How much does Snape know? was Wormtail's Name In the Confession (WAS: Spying Game...)

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 40458

Marina wrote:
> 
> Also keep in mind that what we're reading is Harry's interpretation 
of
> Snape's facial expressions, and Harry's not exactly the most 
reliable
> interpreter of the finer nuances of Snape's facial expressions.
> 
> 


No, we're not. Harry has never been the narrator of the books. It is 
a third-person omniscient narrator.

Here is the quote, from page 712 of the American edition of GoF:

Snape had not yelled or jumped backward, but the look on his face was 
one of mingled fury and horror.

"Him!" he snarled, staring at Sirius, whose face showed equal dislike.

Harry is not interpreting his facial expressions. An all-knowing 
narrator is telling us what the facial expressions were.

So, fury and horror is what he had going on there. What it meant is 
up for debate, certainly, but furious and horrified are the emotions 
Snape was feeling.

Harry doesn't tell us so. JKR tells us so through the narrator.



Now, to throw something out here. We don't know what Snape knows and 
what he doesn't because we don't know how much of the conversation he 
heard in the Shrieking Shack before revealing himself.

He doesn't reveal himself until after Harry says: "So that's why 
Snape doesn't like you, because he thought you were in on the joke" 
(pge 357, PoA U.S. edition)

Lupin enters the Shrieking Shack at page 343. Snape reveals himself 
at 357.

On page 404, when Harry and Hermione are in time travel mode, they 
witnes Lupin enter the Weeping Willow. They then have a bit of 
dialogue, then watch Hagrid "meander tipsily" up to the castle as 
they try to keep Buckbeak from running to Hagrid.

God knows how long it takes Hagrid to "meander tipsily" up to the 
castle, but just over two minutes later, Snape comes charging out.

Then ... "barely two minutes" later, Snape runs out of the castle. 
Assume it takes a minute for him to get from the castle to the tree, 
pick up the Invisibility Cloak and realize what it was, and then go 
into the Willow. That's three minutes.

Does it take several minutes for Hagrid to wander up to the castle? 
If it does, Snape is anywhere from 8-10 minutes behind Lupin. Maybe 
you can add a bit of time because Snape would want to take pains to 
be quiet, and be going a bit more slowly.

Call it, just to throw something out, 10 minutes.

So we have 14 pages of dialogue -- and I have looked through and not 
seen any references to "minutes passed in silence" or some such to 
give us time clues -- and 10 minutes, by my reckoning, to pass them.

It would be tight, but, I just read the pages. There is no reference 
to Sirius being able to turn into a dog at all. The only time it 
comes close is on page 355, referring to Sirius as Padfoot.

So, even if Snape had been right on Lupin's heels, he'd not have 
heard the animal Sirius can transform into.

It is entirely possible that Snape overheard that Sirius is an 
Animagus, but did not hear what he could turn into. In all the 
confusion in the hospital scene of GoF, he might not have 
said: "Black Dog = Sirius" and indeed been surprised.

So, Snape being shocked upon seeing Sirius again in GoF is entirely 
plausible. 

Darrin 
-- wants a narrator for my life