Why the Veritaserum theory is all wet

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 34905

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "tex23236" <jbryson at r...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "marinafrants" <rusalka at i...> wrote:
> > "It served him right," he sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to 
> > figure out what we were up to... always trying to get us
> expelled..."
> 
> "Served him right?"  When do we ourselves make that comment?
> Usually it's when something happens to somebody who deserves it,
> _But_that_we_didn't_do_ourselves._  

Not at all.  "I did it to him, and it served him right" is a perfectly
valid and sensible construction; I've both used it and heard it used
any number of times.

Also, if "Served him right" meant "He deserved it, but I didn't do
it," then Sirius' use of the expression would imply that he *knows*
he'd been Veritaserumed.  In which case, why the heck doesn't he just
say so?

> Theory or no therory, we
> don't know all there is to the Prank story, and need to hold 
> judgement on both Snape and Black until we get it.

We may not know all, but what we do know is perfectly
straight-forward, non-contradictory, and mutually agreed upon by all
the still-living characters who were involved.  Lupin says, "Sirius
played a trick on Snape."  Sirius says, "yeah, and it served him
right, the nosy git."  Snape says "you were all  in on it and I'll
hate you forever."  There's nothing here that requires extra levels of
complication.  The information we're missing about the event is
internal -- what were all the people involved thinking?  -- rather
than external.


> Thing is, D'dore expressly credits James with saving Severus' life.
> I'm not so sure he would have done that if James had simply
> chickened out of a deadly prank.

James didn't chicken out -- that's just Snape's skewed interpretation
of it, because Snape believes that James was in on the prank.  But
James wasn't in on it; he didn't find out until after it happened. 
The he went to save Snape -- not because he chickened out, but
because, unlike Sirius, he realized the potentially deadly
consequences.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com