Two Wormtails was Re: Plot in OotP (wand confusion)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 118426


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> 
> By now, you've  realized that the line was a direct quote, not 
> commentary from me.  It beautifully illustrates the unreliability 
> of our narrator, who is quite mistaken about what Lupin knows. The 
> full passage also illustrates unequivocally that Lupin is not 
> above equivocating. He says that the map looks like a 
> parchment that insults whoever writes on it, and that it looks 
> like a Zonko's product to him, when all the time he obviously 
> knows it's a map. So, can we really trust *anything* Lupin says 
> that sounds like it might be equivocal? I don't.

I respectfully submit that this is one of the cases where the 
narrator is not so much unreliable as simply reporting Harry's 
feelings, and Harry is mistaken--and obviously so.  I came out of 
this exchange knowing that both Snape and Lupin knew something.  
Harry is certainly not the only character in the books to make 
mistakes of knowledge (per all the times Snape 'knows' something), 
but we do get funneled Harry's mistakes more directly.

The second part of your argument is something of a slippery slope.  
It's true that Lupin is equivocating.  However, by the end of the 
book, we have a remarkably clear context for WHY he is equivocating, 
and that he is certainly not the only one doing so throughout the 
book.  It's a big step from the assertion "Lupin is equivocating in 
PoA" to the statement that "Anything Lupin says that MIGHT be 
equivocal IS".  ESE!Lupin, as I've been tracing it, requires 
everything Lupin both says and does to be hiding a seekrit agenda.  
None of Lupin's actions are what they seem, in this theory.  He's 
killed more people than anyone else in the series. :)

Dumbledore has been incompletely truthful with us.  Is he hiding 
something behind every corner?  Hermione has equivocated with us, 
about what she's actually been up to.

It's really all about context--strip actions of that, and you can 
make Lucius Malfoy a saint (he's such a concerned parent, after all) 
and every single person in the OotP ESE.

> Pippin:
> 
> Yes, this is the crux of the confusion. If Snape 
> 1)definitely knows that Lupin made the parchment
> 2) has believed all along that Lupin is working with Sirius
> 3) thinks that the parchment may contain instructions for getting 
> to Hogsmeade
> 
>  then it would be madness to let Lupin walk away with the map. 
> Of course the vampire threat might have something to do with it. 
> ;-) 
> 
> Evidently Snape is not sure enough of his case to insist that the 
> parchment be taken to Dumbledore, and that makes me think 
> he's not quite sure who made it or what it does.

Don't forget, as well, that Dumbledore does not seem approving of 
Snape's one-man crusade against Lupin, and Snape seems to actually 
care what Dumbledore thinks of him (per the bitter exchange with 
Moody in GoF).  I don't think Snape knows what it does, but I think 
he knows for sure it has some connection to Lupin.

-Nora wonders if, eventually, the weight of ESE!Lupin will be enough 
to scuttle the GARBAGESCOW? :)