[HPforGrownups] Re: What did Snape know, and When did he know it?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169370

> houyhnhnm:
> If Sirius' words can be taken at face value, and that's 
> a big if, then there were some Death Eaters who knew that 
> Peter Pettigrew was LV's spy within the Order. <snip>

Mike:
Sirius' hatred of Wormtail and his resulting imprisonment because of 
being bested by Peter is what he used to keep his sanity in Azkaban. 
This is one area that he didn't need to and doesn't resort to 
hyperbole, imo. And, yes, we don't know who these unnamed DEs that screamed
things out in their sleep were. But that's rather the point, isn't it? They
are the generic any DE, as in, it seems any and all of them know that their
Master's downfall came at the Potters and Peter sent LV there. So, maybe
not all of them knew, but a fair few of them seemed to, imo. And I would
have thought that Snape was one of them.

Magpie:
They're not necessarily any generic DEs. We know that they didn't all know
each other, and that they are not all included in every plan. Snape himself
was allegedly spying on Dumbledore by then. Sirius, of course, knows the
truth and is filling in anything that doesn't specifically call peter by
name, but I don't think Snape had to be one of the ones in on his identity.
In fact, it makes thematically perfect sense that he wouldn't, because it
gives Snape the same flaw as James. Of course Snape thought it was
Black--that's the person he hated. As much as he wouldn't like any of the
Marauders, he'd rather it be Sirius than Peter. He'd be just as likely to
overlook Peter as James. 

Voldemort would have good reason to conceal Peter's identity from Snape,
certainly--no reason to tell both spies in the order (if he's sending Snape
in there to spy on them too) who the other one is. Smart of him to split up
the attack on the Potters into two people: Snape brings the information,
someone else cracks the secret.

If Snape is DDM, of course, he shouldn't know the identity of the traitor,
because it was Peter, not Sirius, who ruined Snape's own attempts to stop
the assassination of James and Lily.

Mike:
As I said above, it doesn't sound like Snape needed to be anywhere 
near 100% in the loop, the knowledge that Peter led LV to the Potters seems
to have become common knowledge amongst the DEs *after* the LV's downfall.
Likewise, the knowledge that Sirius Black was *not* a fellow DE also seems
to be common knowledge among the DEs. At least Sirius Black's cousins Bella
and Narcissa would know this and, given that Snape and Lucius were thick as
thieves, I would expect that Snape also knew this.

So, why didn't Snape tell this to Dumbledore? First let's look at 
Sirius' predicament. We get our initial information about Black's 
supposed DEness from the Daily Prophet and then Fudge. Fudge of 
course is the one who first told us about the Potter's Fidelius. But 
both these sources are highly suspect. I'm not sure that the rest of 
the WW held this same belief, if they thought about Sirius Black at 
all. And Fudge certainly seems to have a healthy self-aggrandizement 
streak in his story telling. So maybe only a few members of the 
Ministry (obviously including Barty Crouch Sr.) were interested in 
Black and they were the ones convinced of Sirius' allegience to LV. 
Rosemerta seems utterly surprised and still unbelieving in the Sirius 
turned on James Potter version.

Magpie:
I'm not convinced by this premise that Snape had to have known simply
because certain DEs in Azkaban were yelling about a traitor in DD's camp
whom they think double-crossed them. (He didn't even double-cross them that
I can see.) So I can't build on that really, but 
Snape's behavior in terms of the emotions he shows to me support the
reading that he thought Sirius was the Secret Keeper and so the only spy
that mattered. It's never been brought up as an issue that Snape had to
have known Peter was really a spy. I think it's bizarre that Sirius only
says in OotP that Peter will by then have revealed his animagus form to
Voldemort, so I don't think we have to assume a lot of things are common
knowledge.

Mike:
Therefore, it seems that it was the Ministry that propegated the 
version of Sirius the DE. Did Dumbledore believe it? A better 
question might be: Why did Dumbledore testify that Black was the 
Potter's Secret Keeper? This same Dumbledore that seems to hold is 
own knowledge close to the vest, comes out and *testifies* to 
something that he truly has no direct knowledge?! He only knows what was
told to him, he wasn't there at the spells performance. Why would
Dumbledore give this testimony? 

Magpie:
Doesn't he testify to it because he believed it to be true? Sirius was
supposed to be the Secret Keeper, wasn't he?

Mike:
It's just possible that Sirius Black had mucked up things once too 
often, and Albus Dumbledore had grown tired of bailing him out. From all
indications, it seems heroic effort would be needed to get Sirius out of
this one, the whole Ministry seemed to be convinced of Black's guilt. So
maybe Dumbledore didn't want to fight for Sirius any more.

Magpie:
MWPP pulled the wool over DD's eyes yet again. He wasn't included in the
Secret Keeper Switch, as far as we know, I believe.

Mike:
Furthermore, maybe Snape did tell Albus about Peter being the one who
ratted out (pun intended) the Potters to LV. But it would have come a while
after the Sirius-Peter confrontation in London, imo, because the "common
knowledge" about Peter didn't become that immediately. I do believe that LV
would have held Peter's identity close to the vest, only told a few
insiders who the spy was. But after the downfall, those in the know would
have released that information to both focus the other DEs anger at Peter
and to exonerate themselves of any treachery. I assume that Voldemort would
approve of this action, too.

Magpie:
The problem with this for me is it starts sounding like Dumbledore and
Snape just acted like they believed certain things and didn't share
information with others because they were trying to help JKR tell the story
of PoA the way she wanted. I don't think that's her style. She sometimes
has plot holes, but if characters lie about something like this, it's
usually transparent enough that it's part of their motivation.


Mike:
The problem with this whole scenario; it doesn't answer why Snape 
would still believe that Black was the traitor of the Potters. Which 
comes back to my contention, Severus Snape was blinded by his hatred of
Sirius Black. He either thought Sirius was part of the treachery, or more
likely, he didn't care. He still thought that Sirius tried to kill him when
they were kids and he wanted to see Sirius dead for his own self-serving
reasons. 

Magpie:
I think he is driven by hatred of Sirius, but I think it's a bit much to
say he knew the truth and just didn't believe it because of that. (That
again sounds like he continued to believe it was Sirius for the plot.) That
Snape believes Sirius was the traitor I take as a given, and considering
Peter's being the traitor is actually the big secret, I accept that Snape
was one of those many surprised. Once he knows Sirius isn't the traitor
he's able to work with him, even if he still hates him. We have good
canonical reasons for believing Sirius was the traitor: Sirius was the
Secret Keeper as far as anyone knew. Snape would have no reason to be
privvy to last-minute switches amongst James Potter's friends. Voldemort
wouldn't necessarily have had any reason to share with him that Peter
Pettigrew had switched sides, and once everything went down, he wouldn't
have had time to fill Snape in on what really happened. So I think Snape,
who was by then a former DE protected by DD, had a good reason for
believing what the good side knew at the time, based on eye witness
accounts.

-m