Javert, Percy, Snape and Neville

[blpurdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 31120

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., butagirl at a... wrote:
 
> Before you brought the character of Javert up, I had always 
> equated Javert with Snape. This man appears to be torn in 
> different directions by the the events of his past - his dislike 
> of James versus the fact that he saved his life. 

One could equate Snape with Javert and Sirius with Jean Valjean if 
Snape had actually spent every waking moment since Sirius had 
escaped from prison trying to track him down, or if he had spent the 
last twelve years keeping track of Remus Lupin and trying to get him 
locked up where he couldn't hurt anyone during the full moon.  While 
Snape gets into quite a frenzy at the thought of nailing Sirius, he 
THINKS he knows what Sirius did: in addition to nearly getting Snape 
killed while they were students, as far as Snape knows, Sirius was 
largely responsible for the murder of the man who saved his life and 
has been hunting down that man's son in order to kill him (Snape is 
wrong about all this, but then so is everyone else in the wizarding 
world).  

This is hardly the same as Javert hounding a man for years who stole 
a loaf of bread.  And at the end of GoF, Snape is willing to put 
aside all of his bad history with Sirius to fight on the same side.  
If anyone had a sort of Javert nature, it was Barty Crouch, but 
inasmuch as he is dead, I don't think we'll be hearing him singing 
any selections from Les Miz anytime soon...<g>

--Barb