Are appearances important to Snape?

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 142212

> Carol:
> Other posters have already shown that Snape did not hear the part 
of
> Lupin's speech about PP being a rat, and he was unconscious when PP
> transformed. What he heard he could easily have interpreted as 
further
> evidence that Lupin was helping the escaped murderer into the 
school
> (not to mention that he knew quite well that the werewolf was 
about to
> transform and endanger three students, which is probably why he 
bound
> Lupin rather than Black.

a_svirn:

I don't know about other posters, but in the chapter 18 "Moony, 
Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs" Snape entered in the beginning of the 
chapter when the door cricked: 

" Lupin broke off. There had been a loud creak behind him. The 
bedroom door had opened of its own accord. All five of them stared 
at it. Then Lupin strode toward it and looked out into the landing. 
 "No one there..." 
 "This place is haunted!" said Ron. 
 "It's not," said Lupin, still looking at the door in a puzzled 
way. "The Shrieking Shack was never haunted.... The screams and 
howls the villagers used to hear were made by me."

That as you remember was the very beginning of his story. Which 
means that Snape stood there and listened the whole tale about 
animagi. 


> Carol:
> You're assuming that his motive in telling Fudge that the kids were
> confunded was to silence them. But why would he need to do that? He
> had rushed out to save them from a murderer and a werewolf, and he
> *did* conjure stretchers and take the three students and the man he
> thought was a murderer back to the school.

a_svirn:

He didn't worry about Fudge, he worried about Dumbledore. He didn't 
want Sirius anywhere near Dumbledore, and he didn't want him to 
listen to the kids ether, because he didn't want Dumbledore to know 
the truth . As for stretches what they have to do with anything? He 
couldn't very well kill Sirius, not with his record as ex-DE, and 
his original plan – to hand Sirius to the Dementors at the Willow – 
didn't work, since Harry's Patronus  made the Dementors to leave. 

> Carol:
> Maybe Snape asked himself that same question: Why would three 
students
> knock out a teacher who had come to save them? And maybe the only
> answer that made sense to him was that they had been confunded. 

a_svirn:
Perhaps. I have a better opinion of his intellect, however

> Carol:
In any
> case, it *is* likely that HRH would have been punished or even
> expelled for attacking a teacher, and Snape saves them from 
whatever
> punishment they would have received, whether he is lying to protect
> them or telling what he perceives to be the truth. I see no need
> whatever to lie to protect himself. (It's rashness worthy of James
> himself to rush out to face both a werewolf and a supposed mass
> murderer, but it's hardly something he needs to cover up.)

a_svirn:
Hey, it's Snape we are talking about, remember?