Snape questions

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 105536

Hi everyone,

Well, I have been deleting many Snape posts, and even though I'm a
Siriusfile, i've been deleting a lot of those too, just because of being
away and coming home to 500 messages in my inbox!  So, if someone has posted
this question in the past or in the last couple days, please excuse me.
However, a friend and I just finished reading POA together.  We do this by
reading it chapter by chapter and writing down long detailed comments on
anything that strikes us as we read.  We email our comments to each other
and respond to each other's observations.  

When I was doing my comments on chapters 21 and 22, something struck me that
I hadn't ever really thought of before.  In OOTP, we are told that Snape is
a skilled legilimens--did I spell that correctly?  In fact, I think this
could be born out in previous books in the way that Snape always knows
Harry's been up to something.  But in the hospital scenes at the end of POA,
he doesn't seem to be using that talent.  If so, he'd know that what the
kids tell him--Harry and Hermione--is the truth.  So, if he really went down
to the shrieking shack to protect Harry and company from Sirius and Lupin,
why didn't he know that Harry was telling the truth later in the hospital
wing, if he's so skilled at legilimens?  I do not like Snape as a person,
but he intrigues me as a character, if that makes sense.  I actually want to
believe he may not be nice, but he can still be good or on the side of good.
However, this thought about the legilimens made me wonder.  Is he indeed
just an unpleasant teacher, who really is trying to do his best to protect
Harry, so Harry can do whatever his destiny will be in the war?  Or was he
just trying to get back at his old classmates, who did not treat him well
and didn't really care what the truth was of the scene in the shrieking
shack?  Ever since this question came to me, I cannot get it out of my mind.
Is it just an inconsistency in the text, because JKR didn't want to
introduce legilimens till book five?

Sherry G