Lupin’s Resignation: A Doubletake
In Chapter 22 of POA, Lupin tells Harry:
Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives. That was the final straw for Severus.
Wait. What?
Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge of WHAT?
Severus believed in the Shrieking Shack that what he’d witnessed was “the proof” that Remus had been “helping your old friend Black into the castle.” That’s what he must have told Fudge, at a minimum. What might “Professor Snape’s version of events,” which was, per Albus, “far more convincing than” Harry’s, have been? Here’s a sample narrative:
“I had always been suspicious that Lupin might have retained his loyalty to his old pack-mate Black. It was hard to come up with any scenario of how Black could have entered the castle repeatedly and actually obtained the passwords to Gryffindor tower without a confederate among the castle residents, and probably one with a connection to Gryffindor. But the headmaster refused even to entertain the possibility that Lupin might be untrustworthy.
“This evening the werewolf omitted, yet again, to take his potion in a timely manner. When I finally decided that it would be unsafe to wait further and brought it to Lupin’s office, on his desk I found a surveillance device, a map, and on it, Lupin’s name disappearing into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. You must realize that as a schoolboy he had been in the habit of meeting secretly there with his friends, including Black. I knew that the map might have been left as a trap for me, so I approached the Willow anticipating a possible ambush, but hoping to hide and keep surveillance by the Willow, which is the tunnel’s only exit. However, when I got there I found Potter’s invisibility cloak by the tree and signs of something-or someone-having been dragged into the radius of the Willow, which raised the possibility that Black and the werewolf might have kidnapped Potter and his friends. At that point, I had no choice but to enter the tunnel to rescue the children, using Potter’s invisibility cloak in hopes of taking the criminals by surprise.
“When I reached the Shrieking Shack, I found my worst suspicions confirmed; Black and Lupin were indeed in collusion to kidnap the children. The situation when I arrived was this: they had broken Mr. Weasley’s leg to keep him from running. The three children were still armed, at least, and were holding the werewolf and Death Eater at bay. Rather than trying to overpower them, the two criminals seemed to be trying to win the children’s confidence, or at least to keep them distracted until moonrise, by telling them stories about their association with Potter’s father. I had learned when I was sixteen that Black had some means of partially controlling the werewolf when it was transformed; I listened long enough to ascertain Black’s method, and then attempted to capture both criminals. I was knocked out in the struggle….”
*
We have canon confirmation of what Severus believed before he was knocked out. What must he have thought when he subsequently regained consciousness? Remember that he missed out on Pettigrew’s unveiling and pleas for mercy, Harry putting a stop to Black and Lupin’s proposed execution, Sirius saving the children from the werewolf at some cost to himself, the Dementor attack, and the Patronus driving off the Dementors.
First, let’s stop to think what Severus must have believed those collaborators Black and Lupin to have been up to. What kind of plot would a crazed, vicious, and faithful Death Eater come up with that would require the collusion of a werewolf employed by (but not loyal to) Dumbledore, a werewolf which said DE could partially control? It would be in furtherance of the Dark Lord’s aims, probably in preparation for the Dark Lord’s return, so said plot would undoubtedly be designed to destroy as many enemies of the Dark Lord as possible: Harry Potter and Dumbledore at the minimum, preferably as many allies of Dumbledore as could be brought down by his fall.
Having the werewolf which Dumbledore had stuck out his neck for, gone against all wizarding law and prejudice first to educate and then to hire, turn out a traitor loyal all along to the Dark Lord, would do a lot to discredit Dumbledore. Can’t trust those Dark creatures, and Dumbledore was a fool ever to think otherwise. Where else has Albus been a fool, and who else has he endangered by his folly?
But what might have been the exact plan concocted by the Death Eater and the werewolf?
Harry had argued to Snape, “Professor Lupin could have killed ma about a hundred times this year…. I’ve been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn’t he just finish me off then?”
“Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works,” hissed Snape.
But Severus was being a bit disingenuous there. He was pandering to the children’s naiveté. Of course, a full explanation would have taken far longer than he had, even had it not required that he strip the children of their touching innocence and possibly ignited a panic. The former DE knew, if anyone did, that a plot to kidnap rather than kill did not argue any tender concern for the victim. The following year, when Barty, playing Moody, worked to gain Harry’s confidence, did Barty kidnap rather than kill Harry out of KINDNESS to Harry? Or was it all in service of a plan far more horrific than Harry’s quick clean death?
No, if a true servant of Voldemort is plotting to kidnap you, you’re in far worse trouble than if he’s merely trying to kill you.
In trying to imagine Snape’s paranoid speculations, we readers are misled if we think of the protagonists as Sirius, Harry’s devoted godfather, and that nice Professor Lupin. Think rather of what Bellatrix and Fenrir might have intended, had Bella had a means, however crude, of controlling Fenrir’s actions once he was transformed.
And now try to come up with why the pair would choose to kidnap, not merely the Boy-Who-Lived, but his two boon companions (one of them a Pureblood, a Weasley) on a full-moon night. And why they would choose to bring them to a trap with one exit only, and that exit a very long, very low tunnel. So low that a human (adult or child) could not run down it unimpeded.
But a wolf could.
And when Severus raced down that tunnel, and made it to the Shrieking Shack before moonrise, he found the pair of criminals telling stories to the three armed children, apparently trying to hold them fascinated without having to fight them (three wands to one, even if the three were untrained). But the criminals had taken the precaution of breaking the leg of the fastest runner. Knowing-Lupin had taught the trio all year, after all-that immobilizing one would keep any of them from running.
Snape then listened long enough to establish (finally! He’d been trying to figure this out since 5th year!) what the Marauders’ method of controlling the werewolf was, and to listen to Lupin’s direct admission that he’d been withholding information from Dumbledore. Then (drama queen, Sev?) he chose a dramatic moment to reveal himself, and to interrupt….
Well. Maybe someone else can shuffle the pieces into a different pattern. But it looks to me like what Severus thought he was interrupting was, Remus would transform at moonrise, Sirius would ensure he bit and infected-but did NOT kill-Harry Potter, and then the other two would be killed and eaten.
A dead Boy-Who=Lived could be a martyr of the Light. An infected one, now a Dark creature dangerous to others, not so.
JKR’s canon doesn’t specify how quickly lycanthropy takes hold in a victim. It’s at least possible that, as with current depictions of zombies, the magical infection takes over and transforms the victim almost at once. Remus assured us that the instinct to bite humans is so utterly overwhelming for a transformed werewolf that the wolf savages itself in frustration if it has no human victims to pursue. Whereas animals-we know by the Marauder Animagi-are not irresistible prey, even when they are actually transformed humans. So it seems plausible that the reason werewolves ever transmit their disease, ever leave victims alive, is that if the first bite is non-lethal, the infection can establish itself quickly enough to transform the victim from prey to pack-mate before the original werewolf can start seriously dining on the victim’s entrails.
Were that the case, the plan was for infected-Harry to help Remus eat Ron and Hermione. Harry (assuming he didn’t just suicide or go insane at the emotional shock of killing his best friends-recall that per Lupin, in the morning he would remember what he did) would be a permanent pariah in the WW, maybe an outright criminal.
But in any case, werewolf!Harry could certainly never serve as a rallying point for the Light. And for hiring the wolf that had turned him and killed his fellows, Dumbledore would be utterly discredited, stripped of his headmastership and probably of his other posts. Those following him would either abandon ship or go down with him. Harry could never trust or follow Dumbledore again, after the headmaster’s blind trust in the werewolf had led to such catastrophe.
The Weasleys, ditto, and all their family, friends, and connections Their son killed because Dumbledore had insisted, against warnings, on trusting a werewolf who turned out to be a follower of You-Know-Who?
So. That, or something like that, is the horror Severus thought he was protecting the children from in the Shrieking Shack. But he forgot (shame, Sev!) that just because he was firmly on the children’s side, they weren’t automatically on his. He was watching Sirius and Remus; he forgot he needed also to watch the children’s wands. And so he let them knock him out with that tripled Expelliarmus that he himself had taught them.
And Severus eventually regained consciousness, to discover himself in the open, battered and bruised, with an injured and unconscious child next to him. He recovered in time to see the Dementors drifting away from the lake shore where he subsequently found the limp forms of Harry, Hermione, and Sirius. The werewolf was nowhere in sight, though the moon was up.
What would Severus have thought, to make sense of the situation in which he then found himself?
Presumably, that the criminal pair’s plot had been foiled by the Dementors. Who must have chased the werewolf away from the children, however badly their presence had affected the full-humans. (Could Severus tell by examining Harry that one had nearly Kissed the boy? It must have been apparent somehow, because Fudge knew (without having interviewed Harry): “Never dreamed they’d attempt to administer the Kiss on an innocent boy… Completely out of control…. no, I’ll have them packed off back to Azkaban tonight….” )
Regardless, Snape never saw Harry’s Patronus, and he had no reason to expect anyone else to be on the grounds to cast one. The Dementors must have abandoned Black and the children to go after the werewolf; what other explanation could there be? But they were heading back to their positions guarding the entrance when he saw them….. Snape had no explanation for that. Had they abandoned Black and the children for the wolf, and then the wolf managed to elude them?
(One has to infer from canon, BTW, that Dementors suffer strongly from ADD-deflect them a single time from a specific target and they forget all about it, rather than regrouping and trying again!)
*
Now, back to Cornelius. Before Black’s escape, Fudge credited entirely whatever story Snape had told him. Black was the blackest of villains, and Snape had singlehandedly saved Potter from a horrific fate and captured the villain for the Ministry. The children had been Confunded into believing Black innocent, but when they’d been returned to their right minds they would want to express their heartfelt gratitude to Professor Snape….
And, interestingly enough, Fudge and Snape didn’t talk much about the role of the werewolf in all this. Which role discredited the headmaster for having trusted Lupin. Perchance Severus downplayed that angle, to protect his employer from criticism…?
But the general story I’ve outlined above was probably what Albus would have had to discredit to Fudge, if Lupin was telling the truth about Albus persuading Fudge he’d not been in collusion with Black.
Now, Lupin’s a liar much after Twinkle’s own heart. But like the Twinkly One, he usually lies by telling half-truths or by misdirection rather than by uttering outright falsehoods.
Much easier to keep track of, you know, easier to get believed, and much harder to call someone out on.
But in this case, we have actual evidence confirming Lupin’s statement: Lupin was not arrested. Sirius was still believed by Fudge and the Ministry to be a mass-murderer, the Potters’ betrayer, and a loyal DE, but the werewolf (whose refusal to take his potion had endangered both schoolchildren and the Minister himself-remember that the Ministry party would have left after moonrise) was never arrested as Black’s accomplice or on any other charges.
So what did Twinkles tell Fudge, to get Lupin off the hook? How did he discredit Snape’s testimony?
Of course, it helped that Fudge did NOT want Skeeter and the Prophet to have the full story about the night’s adventures. If it never got out at all that Black had actually been in the Ministry’s custody, and had escaped from it, it would be the better for Fudge’s reputation. We actually saw Fudge start the whitewash: “We had Black cornered, and he slipped through our fingers yet again!”
Um, no, Cornelius. You didn’t have Black “cornered.” He was delivered to you, trussed, gagged, and unconscious, tied up with a pretty green-and-silver bow and a gift card with the flourishing inscription, “Compliments of S. Snape.” You wanted to give S. Snape an Order of Merlin First Class for giving you that present, remember?
And your incompetence (and Albus’s machinations and the kids’ competence, but you don’t know about those) allowed Sirius to escape again.
(Aside: and we’re surprised that Fudge took more precautions the next time an Azkaban- escapee Death Eater was in custody on Hogwarts grounds?)
Well, you certainly don’t want to give Snape the Order of Merlin now, do you? His accomplishment just points up the Ministerial fumbling. The last thing you want now is to draw attention to Snape’s heroism.
Better if his achievement were downplayed entirely. In fact, if his whole testimony were discredited.
Which is, undoubtedly, where Albus stepped in with a few quiet words. Following up on Snape’s intemperate (and concussed, as Whitehound points out) behavior when he found out that Black had escaped.
“YOU DON’T KNOW POTTER!” shrieked Snape. “HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT-”
“That will do, Severus,” said Dumbledore quietly….
Snape stood there, seething, staring from Fudge, who looked quite shocked by his behavior, to Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling behind his glasses. Snape whirled about, robes swishing behind him, and stormed out of the ward.
“Fellow seems quite unbalanced,” said Fudge, staring after him. “I’d watch out for him if I were you, Dumbledore.”
“Oh, he’s not unbalanced,” said Dumbledore quietly. “He’s just suffered a severe disappointment.”
…
“Hagrid would like that [guard dragons],” said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry and Hermione. As he and Fudge left the dormitory, Madam Pomfrey hurried to the door and locked it again.
So what exactly did Albus tell Cornelius in confidence, once he had him in private?
How about…
“Well, Severus actually IS a bit unbalanced where his old enemies are concerned. You heard his wild accusations about young Harry just now, merely because Harry resembles his father and Severus never could give up his grudge against James Potter. Even long dead and a hero, Potter’s still resented by Snape…. I’m afraid he’s got a similar bee in his bonnet where Remus Lupin is concerned. Yes, it was terribly careless of Remus not to have taken his potion tonight, but you don’t realize what provoked him to forget. Remus told them on entering the Shrieking Shack (the children can confirm Black’s testimony if you choose to question them), that Map of his actually showed him Black dragging Ronald Weasley into the tunnel. He naturally ran at once to save the boy, entirely forgetting that without the potion he’d be a danger to the students he was trying to protect.
“However, Black heard-they all did-Remus charging to the children’s rescue. Unlike Severus, Remus wasn’t trying to sneak around. Miss Granger actually called out for help when they heard Remus racing up the steps. But unfortunately, that gave Black time to be ready for him. So Black Confunded Remus as well as the children, convincing them all temporarily that he was innocent and the dead Pettigrew the criminal…. I’m convinced that Remus would have broken free of his confusion when Pettigrew failed to materialize, had moonrise not interfered.”
Beatific smile. “I do have access to Veritaserum, you know, Cornelius, and I knew the Ministry would approve its use on such as Black, so I was able to assure myself of the veracity of Black’s confession. “
A long-suffering sigh. “My poor Severus, however, can never be brought to see any good in his hated schoolboy rivals. Whatever he told you about Lupin having been in collusion with Black was the product of his own disordered imagination. He must always believe the worst of Lupin, whereas the truth is that Remus behaved with great gallantry and intrepidity, even though in the precipitance of his concern for his students he made the grave mistake of forgetting first to take his potion.”
There. Dumbledore’s reputation for wisdom and omniscience was not tarnished by the revelation that he’d employed a werewolf who’d spent all year betraying Dumbledore’s trust and hiding information that would have led to the apprehension of a crazed mass-murdering Death Eater, much less one in collusion with said criminal. Nor by the discovery that a quartet of schoolchildren had successfully deceived the headmaster for years and engaged in crimes that threatened every student and Hogsmeade resident, even after another student had revealed part of their secret to him. Nor by the admission that Dumbledore’s loyal followers had not trusted him to know their true Secret-Keeper, nor by the confession that both Dumbledore and the Ministry had erred in shipping Sirius off to Azkaban as they had.
Lupin stood still further in Dumbledore’s debt, an agreeable bonus.
Cornelius had the perfect excuse not to reward anyone for capturing-excuse me, cornering-Sirius. The honor belonged near-equally to Lupin, after all, and no one could possibly expect Fudge to award an Order of Merlin to a damned werewolf who’d almost eaten the Ministry party! All without reference to the embarrassing question of how Snape’s neatly gift-wrapped package had somehow come to do a flit once he’d given it to Fudge.
(Although the eventual reflection that Dumbledore had been the last one to enjoy Black’s presence must not have added to Fudge’s confidence in the headmaster….)
Black was persuaded to give a statement supporting the charade on the grounds that it was the only way to protect his friend Remus until Black’s name was cleared, that Dumbledore couldn’t clear Sirius without first catching Peter, and that Dumbledore promised to arrange for Sirius to be smuggled to safety now, and later, to set in motion a rat-hunt.
Dusts hands neatly. Doesn’t that work?
And no wonder that being traduced to the Minister of Magic and HIS valor attributed to Remus had been “the last straw” for Severus.
Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives. That was the final straw for Severus.
Wait. What?
Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge of WHAT?
Severus believed in the Shrieking Shack that what he’d witnessed was “the proof” that Remus had been “helping your old friend Black into the castle.” That’s what he must have told Fudge, at a minimum. What might “Professor Snape’s version of events,” which was, per Albus, “far more convincing than” Harry’s, have been? Here’s a sample narrative:
“I had always been suspicious that Lupin might have retained his loyalty to his old pack-mate Black. It was hard to come up with any scenario of how Black could have entered the castle repeatedly and actually obtained the passwords to Gryffindor tower without a confederate among the castle residents, and probably one with a connection to Gryffindor. But the headmaster refused even to entertain the possibility that Lupin might be untrustworthy.
“This evening the werewolf omitted, yet again, to take his potion in a timely manner. When I finally decided that it would be unsafe to wait further and brought it to Lupin’s office, on his desk I found a surveillance device, a map, and on it, Lupin’s name disappearing into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. You must realize that as a schoolboy he had been in the habit of meeting secretly there with his friends, including Black. I knew that the map might have been left as a trap for me, so I approached the Willow anticipating a possible ambush, but hoping to hide and keep surveillance by the Willow, which is the tunnel’s only exit. However, when I got there I found Potter’s invisibility cloak by the tree and signs of something-or someone-having been dragged into the radius of the Willow, which raised the possibility that Black and the werewolf might have kidnapped Potter and his friends. At that point, I had no choice but to enter the tunnel to rescue the children, using Potter’s invisibility cloak in hopes of taking the criminals by surprise.
“When I reached the Shrieking Shack, I found my worst suspicions confirmed; Black and Lupin were indeed in collusion to kidnap the children. The situation when I arrived was this: they had broken Mr. Weasley’s leg to keep him from running. The three children were still armed, at least, and were holding the werewolf and Death Eater at bay. Rather than trying to overpower them, the two criminals seemed to be trying to win the children’s confidence, or at least to keep them distracted until moonrise, by telling them stories about their association with Potter’s father. I had learned when I was sixteen that Black had some means of partially controlling the werewolf when it was transformed; I listened long enough to ascertain Black’s method, and then attempted to capture both criminals. I was knocked out in the struggle….”
*
We have canon confirmation of what Severus believed before he was knocked out. What must he have thought when he subsequently regained consciousness? Remember that he missed out on Pettigrew’s unveiling and pleas for mercy, Harry putting a stop to Black and Lupin’s proposed execution, Sirius saving the children from the werewolf at some cost to himself, the Dementor attack, and the Patronus driving off the Dementors.
First, let’s stop to think what Severus must have believed those collaborators Black and Lupin to have been up to. What kind of plot would a crazed, vicious, and faithful Death Eater come up with that would require the collusion of a werewolf employed by (but not loyal to) Dumbledore, a werewolf which said DE could partially control? It would be in furtherance of the Dark Lord’s aims, probably in preparation for the Dark Lord’s return, so said plot would undoubtedly be designed to destroy as many enemies of the Dark Lord as possible: Harry Potter and Dumbledore at the minimum, preferably as many allies of Dumbledore as could be brought down by his fall.
Having the werewolf which Dumbledore had stuck out his neck for, gone against all wizarding law and prejudice first to educate and then to hire, turn out a traitor loyal all along to the Dark Lord, would do a lot to discredit Dumbledore. Can’t trust those Dark creatures, and Dumbledore was a fool ever to think otherwise. Where else has Albus been a fool, and who else has he endangered by his folly?
But what might have been the exact plan concocted by the Death Eater and the werewolf?
Harry had argued to Snape, “Professor Lupin could have killed ma about a hundred times this year…. I’ve been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn’t he just finish me off then?”
“Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works,” hissed Snape.
But Severus was being a bit disingenuous there. He was pandering to the children’s naiveté. Of course, a full explanation would have taken far longer than he had, even had it not required that he strip the children of their touching innocence and possibly ignited a panic. The former DE knew, if anyone did, that a plot to kidnap rather than kill did not argue any tender concern for the victim. The following year, when Barty, playing Moody, worked to gain Harry’s confidence, did Barty kidnap rather than kill Harry out of KINDNESS to Harry? Or was it all in service of a plan far more horrific than Harry’s quick clean death?
No, if a true servant of Voldemort is plotting to kidnap you, you’re in far worse trouble than if he’s merely trying to kill you.
In trying to imagine Snape’s paranoid speculations, we readers are misled if we think of the protagonists as Sirius, Harry’s devoted godfather, and that nice Professor Lupin. Think rather of what Bellatrix and Fenrir might have intended, had Bella had a means, however crude, of controlling Fenrir’s actions once he was transformed.
And now try to come up with why the pair would choose to kidnap, not merely the Boy-Who-Lived, but his two boon companions (one of them a Pureblood, a Weasley) on a full-moon night. And why they would choose to bring them to a trap with one exit only, and that exit a very long, very low tunnel. So low that a human (adult or child) could not run down it unimpeded.
But a wolf could.
And when Severus raced down that tunnel, and made it to the Shrieking Shack before moonrise, he found the pair of criminals telling stories to the three armed children, apparently trying to hold them fascinated without having to fight them (three wands to one, even if the three were untrained). But the criminals had taken the precaution of breaking the leg of the fastest runner. Knowing-Lupin had taught the trio all year, after all-that immobilizing one would keep any of them from running.
Snape then listened long enough to establish (finally! He’d been trying to figure this out since 5th year!) what the Marauders’ method of controlling the werewolf was, and to listen to Lupin’s direct admission that he’d been withholding information from Dumbledore. Then (drama queen, Sev?) he chose a dramatic moment to reveal himself, and to interrupt….
Well. Maybe someone else can shuffle the pieces into a different pattern. But it looks to me like what Severus thought he was interrupting was, Remus would transform at moonrise, Sirius would ensure he bit and infected-but did NOT kill-Harry Potter, and then the other two would be killed and eaten.
A dead Boy-Who=Lived could be a martyr of the Light. An infected one, now a Dark creature dangerous to others, not so.
JKR’s canon doesn’t specify how quickly lycanthropy takes hold in a victim. It’s at least possible that, as with current depictions of zombies, the magical infection takes over and transforms the victim almost at once. Remus assured us that the instinct to bite humans is so utterly overwhelming for a transformed werewolf that the wolf savages itself in frustration if it has no human victims to pursue. Whereas animals-we know by the Marauder Animagi-are not irresistible prey, even when they are actually transformed humans. So it seems plausible that the reason werewolves ever transmit their disease, ever leave victims alive, is that if the first bite is non-lethal, the infection can establish itself quickly enough to transform the victim from prey to pack-mate before the original werewolf can start seriously dining on the victim’s entrails.
Were that the case, the plan was for infected-Harry to help Remus eat Ron and Hermione. Harry (assuming he didn’t just suicide or go insane at the emotional shock of killing his best friends-recall that per Lupin, in the morning he would remember what he did) would be a permanent pariah in the WW, maybe an outright criminal.
But in any case, werewolf!Harry could certainly never serve as a rallying point for the Light. And for hiring the wolf that had turned him and killed his fellows, Dumbledore would be utterly discredited, stripped of his headmastership and probably of his other posts. Those following him would either abandon ship or go down with him. Harry could never trust or follow Dumbledore again, after the headmaster’s blind trust in the werewolf had led to such catastrophe.
The Weasleys, ditto, and all their family, friends, and connections Their son killed because Dumbledore had insisted, against warnings, on trusting a werewolf who turned out to be a follower of You-Know-Who?
So. That, or something like that, is the horror Severus thought he was protecting the children from in the Shrieking Shack. But he forgot (shame, Sev!) that just because he was firmly on the children’s side, they weren’t automatically on his. He was watching Sirius and Remus; he forgot he needed also to watch the children’s wands. And so he let them knock him out with that tripled Expelliarmus that he himself had taught them.
And Severus eventually regained consciousness, to discover himself in the open, battered and bruised, with an injured and unconscious child next to him. He recovered in time to see the Dementors drifting away from the lake shore where he subsequently found the limp forms of Harry, Hermione, and Sirius. The werewolf was nowhere in sight, though the moon was up.
What would Severus have thought, to make sense of the situation in which he then found himself?
Presumably, that the criminal pair’s plot had been foiled by the Dementors. Who must have chased the werewolf away from the children, however badly their presence had affected the full-humans. (Could Severus tell by examining Harry that one had nearly Kissed the boy? It must have been apparent somehow, because Fudge knew (without having interviewed Harry): “Never dreamed they’d attempt to administer the Kiss on an innocent boy… Completely out of control…. no, I’ll have them packed off back to Azkaban tonight….” )
Regardless, Snape never saw Harry’s Patronus, and he had no reason to expect anyone else to be on the grounds to cast one. The Dementors must have abandoned Black and the children to go after the werewolf; what other explanation could there be? But they were heading back to their positions guarding the entrance when he saw them….. Snape had no explanation for that. Had they abandoned Black and the children for the wolf, and then the wolf managed to elude them?
(One has to infer from canon, BTW, that Dementors suffer strongly from ADD-deflect them a single time from a specific target and they forget all about it, rather than regrouping and trying again!)
*
Now, back to Cornelius. Before Black’s escape, Fudge credited entirely whatever story Snape had told him. Black was the blackest of villains, and Snape had singlehandedly saved Potter from a horrific fate and captured the villain for the Ministry. The children had been Confunded into believing Black innocent, but when they’d been returned to their right minds they would want to express their heartfelt gratitude to Professor Snape….
And, interestingly enough, Fudge and Snape didn’t talk much about the role of the werewolf in all this. Which role discredited the headmaster for having trusted Lupin. Perchance Severus downplayed that angle, to protect his employer from criticism…?
But the general story I’ve outlined above was probably what Albus would have had to discredit to Fudge, if Lupin was telling the truth about Albus persuading Fudge he’d not been in collusion with Black.
Now, Lupin’s a liar much after Twinkle’s own heart. But like the Twinkly One, he usually lies by telling half-truths or by misdirection rather than by uttering outright falsehoods.
Much easier to keep track of, you know, easier to get believed, and much harder to call someone out on.
But in this case, we have actual evidence confirming Lupin’s statement: Lupin was not arrested. Sirius was still believed by Fudge and the Ministry to be a mass-murderer, the Potters’ betrayer, and a loyal DE, but the werewolf (whose refusal to take his potion had endangered both schoolchildren and the Minister himself-remember that the Ministry party would have left after moonrise) was never arrested as Black’s accomplice or on any other charges.
So what did Twinkles tell Fudge, to get Lupin off the hook? How did he discredit Snape’s testimony?
Of course, it helped that Fudge did NOT want Skeeter and the Prophet to have the full story about the night’s adventures. If it never got out at all that Black had actually been in the Ministry’s custody, and had escaped from it, it would be the better for Fudge’s reputation. We actually saw Fudge start the whitewash: “We had Black cornered, and he slipped through our fingers yet again!”
Um, no, Cornelius. You didn’t have Black “cornered.” He was delivered to you, trussed, gagged, and unconscious, tied up with a pretty green-and-silver bow and a gift card with the flourishing inscription, “Compliments of S. Snape.” You wanted to give S. Snape an Order of Merlin First Class for giving you that present, remember?
And your incompetence (and Albus’s machinations and the kids’ competence, but you don’t know about those) allowed Sirius to escape again.
(Aside: and we’re surprised that Fudge took more precautions the next time an Azkaban- escapee Death Eater was in custody on Hogwarts grounds?)
Well, you certainly don’t want to give Snape the Order of Merlin now, do you? His accomplishment just points up the Ministerial fumbling. The last thing you want now is to draw attention to Snape’s heroism.
Better if his achievement were downplayed entirely. In fact, if his whole testimony were discredited.
Which is, undoubtedly, where Albus stepped in with a few quiet words. Following up on Snape’s intemperate (and concussed, as Whitehound points out) behavior when he found out that Black had escaped.
“YOU DON’T KNOW POTTER!” shrieked Snape. “HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT-”
“That will do, Severus,” said Dumbledore quietly….
Snape stood there, seething, staring from Fudge, who looked quite shocked by his behavior, to Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling behind his glasses. Snape whirled about, robes swishing behind him, and stormed out of the ward.
“Fellow seems quite unbalanced,” said Fudge, staring after him. “I’d watch out for him if I were you, Dumbledore.”
“Oh, he’s not unbalanced,” said Dumbledore quietly. “He’s just suffered a severe disappointment.”
…
“Hagrid would like that [guard dragons],” said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry and Hermione. As he and Fudge left the dormitory, Madam Pomfrey hurried to the door and locked it again.
So what exactly did Albus tell Cornelius in confidence, once he had him in private?
How about…
“Well, Severus actually IS a bit unbalanced where his old enemies are concerned. You heard his wild accusations about young Harry just now, merely because Harry resembles his father and Severus never could give up his grudge against James Potter. Even long dead and a hero, Potter’s still resented by Snape…. I’m afraid he’s got a similar bee in his bonnet where Remus Lupin is concerned. Yes, it was terribly careless of Remus not to have taken his potion tonight, but you don’t realize what provoked him to forget. Remus told them on entering the Shrieking Shack (the children can confirm Black’s testimony if you choose to question them), that Map of his actually showed him Black dragging Ronald Weasley into the tunnel. He naturally ran at once to save the boy, entirely forgetting that without the potion he’d be a danger to the students he was trying to protect.
“However, Black heard-they all did-Remus charging to the children’s rescue. Unlike Severus, Remus wasn’t trying to sneak around. Miss Granger actually called out for help when they heard Remus racing up the steps. But unfortunately, that gave Black time to be ready for him. So Black Confunded Remus as well as the children, convincing them all temporarily that he was innocent and the dead Pettigrew the criminal…. I’m convinced that Remus would have broken free of his confusion when Pettigrew failed to materialize, had moonrise not interfered.”
Beatific smile. “I do have access to Veritaserum, you know, Cornelius, and I knew the Ministry would approve its use on such as Black, so I was able to assure myself of the veracity of Black’s confession. “
A long-suffering sigh. “My poor Severus, however, can never be brought to see any good in his hated schoolboy rivals. Whatever he told you about Lupin having been in collusion with Black was the product of his own disordered imagination. He must always believe the worst of Lupin, whereas the truth is that Remus behaved with great gallantry and intrepidity, even though in the precipitance of his concern for his students he made the grave mistake of forgetting first to take his potion.”
There. Dumbledore’s reputation for wisdom and omniscience was not tarnished by the revelation that he’d employed a werewolf who’d spent all year betraying Dumbledore’s trust and hiding information that would have led to the apprehension of a crazed mass-murdering Death Eater, much less one in collusion with said criminal. Nor by the discovery that a quartet of schoolchildren had successfully deceived the headmaster for years and engaged in crimes that threatened every student and Hogsmeade resident, even after another student had revealed part of their secret to him. Nor by the admission that Dumbledore’s loyal followers had not trusted him to know their true Secret-Keeper, nor by the confession that both Dumbledore and the Ministry had erred in shipping Sirius off to Azkaban as they had.
Lupin stood still further in Dumbledore’s debt, an agreeable bonus.
Cornelius had the perfect excuse not to reward anyone for capturing-excuse me, cornering-Sirius. The honor belonged near-equally to Lupin, after all, and no one could possibly expect Fudge to award an Order of Merlin to a damned werewolf who’d almost eaten the Ministry party! All without reference to the embarrassing question of how Snape’s neatly gift-wrapped package had somehow come to do a flit once he’d given it to Fudge.
(Although the eventual reflection that Dumbledore had been the last one to enjoy Black’s presence must not have added to Fudge’s confidence in the headmaster….)
Black was persuaded to give a statement supporting the charade on the grounds that it was the only way to protect his friend Remus until Black’s name was cleared, that Dumbledore couldn’t clear Sirius without first catching Peter, and that Dumbledore promised to arrange for Sirius to be smuggled to safety now, and later, to set in motion a rat-hunt.
Dusts hands neatly. Doesn’t that work?
And no wonder that being traduced to the Minister of Magic and HIS valor attributed to Remus had been “the last straw” for Severus.