[HPforGrownups] OOP: Snape/James/Sirius

[Jenserai Bariman]

No: HPFGUIDX 63463

Steffy:
>As many people have stated, James obviously turned into a decent
>person in his 7th year.

It's not so obvious. What we know is that he quite hexing everyone who 
annoyed him. He didn't stop with Snape though, and purposefully hid this 
from Lily because he knew she would disapprove. My theory on this is that, 
after the prank, Dumbledore threatened to expel James if he didn't quite 
being such a bully and he took it out on Snape, but that's semi-pure 
speculation.

Lily starts dating him, he becomes Head
>Boy.  Dumbledore and EVERYONE that talks about James, except of
>course the Death Eaters and Snape (who we all know is an ex-Death
>Eater), LOVE him.  Obviously, that many people can't be wrong.

Yes they can.
And who is everyone? I remember Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, Rosemarta, Flitwick, 
Black and Lupin. It's possible I'm blanking on a few here. But, from this 
list I'm pretty certain four were gryffindors. I think Flitwick wasn't. I 
don't know about Rosemarta, but given her attitude I would guess gryffindor 
or ravenclaw. So, Black and Lupin obviously remember James fondly as they 
were friends. The teachers, I think didn't really know how much of a bully 
James was. I would be really disappointed if they knew about the way James 
and Sirius treated Snape and didn't do anything about it. As for Rosemarta, 
I'll bet MWPP went to the three broomsticks quite a bit and James and Sirius 
seemed to have been quite the charmers. I'll also venture to guess that 
James and Sirius picked mostly on loners, people less likely to hang out 
there or, if they did, the sort of people who would sit in corners with a 
book or a few friends and not be terribly talkative with the woman bringing 
their drinks.

>Yes,
>he may have been a jerk to Snape in that ONE memory.  We have no idea
>how the rivarly between James, Sirius, and Snape started.

You're right, we don't.

>We know
>from PoA that Snape tried to discover Lupin's secret and get him
>kicked out of the school, isn't that enough for James to hate him?

Yes.

>Isn't that enough for James to hex him at every opportunity?

No.

>
>As many people have mentioned, this is one memory of Snape's that we
>see.  We can not judge James or Sirius on it.  What if we saw the way
>that Harry yelled at Dumbledore or Ron and Hermonie as the only
>memory?  Would we not think that Harry was a jerk?

Harry wasn't teamed up with a friend, making a surprise attack on someone 
who's back was turned, removing his only means of defense, fastening him to 
the ground, chocking him and then showing off his underpants to half the 
school because he was bored. Harry was yelling.

Furthermore, if someone saw Harry yelling at Dumbledore and then asked him 
about it, Harry could easily reply: "My godfather had just died and 
Dumbledore said it was his own fault he got killed because he wasn't 
respectful enough to a house elf." Had Reamus of Black come up with an 
equally good excuse for the violence of James and Black, we wouldn't be 
having this discussion.

Not to mention that Dumbledore is in a position of power over Harry.

-Jens, who wishes people would stop downplaying what exaclty happened to 
Snape in that scene

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