Sirius as a dog

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181049

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Goddlefrood" <gav_fiji at ...> wrote:
>
> > Potioncat:
> > It appears that Snape doesn't learn of the Marauders' animagi 
> > tricks until the end of GoF, when Sirius transforms in front 
> > of him. He may have heard about it at the end of PoA, but I 
> > don't think he believed it. 
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> The relevant canon is in:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/169043
> 
> Severus certainly overheard the conversation about the 
> Marauders learning to transform from the lips of two of 
> them in The Shrieking Shack. It's possible he didn't 
> believe it, but it's also possible he did and actually 
> kept his mouth shut for his own nefarious purposes.
>

Carol:

Possibly, you linked to the wrong post since the canon you cite seems
only to relate to Lupin's transformations.

Snape did hear Lupin stating that the other three had become Animagi
and something about a rat, but he believed, along with the entire WW,
that Sirius Black had murdered Wormtail, so even if he was in a fit
mental state to put two and two together, he would have rejected the
idea that Scabbers was Wormtail even more vehemently than HRH did
(until the end of GoF when he hears Barty Crouch's references to
Wormtail and then finds out by returning to Voldemort on DD's orders
that Wormtail is Peter Pettigrew. As for Sirius being a dog, Snape
didn't hear what kinds of animals the Marauders turned into, so he
would have been shocked to see the black dog turn into Sirius Black.
By that time, he may have known or deduced part of the story (for
example, that DD had authorized Hermione and Harry to use the Time
Turner to aid in Black's escape), but I don't think he knew the full
story (or believed what he'd heard in the Shrieking Shack) until he
saw Black transform and Pettigrew alive.

As for "nefarious purposes," he thought that Sirius Black had betrayed
the Potters to their deaths and that he had come to Hogwarts to murder
Harry, with the aid of his friend Lupin, who was helping him into the
castle. (Of course, there was also that little matter of the so-called
Prank; he had just overheard Black saying that it would have served
him right to be bitten by Lupin.)

So, altogether, given the combination of information and
misinformation at his disposal and his emotional state at the moment,
it's no wonder that he misinterpreted or disbelieved what he heard.
Harry, as we know, has a tendency to do much the same thing, believing
the worst of Snape as he believed the worst of Black and Lupin.

Carol, who thought that DH cleared Snape of all charges with regard to
"nefarious purposes," and noting that he conjured stretchers for the
unconscious HRH and Black despite having been insulted and knocked out