Snape in the Shrieking Shack (Was: Are appearances important to Snape?)

[eileen_nicholson]

No: HPFGUIDX 142268

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
>snip< 
> Betsy Hp:
> One man's "comfortable pose" is another man's "confunded audience". 
> <g>  Reading through the scene again (after the door creak and 
> before Snape's reveal) it seems plausible (IMO) that Snape really 
> did think the children were confunded.
>snip<
> Remember, Snape is sure (and Lupin admits) that Lupin has 
completely 
> fooled *Dumbledore*.  Snape is wary enough of Lupin to actually 
back 
> out of a room Lupin is in.  It's not a stretch at all, IMO, to 
think 
> that Lupin *has* cast a spell on the children so that they will be 
> more easily taken (or so they remain in the Shack long enough for 
> him to transform).
>snip<
> We don't get to see into Snape's mind, so really, any 
> scenario works.  

We do see into Snape's mind a little:
'Don't ask me to fathom the way a werewolf's mind works,' hissed 
Snape.
If he has been trying to fathom Lupin's mind since Lupin rejoined 
Hogwarts, with no success, and he is not a trusting man, this must 
have been very frustrating for him. As an occlumens, he must be aware 
how untrustworthy these occlumens are ;) 

He hears Lupin make a statement that would allow him to understand 
that Pettigrew is Wormtail is alive is Ron's rat, should he be 
prepared to accept this picture:

'Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs.'    

At this point he is listening quietly. I find it hard to accept that 
he doesn't, on some level, take this in. But he can't trust Lupin, so 
I figure the assumption he makes is that Lupin is confunding them.
I also can't see that he couldn't understand what Sirius is telling 
him about the rat. Sirius is projecting this information at him as 
strongly as Harry projected his vision of Sirius trapped by Voldemort 
in the DoM, and Sirius's projection has the strength of 12 years 
obsession in Azkaban behind it...in addition to this, Sirius is 
accustomed, as is shown through his interactions with Lupin in this 
scene, to communicating with a legilimens without words.  

When Snape gets back to the tower, he is battling against opposition 
for his 'picture' or interpretation of events to win against Lupin's 
alternative picture, and from a good start he gradually loses ground.
His interaction with Dumbledore suggests a parallel with their 
differences of interpretation of the prank...

It's a fascinating scene, my feeling is that we have enough 
information to interpret it better than we are doing now...I'll have 
to go back and reread it.

Eileen 
madly rushing to get to her appointment on time, thrusts PoA into the 
handbag next to OotP and HBP, thinks *must get a bigger handbag*