McGonagall and Lupin's reaction to Harry's story (Was: It's over, Snape is evil

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 138547

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 

> Sorry for the ruthless snipping, Alla, but I also noticed the very
> swift turning against Snape--suspiciously fast, in fact, almost as 
if
> it were planned and they were in on some secret that they were 
keeping
> from Harry, as if they were acting. Slughorn (not an Order member) 
was
> the only one to have anything like a natural reaction. ("I taught 
him.
> I thought I knew him.") 
> 
> The rest, even Lupin, who has always attempted to be reasonable and
> fair about Snape ("I neither like nor dislike Severus but he made 
the
> wolfbane potion and he made it perfectly") suddenly acts as if he's
> known or suspected all along that Snape was never loyal to 
Dumbledore.
> McGonagall does the same thing, essentially, "Well, what do you
> expect, with his background?" And yet she taught young Severus 
Snape
> for seven years, worked with him as a fellow teacher and fellow 
Head
> of House for fifteen years, worked with him to help expose Barty
> Crouch, followed his lead in exposing Lockhart, on and on. All of
> their conversations in the books have been civil, almost friendly. 
> 
> And yet, in marked contrast to Hagrid, who protests that Harry is
> mistaken about Snape until he actually sees Dumbledore's body, she
> immediately starts making excuses for why she trusted Snape
> (Dumbledore always said he had an ironclad reason for trusting 
Snape).
> And when Harry gives the supposed reason, worded rather differently
> from Dumbledore's version (which is still quite possibly not the 
real
> or complete reason), they immediately see Dumbledore as something 
very
> like what Draco calls "You stupid old man." On the whole, they're
> acting exactly like the villagers in "The Riddle House" in GoF: "I
> always knew that Frank Bryce couldn't be trusted."
> 
> What exactly is going on here? 
<snip> 
> But I'm getting offtrack, sorry! I want to know if there's more to 
the
> mass rejection of Snape by his fellow Order members than meets the
> eye. Can they really suddenly think that he's always been evil 
after
> all the risks he's taken for the Order? Is there more to this 
scene,
> which strikes me as a false note in the narrative, than just a 
shared
> mistrust of Snape by both sides and a very bad position for Snape 
if
> he wants to continue working with the Order? 
> 
> Was anyone else bothered by this scene? Did anyone else feel that
> McGonagall and Lupin, at least, were acting out of character?

Marianne:

What bothered me most about this was not so much the Order's quick 
leap onto the "Snape has deceived us" bandwagon, but that it is 
readily apparent that Dumbledore never shared his ironclad reason 
for trusting Snape with anyone.  I firmly believe the "remorse" 
story that DD told Harry about is only part of the reason.  
Unfortunately, since that's the ONLY reason anyone has ever heard, 
it rings false to the people who know and understand the level of 
dislike that existed between Snape and James Potter. 

So, what to make of this?  Maybe the path of the story in Book 7 
necessitates that Snape is cut off from his Order allies, perhaps to 
set up a final confrontation or reconciliation with Harry where each 
is standing alone. Or maybe this is another example of Dumbledore, 
the man with no confidant, who has acted alone, kept a lot of his 
reasons close to his own vest, and simple asked people to trust 
him.  Or maybe this is going to be one of those things that 
Lupinlore has been talking about lately - one of those things we 
shouldn't look to closely at.  

Marianne