Phineas Nigellus: Witness for Snape?

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 146187


> 
> Miles:
> There was much consideration whether the portraits would tell e.g.
McG about
> Dumbledore's secrets. Maybe Phineas won't talk to McG - but Harry?
Harry is
> different. Harry is somehow the "heir of the Black's" - Sirius was
the last
> Black, so he owns the second portrait of Phineas - maybe he will see
Harry
> as part of the family, somehow.

Finwitch:

There's also the fact that where none would of told Phineas how the
'last of the Blacks', his own great-grandson - died - Harry did. Just
because Harry figured it was *right*. (in the end of OOP)

Hermione's comment "maybe there was a reason they didn't" made Harry
regret it a bit, but what if Dumbledore's reason for not telling
Phineas was so that *Harry* would tell Phineas and thus have Phineas
owe him a favour?

And indeed, as Sirius' godson and all-but-officially-adopted son,
Harry IS the heir. As for McGonagall, well -- I doubt she'd bother to
*ask* why Dumbledore trusted Snape, and if even she did, she'd expect
to get the answer from Dumbledore's portrait, not Phineas'. But
Phineas may well tell Harry even if he doesn't ask.

Also, it makes me think of the time Sirius was at Hogwarts... He left
home at sixteen. Did he even bother going Grimmauld Place that summer?
Much easier going to Potters directly from school, wouldn't it? Maybe,
after whatever Snape did, and the werewolf-incident which also
happened to him at sixteen... Dumbledore had him in his office, and
Phineas was to be the messenger.

Finwitch