Did Lupin trust Snape? (was: McGonagall and Lupin's reaction to Harry's story )

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 138627

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Cathy Drolet" <cldrolet at s...> 
wrote:
<massive snip>
As to Lupin, I'm not sure.  Sirius didn't seem to know, but then, I 
doubt Sirius spent much time reading the local rag.  He may only 
have found out at the end of GoF, but by then, despite their 
differences, Snape had spent a year preparing Wolfbane potion for 
Lupin.  Lupin, while trusting Snape because he trusted Dumbledore's 
judgement, also trusted him because of this.

Marianne: 

But, how much trust did Lupin really have for Snape? Their 
relationship was outwardly cordial from Lupin's side in PoA, 
although I'm sure he knew that Snape was not at all happy about him 
being there. 

I'm thinking mostly of Lupin's little Christmas discussion in HBP 
with Harry: 

First is Lupin's statement of neutrality regarding Snape. "I neither 
like nor dislike Severus."  He then mentions the bad blood between 
James, Sirius and Snape.  So, Lupin is saying that he can accept 
Snape's lasting bitterness towards him because of his friendship 
with James and Sirius. But, this is more descriptive of Snape's 
emotions, than Lupin's. Lupin never mentions things he dislikes 
about Snape; he only mentions the tangled web of Snape/James/Sirius. 

Then Lupin brushes off Harry's mention of Snape's outing him as a 
werewolf. "That news would have leaked out anyway. We both knew he 
wanted my job..."  Lupin then goes on to say..."but he could have 
wreaked much more damage on me by tampering with the potion. He kept 
me healthy. I must be grateful."

So, Lupin knew full well that Snape was agitating against him, but 
is saying that was a fair price to pay in return for getting a 
properly mixed potion. Why then doesn't he say "I'm grateful for 
that." Or "I appreciated that Snape's skills made my transformations 
easier."  

No, he says "I *must* be grateful."  It rang wrong to me - more like 
a child who is repeating a lesson to himself that he really doesn't 
want to learn. What I heard Lupin doing was putting the most 
positive spin on this that he could. 

The preface to all of this was Lupin's declaration "Dumbledore 
trusts Severus and that should be good enough for all of us."  

Lupin knows he owes Dumbledore a lot - for allowing him to attend 
Hogwarts, for giving him a job, for accepting him as a human being 
when most of his society does not. I think Lupin is willing to give 
DD a huge benefit of the doubt.  However, Lupin mentions the bad 
blood that existed between James, Sirius and Snape twice. He doesn't 
say that he shared their schoolboy hate.  But, I wonder if he isn't 
somehow, in the back of his mind, being tugged between DD's trust of 
Snape, which is simply stated but not explained, and the reasons for 
James' and Sirius' abhorence of all things Snape, which, while I'm 
sure went way over the top at times, at least had the advantage of 
being explained out in the open for Lupin.  

Then, in the hospital scene Lupin hears not only about DD's death at 
Snape's hands, but also Harry's interpretation of what DD told him 
about the reason he trusted Snape.  And, it hits Lupin like a ton of 
bricks. Not only is Dumbledore dead, apparently murdered, but he 
knows now that James was right, Sirius was right, Harry was right - 
Snape should never have been trusted. 

I think part of Lupin's loss of control in the hospital scene was 
his realization that what he had always suspected, but had fought 
against accepting because of his allegiance to Dumbledore, was true. 
Snape had been working for Voldemort all along.

Marianne