because he tells Fudge he doesn't know what made
them leave.

He still hasn't seen Sirius animagus form, nor heard it named, nor any
of the other Marauder's forms. He still has not heard Pettigrew's name,
other than in the discussion of old school days. He has not heard anyone
say Scabbers is Pettigrew. The sum total of his new knowledge from the
whole Shrieking Shack incident is only that the Marauders had animagus
forms and that they wrote the map.

So, all personal animosity aside, Snape still honestly believes Black is
a dangerous, demented murderer to the end of PoA. However, his reaction
when suddenly faced with Sirius at the end of GoF is *not* to whip out
his wand and try to subdue him, pending arrest and dementors. It is
pure, simple hatred on a personal level.

--end of old post.

You all knew I was going to do that. I bet that's why nobody else said
anything yet. That one stupid post is becoming my claim to fame; I must do
something else noteworthy or brilliant in the next ten years or so. Somebody
remind me.

--Amanda