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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 142279

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eileen_nicholson" <eileennicholson at a...> 
wrote:

> 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.'    

Pippin:
But Snape hadn't arrived yet when Sirius said that the rat was Peter Pettigrew. He doesn't 
know that Lupin is talking about Ron's rat.

All Snape knows is that Sirius is trying  to get him to look at the rat, which means taking 
his eyes off Sirius, who is not bound, is thought to be armed with a knife, and could seize 
one of the children as a hostage. It doesn't matter if Sirius  tried at this point to project the 
truth by legilimency -- Snape would only believe he was using occlumency and lying.

>From what he says, Snape never makes the connection that the rat *is* Pettigrew. He has 
heard that three of the Marauders were animagi, but he has no way of knowing whether 
that's even true. He can't fathom Lupin's mind, and if Sirius was good enough at 
Occlumency to maintain himself as a spy in the face of Dumbledore's suspicions, then he 
would be good enough to fool Snape too.

Just imagine if Snape was trying to convince Harry that Dumbledore was a bumblebee 
animagus, and the plan was for him to  fall off the tower, land safely and transfigure 
himself into a corpse, only it went wrong because Dumbledore was too severely injured by 
the poison to save himself. Not only is it wildly farfetched, it leaves Harry confronting the 
horrible thought that he himself was the agent of Dumbledore's doom. Snape might well 
feel the same if he thought that James had switched secretkeepers because of Snape's 
suspicions of Sirius. 

Pippin