Will the Real Severus Snape please step forward?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167801

Goddlefrood wrote:
<snip>

> A further matter that has been of interest to me, and for which I
have yet to see an explanation is how come Snape seemingly never
figured out that Scabbers was Wormtail and that may bear further
examination.  Not by me here and now, but perhaps one day in the not
too distant future I will look into it more closely again, unless
someone wants to offer an explanation, which would be welcome.
> 

Carol responds:
My apologies for snipping your theory, but I wanted to focus on this
little paragraph since I've asked myself similar questions.

The problem is not, IMO, that Snape didn't recognize *Scabbers* as
Pettigrew. (Neither did Lupin, who knew Pettigrew well and actually
rode on the Hogwarts Express with the Trio.) Snape thought, as did
Lupin and Dumbledore and everyone else in the WW except Sirius Black,
that Pettigrew was dead, and PoA indicates that he didn't know until
the Shrieking Shack that any of the Marauders were Animagi. His
reaction to the suggestion that Pettigrew was a rat Animagus is
outraged disbelief. He thinks that the Trio were confunded and is
furious that Black, whom he still seems to believe is the traitor and
murderer, has gotten away. He doesn't see Scabbers Transformed into
Pettigrew, and has no reason to believe the story. IMO, only when he
sees the black dog transform into Sirius Black does he believe the
story, and we get the reaction you cited before:

Goddlefrood: 

> Once Severus and Sirius come face to face again in the hospital wing
near then end of GoF we find (Bloomsbury Hardback Edition,
p.618):

'Snape had not yelled or jumped backwards, but the look on his face
was one of mingled fury and horror.'

Carol:
Note not just fury but horror. IMO, he thinks, as Mrs. Weasley does,
that he's facing a murderer and a traitor. On reflection, he realizes
that the Animagus story is true after all and controls his emotions.
If Black is a dog Animagus and in the hospital wing under DD's orders,
then he, Snape, is wrong about his being a murderer and a traitor. The
murderer and traitor must be Pettigrew after all. Snape, IMO, is not
happy with this revelation, but he has to accept it, and grudgingly
shakes Black's hand. He still hates him, still thinks that Black tried
to murder him when they were both sixteen, but his cherished delusion
regarding James Potter's mistaken trust in Black have been shattered.

The real question, for me, is how Snape, as a spy for DE pretending to
be loyal to LV, could not know that Wormtail was Pettigrew before
Wormtail's supposed death. (He did not need to know that Wormtail was
a rat Animagus; that little detail Wormtail and Voldemort would have
kept to themselves.) The only explanation that I can come up with is
that the DEs were always hooded at their meetings, and, as Karkaroff
states when he's testifying against his fellow DEs, many of them did
not know each other:

"You must understand that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in
the greatest secrecy. He preferred that we--I mean his supporters
<snip>--we never knew the names of every one of our fellows--He alone
knew exactly who we all were--" (GoF Am. ed. 588). 

Sirius Black tells Harry that some of the Death Eaters screamed in
their sleep about Wormtail's treachery, but this remark seems to refer
to Bellatrix and her cronies, the only four who actually went looking
for information on LV's whereabouts and who came in after the events
at Godric's Hollow. Most of the others seem to have been arrested (on
Snape's information?) before Godric's Hollow, so they would have no
reason to scream about Wormtail's treachery.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Bellatrix and her friends
were among the few who knew that Wormtail was the Order spy. They may
not even have known that he was the Secret Keeper, or that there was a
Fidelius Charm. All they would need to know is that their master went
after the Potters on Wormtail's information. Whether they knew that
Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew is unclear.

Snape, who was teaching at Hogwarts by the time of Godric's Hollow,
need not have known who the spy was. To the best of *his* knowledge,
the Secret Keeper who betrayed the Potters, and therefore the spy who
was giving information on them before that, was Sirius Black. (If DD
didn't tell Snape personally that the Potters had rejected his offer
to become SK and chosen Black instead, Snape would have read it in the
Daily Prophet. Damning evidence after Godric's Hollow, from Snape's
perspective.) He may never have heard the nickname Wormtail in
reference to the spy given Voldemort's tendency to secrecy and the
limited number of DEs who would have known it. That tidbit may have
been one of the precious pieces of information that LV trusted
Bellatrix with (in lieu of or in addition to the existence of a
Horcrux). Or if Snape did hear the nickname, he didn't connect it with
Peter Pettigrew, whom he didn't know to be a rat Animagus. It would
have seemed suitable to anyone who would rat out his friends, even
assuming that he made the Wormtail/rat connection.

There is, of course, the possibility that Snape overheard the
Marauders using those nicknames, but he may not have known who was
whom (other than the obvious link of "Moony" to Lupin post-Prank).
Probably they were careful not to use the nicknames around him after that.

Carol, convinced that Snape's suspicions of Black and his werewolf
accomplice in PoA are entirely genuine and that he could not have
known that Scabbers was Wormtail, in any case