Snape and the Prank...some thoughts

[Penny Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 47039

Hi --

Eric said:

<<<<<<My own take on why Sirius wasn't expelled over the Prank is that it is quite possible that Snape was guilty of a lot more, himself, than "sneaking around...trying to get us expelled.">>>>>>>

Exactly!!!  

Melpomene responded indignantly:

<<<<NO! NO! NO!
I absolutely can NOT sit on my fingers and "listen" to this!
There is NO evidence ANYWHERE that Snape had done ANYTHING other than 
snoop around and be disagreeable. Both Sirius (particularly immature 
tattle-tale!Sirius) and Remus have had ample opportunity to tell 
Harry and co. just what awful things Severus had tried to do--but no, 
Not one word. Do you honestly think that if Severus had tried to slip 
something into James' or Peter's pumpkin juice Harry wouldn't have 
heard ALL about it from his loving Godfather? 
But WHAT were the Marauders doing? Releasing a "full grown werewolf" 
and wandering around freely with it FOR FUN! (ha bloody ha) They had 
a few "close calls" which they later "laughed about"! 
And WHO is lying in the bed he made? 
HARUMPH!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now, now ............  [should preface by saying that Sirius is in the top 5 of my favorite characters ...and Snape is somewhere near the middle to bottom].  I've cut & pasted from a variety of messages I've written in the past on this topic so apologies if it sounds vaguely familiar to some of you -- and it may be a bit repetitive in places but I've not the time to really edit it fully & make it cohesive.

We really only have sketchy details about what happened at this point.  Being the Sirius fan that I am, I do believe that it's more than a little possible that Snape was doing more than just "sneaking around and spying" on them.  I think it very likely that there are a number of facts that we simply haven't been given yet .... so it's hard to make it a black-and-white case as to who was "wrong" and who was "wronged."  Things in the Potterverse often look very different when she doles out more facts or details than they did at first blush.  

I'm not yet ready to concede that Sirius is fully to "blame" for the Prank. "Fault" and "blame" are complex concepts, especially when we only have part of the story & not really from the perspective of any of the players. I don't think we can take 
Sirius' muttered comments in the course of the Shrieking Shack revelations as entirely trustworthy. The man has just escaped from Azkaban & lived on the run for 8-9 mths, after being imprisoned for 12 yrs. We may dispute whether or not he's suffering from PTSD, but he's clearly not a fully-functioning person at that point, and he really only interjects a few minor points into Lupin's relation of the barebone facts. We've not had Snape or Sirius sit down with the purpose of telling or recalling their side of the story. I really doubt that Snape's snooping around was sufficient to motivate a "prank" of that magnitude.  

There's also just so much we don't know about the Prank. What did Snape say or do to motivate Sirius to tell him how to follow them? What were Sirius' intentions?  Who alerted James? Where was Sirius during James's rescue of Snape? What, other than forbidding Snape to say a word about Lupin being a werewolf, did Dumbledore do about the Prank? What does Sirius really think now? Presumably James rescued Severus in his human form (rather than as a stag) since neither Snape nor Dumbledore had any inkling that James and the others were animagi.  Lots of questions & no answers... 

Saying Snape "deserved" the Prank -- again ... we can't really know for sure what Sirius really truly thinks deep down from this one flippant remark.  As for Snape & the Prank, there's clearly no love lost between Snape &  Sirius, even yrs later. However, we do *NOT* know what Snape did to  motivate the Prank. We can conjecture from now till sundown, but until OOP or Books 6 or 7 clues us in, we're only guessing. All we know is that Sirius tipped Snape off to go down the tunnel to the Shrieking 
Shack and knew that he'd run into Remus the Werewolf. We know also that James knew about Sirius' prank at some point & saved Snape's life. We don't know *when* James learned of the Prank. We don't know the dynamic of the relationship(s) between Sirius, James, Remus, Peter and Snape. In short, we don't know much of anything. Sirius certainly used poor 
judgment. But, until we know what that greasy-haired Snape guy did to cause Sirius to play the Prank, I'm reserving judgment. :--)

This topic certainly never fails to get people riled up one direction or another -- that's for sure.  

Penny







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