Half-Blood Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183853

Jen wrote:
> <SNIP> 
> > As a former DADA teacher and soldier, it makes perfect sense to me
that Lupin would've taken time to learn more about Snape.  

> > How would he learn?  Well, Lupin is hanging around Moody for one 
thing, who 'was wearing a look of deep skepticism behind Dumbledore's
back' in the Pensieve memory in GOF ("The Pensieve") when Dumbledore
vouched for Snape.  Moody's the source imo, even if the words are 
Lupin's.
> 
Alla:
> 
> Good one Jen, I agree but want to suggest another possibility - 
those  twelve forever missing years of Lupin's life. The first couple
of those years may have been Lupin's spying, no? And he may as well 
observe Snape in action. I mean, we still have Fudge's words that
Dumbledore had SPIES, not one spy and no, I do not consider it a flint.

Carol responds:
I like the suggestion that Lupin learned about Snape's use of
Sectumsempra from Moody after Snape "murdered" Dumbledore (though he
would not have learned it till the Order re-formed and maybe not until
Snape killed Dumbledore, when all the previously placed restraints in
criticizing Snape were removed). That suggestion resolves the
difficulty I was having, which was that Severus could not have
performed Sectumsempra at school or he'd have been expelled (see my
previous arguments) and Lupin could not have known that Snape had been
a DE until after Snape was sent to Dumbledore at the end of GoF (when
McGonagall, Sirius Black, and Mrs. Weasley also learned it). 

Snape had most likely joined the DEs just out of Hogwarts, revealing
the Prophecy some two years later. Some nine months or so after the
Prophecy was revealed, after Harry's birth, Snape went to Dumbledore
pleading for Lily's life and began spying for DD "at great personal
risk." Perhaps fifteen months later, after Snape (whose identity as a
 supposedly loyal DE could not have been known) was hired to teach
Potions, Harry's parents were killed, Voldemort fell, and Sirius Black
went to prison. We *know* that during this entire four-year period,
both before and after Snape secretly switched sides, Sirius Black did
not know that he'd been a Death Eater. He must have learned soon after
Snape returned from Voldemort, when the Order was officially reformed.
That Lupin also did not know about Snape's past is clear from his
conduct toward him in PoA; surely he would have said something in the
Shrieking Shack if he'd known then that Snape had been a DE. there's
no reason why he would have known if Black didn't. (Most likely DD was
keeping the identity of his valuable spy under wraps, especially given
DD's reluctance to share information.)

All of this is to say that Lupin could not have known about Snape's DE
activities, including the use of Sectumsempra, before Godric's Hollow
or learned about it at any time before the Order re-formed between GoF
and OoP. Nor was Snape likely to talk about his past as a DE with
Lupin ("Remember So-and-So, who went to hospital with cuts all over
his chest and died there because no one knew the countercurse? That
was my work.")

Moody, who, as Jen says, was deeply suspicious of Snape's transfer of
loyalty, would, however, be likely to know about Snape's use of
Sectumsempra, perhaps through the confessions of other DEs. He makes a
plausible source of information for Lupin, who could not otherwise
have known. Stll, though, I find it annoying to have to search for
explanations as to how a character could have known something. It's
like Ron knowing that Draco had a Hand of Glory (which, canonically,
he didn't because Lucius refused to by it for him) or trying to
account for Sirius Black's letter being at 12 GP. Sure, we can figure
out ways that such things could have happened, but we shouldn't have
to. JKR should have reread her own stories to make them factually
consistent and provided explanations for anything that didn't
logically follow from the previous books.

As for those missing twelve years of Lupin's life, they occur after
Godric's Hollow, at which time Snape was teaching Potions at Hogwarts
and Voldemort was hiding in vapor form in Albania. Lupin could not
have spied on Snape during that time, nor would there have been any
reason to do so.

I do agree, Alla, that DD had a network of useful spies, not just
Snape among the DEs. I suspect that Mundungus, Aberforth, and Mrs.
Figg were among them. Which still doesn't tell us what Lupin was doing
while Snape was teaching classes, marking essays, prowling the halls
and holding detentions. (As a sidenote, I suspect that Snape was
maintaining his Slytherin connections in order to spy on his friends
during holidays. Perhaps Lupin was among the werewolves?)

Carol, settling for Jen's explanation as the best she can hope for but
still not liking that line of Lupin's