Snape's involvement in the murder of Sirius

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 169046

Jen:
<snip>
>To pull all this canon together, I'd say Narcissa didn't blink an 
> eye because she already *knew* what information Snape had given to 
> LV, that she'd heard it from Voldemort himself when he told her 
> what to order Kreacher to do the night he planned to put a vision 
> in Harry's head.  Dumbledore heard and saw correct information 
> from Kreacher and via Legilimency, but I don't believe it was 
> information Kreacher actually thought of himself; rather, it was 
> information *told* to him by Narcissa.  Kreacher, in his undying 
> loyalty to the Blacks and evidently confused state, would simply 
> believe whatever Narcissa told him was true.  He would tell 
> Dumbledore whatever he'd been ordered to tell him--or ordered to 
> tell anyone who asked him--and Legilimency would pick up what 
> Kreacher was reporting as true and correct.

Dana: 
I absolutely agree with you and why I snipped a large part of you 
post. So I just want to add one thing that was not entirely right 
when I red DD's speech in OotP and that is about Kreacher regarding 
Narcissa as the last Black he had any respect for while we see that 
a picture of Bella seemed to be Kreacher's favourite. 

Although it is pure speculation on my part I did find it interesting 
to see that in HBP, JKR added two stories of memory planting to 
cover up who really was responsible for the crimes committed and I'm 
seriously wondering if that is what happened with Kreacher too. I do 
not have my books on hand but from what I remembered didn't both 
LV's uncle and Mrs Smith's house-elf believe that they were guilty? 
LV did that when he was still young so I have no trouble believing 
that he has improved memory planting since he last done it. 
Legilimency would not have been enough to retrieve the original 
memory or distinguish between a planted memory and an original one. 
DD had great difficulty to retrieve the original memory of LV being 
there at the time the murders took place and he only found them 
because he had a suspicion there was more to the story then them 
being guilty. 

One could think how could he get to Kreacher to even have done this 
besides Kreacher going to Narcissa on his own? Well I always found 
it strange that DD could summon Kreacher in the beginning of HBP, 
while he is not Kreacher's master and if he could have done it then 
so could LV. Kreacher might actually have never left GP during 
Christmas and was just happy that he defied Sirius and not serve 
him. He might indeed have gone somewhere else maybe visiting Bella 
in Azkaban and she telling him it will not be long for she got out 
and what made him so happy. He could have gone to the Malfoy's but 
we do not see anything besides DD's story that links Kreacher to 
Narcissa besides her being a Black. 

But at this moment it is far from sure that Kreacher actually was 
guilty of betraying Sirius at all and him not just being set up to 
take the fall for it to cover up for someone else. So in essence I 
agree with your post and it was something that I had noticed too. 

Jen
> As for motive, well revenge IS sweet.  I'd say it's more than that 
> though.  Since we have no canon either way about what Snape heard 
> re: the night of the Shrieking Shack, there's every likelihood he 
> still thought Sirius capable of murder and both a threat and a 
> danger to the operation.  Having Dumbledore side with a Marauder 
> again and trust Sirius' story over his own may have been the last 
> straw for Snape and he decided to take matters into his own hands. 
> For instance, how exactly do Lucius & Bella know about the 
> animagus disguise for Sirius?  Sirius imagines that Wormtail told 
> Voldemort but there's no canon for Peter having any connection to 
> the Malfoys.  There IS canon for Snape having a relationship with 
> them and now we know Narcissa and Bella have a somehwhat close 
> relationship. 
<snip>

Dana:
There is only one problem with the idea that Snape could not have 
known the story, that was told in the aftermath of PoA by the time 
of OotP, being true and that is Wormtail helping LV to regain a 
body, he would have known about that because when he went back to 
LV,  he either would have been told about it or Wormtail was still 
there. And this would mean Wormtail was indeed alive and not killed 
by Sirius and this would thus make the story that was told by 
Sirius, Harry and Hermione automatically to truth and nothing but 
the truth and if LV told his DEs about Sirius being an animagus, 
then this too would confirmed the story. 

This would also mean that what ever Snape did was indeed out of 
revenge and nothing more then revenge. 

And besides since when would it be noble of Snape to just kill the 
people DD trusts. If it wasn't for DD almost no one would have 
trusted Snape so would have been okay for them to have killed Snape 
because they might think he is still working for LV? 

Killing is never good and therefore in JKR's world there can never 
be good intentions for killing anyone not even for the greater good 
and if Snape would take it up on himself to get rid of someone that 
was on his side out of revenge then he is a liability to the Order 
and he betrayed DD's trust because his personal revenge was more 
important and because Sirius could only be lured out of hiding in an 
attempt to protect Harry, Snape put Harry at risk to just to get 
what he personally wanted. That makes Snape a really bad guy that 
had his hatred for a person make him to very immoral things. Snape 
is like Mike states in a different post not someone that would have 
had any authority to make that judgement over Sirius. And it can 
never be for the greater good to just go out and go kill your fellow 
man in the fight against evil because that is what evil does and you 
can't fight evil with evil and it is not what DD was about. 

JMHO

Dana