Why Did Sirius Play the Joke on Snape?

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24836

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:
> cynthiaanncoe at h... wrote:
> 
> > In PoA, we are told that Sirius plays a "joke" on Snape that could
> > have gotten Snape killed by following Lupin to the Shrieking 
Shack.
> >
> > I have always had trouble with this.  Lupin was lucky to be 
admitted
> > to Hogwarts in the first place, and elaborate protections have 
been
> > put in place so Lupin can attend school.  Wizards don't like
> > werewolves, and Lupin is keeping it quiet that he's a werewolf. 
Lupin
> > is one of Sirius' best friends.  Sirius knows all of these 
things, is
> > smart, and is at least a fifth year student.
> >
> > So why in the world would Sirius deliberately set up a situation 
where
> > Lupin, one of his best friends, kills someone and would thereby be
> > expelled or worse?
> 
> Hmmm. Because Snape did something to *him* in particular, 
sufficient to
> make him focus entirely on revenge and not past that point--spied on
> him, caught him doing something, whatever? Secondarily, because 
Sirius,
> for some nebulous reason, "feels" impulsive to me. I don't believe 
he
> thought it through. Had he, he might not have done it, but I don't 
think
> Sirius is the think-it-through type. He's a mover and shaker. 
Plenty of
> very intelligent people do very dumb things for this very reason.
> 
> >  And why doesn't Lupin show any signs of ever having been at all
> > peeved about being used like this?
> 
> Probably because they had at least two years at Hogwarts and X years
> afterward to have fought about it, sniped about it, and worked it 
out,
> so that it was not of sufficient importance to have been revisited 
in
> the minute sample of Lupin/Sirius interaction that we've seen.
> 
> --Amanda

Amanda, I think your explanation is the only thing that makes sense.

But I'm still troubled by this.  I think it would work better if 
Sirius had done something careless (rather than deliberate) that 
tipped Snape about Lupin and set up the situation where Snape follows 
Lupin into the Shrieking Shack.  That would explain better why Lupin 
would forgive Lupin.  And most importantly, it wouldn't give me such 
a powerful reason to dislike Sirius when I desperately want to like 
everything about him.  Then the blame for the whole incident would be 
more on Snape (where it should be) than on Sirius (where most of it 
is now).
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]