Spies, Lies and Self fullfilling prophecies

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146468

Pippin wrote:
> Wow, we really see this differently! The Death Eaters were openly 
taking credit for their kills in the latter years of VWI, setting
Voldemort's mark in the air for all  to see. IMO, it would be possible
for Snape to think that any member of the Order could knowingly help
Voldemort and *not* think they were aiding the Death Eaters.

Carol responds:
Okay, I see your point. I think that spy!Peter (or in Snape's view,
spy!Sirius) was operating very much in the background, not as a DE
himself and not known to the DEs because he was giving his information
directly to Voldemort (who trusts no one and operates in secrecy). But
that information would definitely have included names and perhaps
addresses of Order members, whom the DEs were "picking off one by
one." But since the DEs were essentially doing Voldie's dirty work,
Snape would think of it as aiding Voldie, not aiding the Death Eaters.
Or maybe I'm attributing my own interpretation to Snape. (There's no
connection to Lupin here that I see, though. We only need one spy, and
unless JKR is misleading us, which I don't put past her since she's
almost certainly doing so with Snape in HBP, that spy is Peter.) 
> 
Pippin:
> I think one of the things that is making Snape crazy in the
Shrieking Shack is that Harry accuses him of acting on a schoolboy
grudge, when from Snape's PoV, Lupin and Sirius are taking advantage
of Harry's schoolboy concepts of friendship and honor.

Carol:
Interesting. Sort of like his reaction to being called a coward in
HBP. Harry just doesn't "get it." But even if Lupin is operating on
schoolboy principles of friendship and honor, isn't that pretty much
what I said that you disagreed with, that Lupin puts his old
friendship with Sirius above everything else, even (in Snape's view)
danger to Harry? As I said, "Snape could be seeing Lupin's weakness,
his desire to be liked and his willingness to overlook the misdeeds of
his friends <snip>, and applying it to this specific instance, rather
than seeing Lupin as "aiding the Death Eaters" in some more general sense.

But I guess you're saying that Snape is concerned with something even
beyond Black's apparent desire to murder Harry and is thinking in
terms of Black murdering Harry to aid Vapormort and the disbanded DEs,
who have no idea that Voldemort will be restored in the next book? I'm
not arguing, just asking for clarification.
> 

Pippin:
> IMO, Snape was working off the following information in the
Shrieking Shack:

Carol:
Yes, I agree with the numbered points that I snipped.

Pippin:
> Can you imagine Snape, who's always putting two and two together,
*not* thinking it's all related and Sirius was the reason that Order
members were getting picked off?

Carol:
I answered that question earlier. Yes, he thinks that Sirius was
offering information that led to the Order members being picked off
one by one (though he himself was not an Order member at the time, I
think he and Dumbledore had some sort of understanding and Snape knew
that the murders the DEs were committing were of people close to
Dumbledore). But as I said, I think that Snape would see it as aiding
Voldemort rather than aiding the Death Eaters, who were only (or
primarily) Voldie's agents. (No doubt some of them had their own
agendas and their own enemies as well, but I think they killed
spedific people on Voldie's orders based on the spy's information
rather than randomly killing people they thought might be members of
the Order. I'm not even sure that the existence of the Order was known
to the DEs in general. Do we have any evidence that it was?)

Pippin:
> Further, if Snape immediately assumed that Lupin would help Sirius
in PoA, wouldn't he suppose Lupin had been helping Sirius all along?

Carol responds:
I think that Snape simply knows Lupin's weakness, his old trait of
being unwilling to use his authority as Prefect to stop his friends
from hexing people, and he thinks that weakness, that need for
friendship and approval, will outweigh everything else in Lupin's
mind, even though both he and Lupin "know" that Sirius is a spy, a
traitor, and a murderer. After all, Lupin didn't stop liking James and
Sirius after Sirius (and in Snape's view, James) tried to get Severus
killed by werewolf!Lupin when they were all sixteen. So Snape thinks
that Lupin will turn a blind eye to Sirius's murderous impulses, even
to the extent of helping him into the castle to murder their old
friend James's son. So Snape thinks very badly of Lupin, but I still
don't see him connecting Lupin with Death Eaters other than Sisirus
Black (whom Snape may think was only a spy, traitor, and murderer,
unless he chooses to believe the hysteria promoted by the Daily Prophet).

But still, Snape would not necessarily assume that Lupin was helping
Sirius in the old days, too, or that he had any part in the events at
Godric's Hollow or in the supposed murder of PP and the actual deaths
of the twelve Muggles. Those events Snape would pin squarely on Sirius
Black (with his rage against Black proportionately increased by the
guilty knowledge that his own revelation of the Prophecy made Black's
betrayal possible and that his remorse had been for nothing since the
Potters were dead).

*But* if Snape is wrong about Sirius Black being the murderer and
betrayer of the Blacks, and wrong that Lupin has been helping him get
into the school all along, he's wrong that Black was "helping Death
Eaters" (or, in my view, aiding Voldemort) and that Lupin was helping
him to do so. Absolutely, Snape attributes murderous intent to both
Black and Lupin, or at least, thinks Lupin an accessory to attempted
murder, but he's wrong, isn't he? Or do you think that Black wanted to
murder Wormtail but Lupin wanted to murder Harry, so Snape is at least
right about Lupin?

Pippin:> 
> But I see your point. A spy with more devious and self-deluding ways
than Sirius might persuade himself that the information he was passing
couldn't possibly be reaching Voldemort. He was just helping out a 
> friend.

Carol:
Oh, dear. I don't understand this interpretation of my viewpoint at
all. I think Snape knew that the spy was reporting directly to
Voldemort, bypassing the DEs, who merely killed whomever Voldemort
ordered them to kill. Snape was right in that but wrong in thinking,
as DD did, that the spy was Black, not Pettigrew. (Lupin doesn't fit
into this picture at all except that he, too, apparently suspected Black.)

Pippin:
 We know Lupin is capable of some rather astounding self-delusions,
for example that Sirius's animagus abilities didn't have anything to
do with his ability to enter the castle and grounds. 

Carol:
Yes, and in thinking that Black had picked up Dark Magic from his
association with Voldemort. But as soon as he sees Pettigrew on the
map, all his suspicions of Black fall away. (Not that he acted
sensibly in rushing out without his potion, but that's not relevant
here.) And Snape *knows* that Lupin is capable of self-delusion--so
much so that he believes Lupin would be an accessory to murder for
friendship's sake. And if Snape is DDM!, the last person he wants to
see them murder is Harry Potter.

Pippin: 
> However, it's simply impossible that Peter, who's *not* much of an
actor AFAWK, could sit around the kitchen table for a year, gathering
information he knew would be used to kill his friends, and not give
himself away. Nor could he successfully pretend that they were still
his friends if he'd turned against them.

Carol:
I'm not so sure. Peter shows himself capable of some pretty
complicated potion making combined with spell-casting in GoF, not to
mention capable of completing the potion after he's cut off his own
hand. We see him capable of ruthlessness in his treatment of Harry and
his murder of Cedric as well. And he found Voldemort and even
kidnapped Bertha Jorkins. I think Peter is much more talented and
resourceful than he wants people to think he is, including MPP and
McGonagall when he was a boy. He's also profoundly lazy and
self,centered, though, so his talents (including his ability to cast
an AK) show themselves only when self-preservation triumphs over
stasis (does that make sense? IOW, he acts only when he has to in
order to save his own skin.) I doubt that anyone, Dumbledore (who
doesn't spend much time with the Order, especially during the school
year) or the Potters or Lupin or Black paid any attention to
Pettigrew, who would simply be hanging around with them or fawning all
over James, maybe occasionally expressing a whisper of doubt about one
of his friends to another. I think he feigned friendship for a whole
year without a qualm, all the while passing information on Order
members (starting, maybe, with those he cared least about but working
steadily toward the Potters. Maybe he thought that they'd be protected
by Dumbledore and he wouldn't have to betray them, or maybe fear
overcame his resolve. Not a very admirable person, our Peter. 
> 
Pippin: 
> Any suspicions that Snape had about Sirius must have been based on
false or misleading information, but it's not necessarily true that
his suspicion of Lupin was only based on false or misleading
information, especially since Sirius shared it.

Carol responds:
But you're assuming that Snape's suspicions of Lupin relate to
Godric's Hollow and the surrounding events. As far as I can see, his
distrust of Lupin dates back to their school days (the ineffectual
prefect mentioned above) and resurfaces when he suspects Lupin of
helping Black into the school. I see no evidence of anything in
between, any evidence that Snape thought Lupin was helping Black to
spy or that Lupin was involved in the betrayal of the Potters. Now,
since he thought that Lupin was helping Black into the school to kill
Harry, he may have inferred that Lupin also had old connections with
Voldemort, but those suspicions would have been based, IMO, on Lupin's
being a werewolf ("How would I know how a werewolf's mind works?"),
not on suspected DE connections.

Pippin: 
> Maybe Lupin was spotted in Knockturn Alley, or someone overheard him
quarreling with Dumbledore. Maybe it had to do with the Prank.
*Something* must have made Sirius (and James) doubt their old friend.
Something must have convinced Snape that Lupin would side with Sirius
rather than with James's son.

Carol:
Yes, something convinced Black that Lupin was untrustworthy, and he in
turn persuaded James and Lily to make Peter the Secret Keeper. I think
that Lupin was either unemployed or drifting from job to job,
increasingly poor, unhappy, and ill, without the night-time excursions
of his school days and certainly without any wolfsbane potion. Quite
possibly the difference in his circumstances and those of Black and
the Potters caused them to drift apart. We do know that he wasn't
present at Harry's baptism, so the mutual distrust could go back that
far, possibly exacerbated by that event if Lupin felt excluded. Maybe
Peter noticed the growing atmosphere of distrust and subtly played on
it. We don't know. But Severus Snape was not around at that time, not
a member of the Order. Black didn't know that he had become a Death
Eater and *no one* knew that Snape was spying for Dumbledore until DD
informed the Wizengamot. So Snape wouldn't have known about the cracks
in the unity of MWPP. All he knew was that someone close to the
Potters was a spy for Voldemort, and his money was on the supposedly
murderous Sirius Black.
> 
> 
> The Marauders and Snape had known Lupin for years, they wouldn't
suspect him of turning DE any more than Ron would suspect Hagrid of
joining the evil Giants--unless there was  a reason. Not just
evidence, which might be forged by Voldemort, but something about
Lupin's character and history.
 After all, I can't get most of you folks to believe that Lupin is
ESE! no matter how plausible the arguments are, because in most of
your minds, Lupin's character and history firmly establish him as a
good guy. But Lupin's friends doubted him. Why, why, why???
> 

Carol:
Loneliness, self-distrust, a penchant for concealment, the suffering
he had to endure each month that they could never fully understand?
("Furry little problem," as James dismissively called it)--quite
possibly Lupin felt misunderstood and deserted and they interpreted
his resentment or hurt feelings as enmity. Voldemort, after all, was
sowing the seeds of distrust, and other werewolves were joining him.
Why wouldn't they suspect Lupin, maybe even give in to anti-werewolf
propaganda and think that DD had been mistaken about Lupin? Just
because they distrusted him, for whatever reason, doesn't mean that
the distrust was deserved. Absolutely, Lupin has his faults, but that
doesn't make him ESE!. (It does make him a good candidate to suffer
greatly from the DADA curse, though!)

Pippin:
 > Otherwise I can't imagine Sirius saying, "Well, I know it's not
*me*, so Moony must be the spy" without James rejoining, "Well, *that*
can't* [be] right, you might as well suspect Lily. Or me." 

Carol:
Except that the spy, by that time, was giving information specifically
on the Potters--and they may have already known about the Prophecy as
well--otherwise, why the private and hurried baptism of Harry and the
need to assign him a guardian? Obviously the Potters weren't giving
information on themselves and their child. It had to be someone close
to them, and James trusted Sirius Black above all others. It
"couldn't" be weak, helpless little Peter. It "had" to be Remus Lupin. 

Carol earlier:
>  Nor do I think that Snape would assume that Lupin was a DE himself
just because he aided his dear friend Sirius, again putting friendship
above all else, even if that means becoming an accessory to Harry
Potter's murder.
> 
> Pippin:
> But Harry is the son of Lupin's dear friend James! What would make
Snape suspect Lupin of wanting to help Sirius kill him?

Carol:
Sirius Black is, in Snape's view, already a murderer and has spent
twelve years in Azkaban for betraying the Potters and killing Peter
Pettigrew, so of course he'd have no qualms about killing James's son.
And if Lupin values friendship above all else, he would join with
Black in killing Harry, or at least act as his accomplice, rather than
lose his friendship. After all, James is dead but Sirius is alive, and
if friendship is all that matters, a living friend is much more
valuable than a dead one. And, of course, being a werewolf, he's not
to be trusted. Also, I don't think Snape thinks that either Black or
Lupin is trying to find and resurrect Voldemort, but he knows Harry's
importance, and he intends to protect the ungrateful little
rule-breaker at all costs. If you're right that he suspects both Black
and Lupin of being Voldie supporters, then Snape's fury in the
Shrieking Shack and later when SB escapes the Dementors is
understandable and even justified. But his suspicions of both men, not
just Black, are apparently unfounded.
> 
Carol earlier:
> 
> (<snip> And I do wonder how Black got into Hogwarts since the
Whomping Willow passage doesn't lead into the castle itself. Did he
sneak into the sweet shop in dog form? How could he manage that, even
with Crookshanks' help? *That* could be evidence for ESE!Lupin,
possibly. Anybody have any ideas?)
> 
> 
> Pippin:
> Sirius could pass the dementors in dog form. That's how he got out
of Azkaban. He must have slipped past them on Halloween, which was a
Hogsmeade visit day, when the gates to the grounds were open. We know
that Filch isn't always terribly careful about locking the front
doors, even when the castle's on high alert.

Carol:
Well, yes. That explains how he got onto the grounds. But you think he
just walked into the castle after that? He'd have had to do it in
human form since a dog or a cat can't open the door. I was thinking
that he must have used on of the tunnels, probably the one from
Honeydukes, but how he could sneak in there in dog form without being
seen and shooed out is a mystery to me. 
> 
Carol:
> The night Sirius attacked Ron's bed curtains, the twins were in
Hogsmeade raiding Honeydukes, so Sirius might have been able to follow
them.

Carol:
Again, he'd have had to enter the shop in dog form to get past the
Dementors. I don't see how he could get away with that.
> 
Carol earlier:
<snip> Which "bended knee" passage? I checked upthread and I didn't
quote any passage. Not that I'm arguing here. I'm just curious about
the passage you're referring to.
> 
> Pippin:
> PoA 19: Snape- I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking
me on bended knee! You would have been well-served if he'd killed you!
You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be
mistaken in Black" Somebody quoted that recently, I'm sorry
> if it wasn't you, Carol!

Carol:
Oh. I paraphrased the part about James Potter being too arrogant to
believe Snape's warning about Black. But I knew I didn't have any full
quotations in my post, and I'd forgotten the "bended knee" Part. Now
if you'd said the passage on James's arrogance, I'd have known what
your were referring to. Mea culpa!

Carol, still not seeing how Snape's view of Lupin, however
understandable, should persuade the rest of us that Lupin is ESE!