MAGIC DISHWASHER and PERSIL AUTOMATIC/DARK LADLES/ Snape's character

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 52036

Crunchy Chocolate Frog (quoting the MDDT):

>>"Snape got Lupin fired in the end. Seems odd that the person that got >the 
>>agent of Dumbledore fired would still work there. *Or* if Snape >was an 
>>agent too, then he would know the importance of having agent >Lupin around, 

>>therefore; Snape would have held his tongue."
>
>Well, I shall quote this part out of GoF:
>
>"- we never knew the names of every one of our fellows - he alone knew 
>exactly who we all were -"
>"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, 
.Karkaroff, turning all of them in," muttered Moody.
>(GoF, "The Pensieve", p.511)
>
>Since both sides in the war rely on spies, information, misinformation and 
>all around sneakiness and secretiveness, would it be a far leap of logic to 
>assume that Dumbledore also didn't let his agents and spies know who all of 
>the other spies were?


I agree totally. For a start, it seems obvious (to me, at least) that the 
'old crowd' didn't know that Snape was spying for Dumbledore. If Sirius was 
part of that old crowd (and yes, Tom, that's an inference, but I think it's a 
fairly logical one) then why would he have been so surprised to hear that 
Snape was at Hogwarts? He doesn't express surprise at Lupin's appearance as 
far as we hear. I'm not so sure how useful a spy Lupin would have made, mind 
you. Bit of a marked man already, being a werewolf and all. I would imagine 
that the MoM would keep a pretty close eye on known werewolves, particularly 
during a time of war.

But even if Snape *did* know that Lupin was working for Dumbledore as a spy 
(if he was), I still think it's quite in character for him to try and get 
Lupin sacked. Just as, although we know that he protects Harry, he still 
apparently tries to get him expelled from time to time. And really (answering 
someone else's objection that Lupin *resigned*), that was constructive 
dismissal, wasn't it? Whether Lupin resigned, or not, Snape engineered the 
situation and Dumbledore doesn't seem to have argued against it. 

Snape had, after all, been warning Dumbledore about Lupin all year. He quite 
simply thought Dumbledore was wrong about him and finally took matters into 
his own hands. This is true, whether Lupin was a spy or not. In either case, 
we have to explain why Snape apparently remains Dumbledore's right hand man 
after such a blatant act of insubordination. I think it says a lot both about 
their relationship and about Snape's importance to Dumbledore's plans.

~Eloise

Who wrote this partly in order to be able to say categorically, once and for 
all, that Persil Automatic is a UK brand of (clothes) washing powder. It's 
'automatic', because there are still people over here who use things as 
archaic as twin tubs. Or at least, there were until recently.
I've no idea where the name comes from though. 'Persil' is the French for 
'parsley', which as far as I know, doesn't have anything to do with laundry.

And who does keep reading 'Dark Ladles' rather Shakespearianly as 'Dark 
Ladies'.