School! Snape the bully? (was: Is Draco worse than James Was?)

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 77781

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "princesspeaette" > 
<lots of snipping> 
> I think Sirius and James were both majorly at fault here.  The only 
> person who came out of that smelling like a rose is Lily.
> 
> 
> ~Margaret, still firmly in the pro-Snape camp, and was just trying 
to 
> see the other side

Laura:

Now wait a minute.  We read in canon more than once that James and 
sirius were popular.  Bullies tend not to fit that description.  So I 
would deduce that their bad behavior was directed at people who were 
out of line in some obvious way.  And we know that James straightened 
up by the time he was 16 (or else he couldn't have been a candidate 
for Head Boy when he was 17).  Once he did that, Sirius would 
probably have cooled out himself, since he held James in greater 
esteem than anyone else (and he would have lost his favorite co-
conspirator).  

We just don't have the whole picture of the James/Sirius-Snape 
relationship.  And now it looks like we never will.