Werewolves and RL equivalents (was:Re: Snape - a werewolf bigot?...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170450

> Dungrollin:
> I think that throughout PoA Snape's convinced that Lupin's helping 
> Sirius in his attempt to kill Harry. Whether it's for the same 
> reasons that Sirius and James thought Lupin was the spy way-back-
> when, I don't know, but I think that's the main misdemeanour that 
> Snape's trying to pin on him. So, (unless ESE!Lupin didn't know that 
> Sirius was innocent and *had* been teaching Harry to conjure a 
> patronus in the hopes that he'd get past the dementors and into 
> Sirius's clutches) in that sense Snape *was* being paranoid. 
> 

Pippin:
*Everyone* believed that Sirius was trying to kill Harry. And
Dumbledore admits that most wizards would find Lupin's
being a werewolf and his old friendship with Sirius reason enough
to suspect him of helping Black, so I don't see how you
can call it paranoia. 

Snape does seem to have gone a bit mad in the Shrieking Shack,
just as he did later in the hospital wing.

But Dumbledore  explained that:

"Oh, he's not imbalanced," said Dumbledore quietly. "He's
just suffered a severe disappointment."

The activated Marauder's Map in Lupin's office was proof that 
Lupin had lied to Snape. Lupin *had* helped Harry get out of 
the castle, or at least escape punishment for leaving. Snape had 
just heard Lupin admit that he thought Sirius was getting into
the castle using Dark Arts he'd learned from Voldemort.

Snape didn't hear the part where Sirius explained about the
secret keeper switch, and how Crookshanks had helped him
steal passwords. I don't know when Snape found out about the
claim that Pettigrew was still alive.  He seems to have discovered
that by legilimency, "planted in Potter's mind"  but at that point
Harry himself was not persuaded of it. 

Snape would have thought he had heard more than enough
to convince any reasonable wizard that Lupin and Black were
putting Harry in danger. If you posit, as I do,
that  Snape had some proof of Lupin's dual loyalty beyond 
his old grudge or suspicion of werewolves  and Black's friends
in general, then Snape  was not being paranoid at all.  Indeed 
he would be  less paranoid than wizarding society as a whole. 

Naturally he was furious at Harry for not believing him, and
even more at Lupin for cooly asserting that this was all 
about some old school boy grudge when it was actually about
stopping as cold-blooded a band of murderers as the world has
ever seen. 

As to the discussion elsewhere in the thread about who
is responsible for Lupin's leaving Hogwarts:

Although Dumbledore had the authority to hire and fire
teachers, Fudge had the authority to decide whether werewolves
could work at all. He says he is the one who let Dumbledore hire Lupin,
presumably by bending the laws Umbridge got passed.

Although Fudge let himself be convinced that Lupin wasn't actually
helping Black, I doubt he would have let himself be convinced
that Lupin would never err about his potion again. I'm not
sure Dumbledore wouldn't have agreed. I think it's telling that
Dumbledore didn't invite Lupin to continue living in the
castle  as he did with Trelawney.

Pippin