Looks aren't everything! (was:Re: Sirius / Severus)

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 86655

> > Laura:
> > 
> > How many 11 year olds do you know whom you would describe as 
either handsome or cool?  :-)  These are young kids at this point.  I 
think kids of that age are very aware of when something is physically 
out of the norm but they have no real way to appreciate great 
beauty.  <snip> 

> Carol:
> I disagree. <snip> Eleven- and twelve-year-old are already masters 
of ostracism and teasing. For an example of a child who was unpopular 
at least in part because of her appearance, we need only look as far 
as Moaning Myrtle.
> 
> Snape would have been in much the same position. As long he had 
older Slytherins to protect him, he could avoid anything worse than 
the confrontations we see between Draco and Harry (which, admittedly, 
have no connection with looks), but once Lucius and his friends were 
gone, James could hex Severus with (relative) impunity just "because 
he exists"--because he's not cool like you and me, Sirius, because 
he's skinny and has a big nose and has greasy hair. And, oh, yeah, 
he's a Slytherin and likes the dark arts. So he's just a git and he 
deserves what we give him. Severus hexed him back, of course, but not 
because James "existed."  <snip> When Severus first entered Hogwarts, 
OTOH, he had no reason to dislike handsome Sirius of the ancient and 
noble house of Black and athletic, popular James other than that they 
were Gryffindors. If they had uncharactericteristically offered him 
the hand of friendship to Severus, ignoring his looks and all the 
other things they found unattractive about him, I very much doubt 
that he would not have turned them down. <snip>

Laura again:

Well, Myrtle's personality probably had more to do with her problems 
than her looks did.  Lots of kids have bad skin (even if most of them 
don't hex their noses off trying to fix it)but Myrtle brought whining 
to new levels, it would seem.  

Now, about "Severus as victim".  I still argue that canon is 
inconclusive on this.  We learn that James and Snape hated each other 
on sight (DD says this in SS/PS).  I seem to recall some reference to 
James and Snape hexing each other-am I making this up?  Anyhow, I 
can't believe the nastiness was all one-sided.  We have no evidence 
at all for who threw the first curse-but we do know who was the 
premature expert on the dark arts.

Snape is not weak, whatever else he may be, and I don't think he was 
weak when he came into the school.   Where do you get the idea that 
Snape needed his Slytherin friends to protect him?  The only 
reference we have to them is that they almost all turned out to be 
DEs.  We don't know that they acted as Snape's bodyguards or if Snape 
even wanted them to do that.

I don't know why people expect James and Sirius to have reached 
across houses to make friends with Snape when that kind of behavior 
is clearly not the norm at Hogwarts.  Nor do I see that Snape ever 
wanted to be friends with them.  We have no idea what, if anything, 
they knew about each other or each other's families before they got 
to school.  For all we know, the hostility started with Snape.  

Laura, who respects Snape enough to believe that he gave as much as 
he got