Sirius's prank and the mysterious Florence

[Anne(Anja)]

No: HPFGUIDX 56270

Hi all

this is my first post on this list , so I hope I'll do everything 
right. 

Recently I re-read all four Harry Potter books and stumbled over some 
bits of information concerning Snape that could make some sense if 
you put them together

The following mainly works as a possible explanation of the prank 
Sirius played on Severus during their schooldays. I don't think that 
Sirius just thought it to be funny to kill another student , even if 
it was an enemy of his. He must have had his reasons for doing so and 
that's what I'm going to have a try on.

Reading the books I caught the impression that the rivalry between 
Slytherin and Gryffindor already existed during the time of the 
Marauders. James clearly seems to have been the leader of the 
Gryffindor gang while it is a bit unsure if Severus had a similar 
popularity among his Slytherins. Anyway , it were James and Severus 
who regarded each other as enemies , at least that's what 
Dumbledore , Lupin and Black seem to believe. 

Now we have this strange sentence in GoF in which Dumbledore sees 
Bertha Jorkins in the Pensieve telling about someone who kissed a 
girl named Florence behind the greenhouse. I know that this has been 
discussed before and I honestly believe that it was Snape Florence 
was kissing , regarding alone the fact that this someone "put a hex 
on her (Bertha)" , something that sounds very much like a thing Snape 
would do. We know that Bertha loved gossip and that this was probably 
the reason she went after Florence and her boyfriend . So this 
relationship must have been of some interest to her . But why ? Maybe 
because it was a secret one. 

Assuming that it was really Snape who kissed Florence , there is only 
one reason why he wouldn't want anyone to know about that : because 
Florence was a Gryffindor – and , to make my theory work , James 
Potter's sister. They would have had to keep their relationship 
secret since Severus would probably have gotten some serious problems 
with his fellow Slytherins if it had come out , just as Florence 
would have had with her brother.
Now Bertha saw them , probably told a lot of people and in the end 
even confronted Severus who put a hex on her. James , along with his 
friends , was probably angry as well and maybe even told his parents 
who made Florence go to another school or something like that. 

Anyway , their relationship came to an end but for Severus some 
serious problems arose through the fact that his gang of Slytherins 
didn't trust him anymore.
So he had to do something really great to gain their friendship and 
maybe also their admiration again. 

And now there's Sirius who tells him about something he always wanted 
to know : How to discover Remus's secret. Even if Severus doesn't 
actually trust Sirius he doesn't have a real choice since this is an 
unique occasion for him to do something the Slytherins would  think 
of as great , especially if he managed to get Lupin expelled. So he 
went there but was saved by James who clearly must have been told by 
someone who knew Sirius's plan , maybe by Lily Evans. I am pretty 
sure that James didn't have a clue what Sirius was up to and wouldn't 
have approved of it , had he known about it. 

Nevertheless I believe that Sirius acted out of friendship for James. 
Just think of his Animagus : He's a dog and dogs are known to be very 
faithful animals and JKR herself said in an interview that the 
Animagus of a person reflects his character. Maybe Sirius thought 
that Severus should be "punished" in some way for "seducing" his best 
friend's sister , maybe he was secretly in love with her himself and 
therefore his prank an act of pure jealousy. 

In every case , I think that there's more to Severus and Sirius 
hatred for each other than meets the eye. I will close this with 
Snape's words to Hermione when she tries to make him listen to 
Sirius : "Don't talk about what you don't understand."

I am sorry this has gotten a pretty long post but I have been 
pondering about this for some time and now would be interested to 
hear what others think about it.

Thanks for listening ,

                        Anja