Snape, Snape, Snape--favorite moments (Re: Snape's involvement in the...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 169321


> Carol:
But I'm still left without an explanation for that one
> niggling detail, which I'll confess here. While his actions in the
> Shrieking Shack indicate (unless he's an extraordinarily gifted actor)
> that he thought that the spy/traitor/murderer was Sirius Black. He
> certainly believed that Black had murdered Pettigrew, and I think he
> believed along with everyone else that Black was out to murder Harry.
> *But* he seems to recognize the nicknames on the Marauder's Map, which
> is where the doubt comes in. If he knew that Wormtail was Peter
> Pettigrew, and the Death Eaters knew that the spy was Wormtail, how
> could Snape not know that the spy was Peter Pettigrew? 


Pippin:
With riddles, the explanation  is simple once you
get the trick of it. IMO, Snape knew that the Marauder Wormtail 
was Peter Pettigrew, but he thought  the DE Wormtail was
Sirius Black.

With polyjuice it would be  possible for anyone
close to Sirius to impersonate him perfectly, and even for
someone else, under the Imperius curse, to impersonate
Pettigrew at the same time, so that it would have seemed
impossible for Pettigrew to be the spy. 

This would also explain why even if the nickname was known,
no one except Sirius realized that the anger of the imprisoned DE's at 
Wormtail pointed to Pettigrew as the traitor. 

My favorite Snape moment has to be his response to  Dumbledore's
"Unless you are suggesting that Harry and Hermione are able to
be in two places at once, I'm afraid I don't see any point in 
troubling them further."

That sealed Snape as Dumbledore's man in my mind -- his
class was one of the ones that Hermione was doubling, so how
could he *not* know about the time-turner. I haven't had any
serious doubt since, except for about ten minutes after finishing
HBP for the first time. Then I went back to look for the clues,
and sure enough there were plenty of things to suggest that
events on the tower were not as they appeared to be to Harry.

Pippin