TBAY: Removing Prank to the George (are dogs allowed?)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 78070

"I'll  get them in, George" said Kirstini, wearily, reaching for her 
wallet. "I seem to have prolonged this entire thing mercilessly, 
which is why these poor people (whose numbers keep increasing) are 
suffering exposure and in need of a drink. Or eight."
George, wisely, didn't ask. Kirstini turned her slightly throbbing 
head back to Marina.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean here." Marina was saying.   "A lot 
of things about the Prank are in dispute, but the fact that Sirius 
was an adolescent when it happened seems to me quite solidly 
canonical and accepted without question by all theories.  Did 
something I say suggest to you that I'm arguing Sirius *wasn't* 
really sixteen at the time?" 

"Umm, no. I *think* I was trying to point out that my theory, or the 
bit of my theory where Sirius is oblivious to Snape's life as a thing 
that has any worth is an adolescent phase that is overcome. When you 
said that Sirius wasn't stupid, I tried to be clever and twist it 
round to prove that Sirius must have had some realisation of what he 
was doing at some point, because otherwise you could attribute his 
behaviour to some sort of character flaw rather than adolescent 
phase. I *think* that's what I was doing. And I think the confusion 
arose because we have a completely different idea of the length of 
time between Sirius tipping the wink to Snape and James pulling Snape 
out."

"Kirstini, I think you're making things a bit complicated for 
yourself. And me." Marina added, rubbing her head. Kirstini handed 
her a glass from the tray she had been holding, stupidly, for the 
last five minutes, and was astonished to see the contents vanish in 
record time. Marina placed the glass back, and began again.
"I favour a simple reading of the Prank. No middle man. Sirius, 
spurred on by some event we don't yet know about, acts alone on a 
nasty *adolescent* whim, and totters off to brag to James, his best 
mate. James, developing a conscience, runs in and undoes the damage. 
Lovely and clean."

Kirstini had been handing out drinks round the table, and gestured to 
Marina to listen. Laura and Corinth were engaged in a discussion of 
Wormtail's moral character and whether or not the other Marauders had 
underestimated his powers. Derranimer was telling George about James 
behaving as an archetypal, chivalrous  Gryffindor, and asking whether 
or not he found it creepy. Arcum was playing darts, a piece of 
Lily 'n' James fan art tacked onto the board. He or she (it was still 
impossible to tell) was muttering under her or his breath "That darn, 
sneaky, conniving so and so." Saitaina was drawing a diagram on a 
beer mat to prove that Lily could still have been the one to sound 
the alert, even if she didn't know there was any real danger 
involved. 

Kirstini took a sip from the lovely single malt which George had 
taken to keeping behind the bar for her, and poured a bit from the 
bottle into Marina's glass. She sighed.
"The thing is, that no-one's really satisfied with that explanation, 
which is basically the standard one we gleaned from the books. It's 
like you said - we don't yet know about the thing that spurred Sirius 
on. Why not? Why has this knowledge been held back if the explanation 
is only what we knew anyway? We also don't know enough about why 
Peter turned traitor, and now we have a new, unsolved mystery - why 
on earth did Lily capitulate and go out with James. And because 
there's all these gaps in our knowledge, and because they all stem 
from more or less the same time, it's tempting to put them all 
together. So although your theory is lovely and clean and doesn't 
give me a headache, I *want* Budding Moralist!Peter, and Emotional 
Repercussions in Group Dynamics, and Isolated!Sirius turning to 
hatred as a hobby (anyway, brooding is sexy. He looks good brooding), 
even though it all makes my head spin. I'm going to be so 
disappointed if it does turn out like you predict - just another damp-
squibby Neville-doesn't-even-need-a-memory-charm sort of scenario."

Then, with a movement so swift it might have been choreographed, 
Marina and Kirstini ducked under the table to avoid the glass that 
Corinth had just sent flying. 
"Nobody calls *me* a Wormtail Apologist!" she screamed.
Kirstini pulled a face. "Probably a bad idea to get everyone 
quadruples, then."