Spinner's "end" and Snape in PoA

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 134548

One other interpretation of "Spinner's End": the word
"end" doesn't just mean "termination." It also can mean goal...that 
is...

"the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that 
(when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it; "the 
ends justify the means" 

Makes ya think. 

As for Snape supposedly knowing that Sirius was innocent, and about 
Pettigrew, that one scene in the Shrieking Shack reveals that 
Rowling has been playing with our heads about Snape for years and 
years. Go back and read PoA, carefully. When Snape finally uncloaks 
at the Shrieking Shack, even if he's been listening to everything 
that happened since everyone first arrived, there's no reason to 
think he should believe the story that's been told up to that point 
by Remus and Sirius. Even Hermoine and Harry aren't convinced of it. 
Lupin tells Snape "you haven't heard everything." 

And if all he heard was the end of the conversation, what he would 
have heard was Lupin telling the kids about "the prank," to which 
Sirius sneers and replies: "it served him right." Black's not sorry 
about nearly killing Snape at all, all those years ago. 

So why, why oh why should Snape believe anything that he or Lupin 
says at that point? He didn't see Peter Pettigrew get pulled into 
the whomping willow on the map. *Lupin* saw that. And he's not 
conscious when Pettigrew transforms. He doesn't witness anything at 
all that would incline him to believe what Sirius Black says. If he 
witnesses anything it's his old nemesis professing utter contempt 
for him, and an absolute lack of remorse at perpetrating a terrible 
trick that nearly killed Snape long before. 

I didn't examine this passage carefully until just before HBP came 
out.  But Rowling is very specific.  Snape, who has gone to Lupin's 
office, by the way, to give him the potion that he has forgotten to 
take, sees Lupin--not Pettigrew--running along the passage on the 
Marauder's map.  

Of course, you could say he's "just saying that" to make it seem he 
doesn't know, but why the hell would he do that?  He doesn't have to 
prove anything to anyone at this point. He doesn't have to say 
anything. He's found Sirius Black. 

You will note as well that Snape's *unconcious* when Pettigrew 
transforms.  He has no factual reason to believe the story that's 
been told to him by Harry, or anyone else.  The only "fact" he knows 
is that his old nemesis is back and seems as hateful as ever.  

She's a clever woman. You can't tie anything to Snape. Aside from 
snarky, mean-spirited and often cruel *comments*, there's always 
another interpretation for everything he does.  

When you read PoA, you THINK that Rowling is showing us how hateful 
Snape is at the end.  But it's all through Harry's perspective.  
Give things a quarter turn, and look at them from Snape's, and his 
actions are eminently reasonable.  In fact, it could be said that 
he's the aggrieved party.

-Leslie