James, Lupin, and the Head Boy Badge (was: More Questions.)

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 85081

Tonks asked the very important question: 
> > ... Hagrid ... tells Harry that his mum and dad were Head Boy and Head
> > Girl. I know we only have one instance (of headboy) in canon- Percy,
> > that we can directly derive any fact. So, if DD made Lupin prefect for
> > his year, why would he derail from this decision ...and appoint James 
> > as Head Boy? 

And Steve suggests:
> Pure speculation, we need our Brit school experts to weigh in on this
> one, but I concluded that Head Boy was based on different objectives
> than Prefect.
> 
>  Headship is based on general excellences and achievement, whereas
> Prefectship is based on trustworthiness, maturity, and ability to
> command respect and obedience from the other students as well as
> general academic excellences. 

<snip>
 
> In a sense, Headship is like valedictorian, whereas Prefectship is
> like a hall monitor and related to the functional and orderly running
> of the school.

I'm not sure I can agree.  We've seen plenty of instances in which the Head 
Boy is seen to be just as much of an administrative job as Prefect.  Percy's 
behavior when he himself is Head Boy is consistent with this, as is 
Dumbledore's statement at the beginning of PoA that he expects his new 
Head Boy and Girl to help keep the school in line while Sirius is on the loose 
and Dementors are patrolling the streets of Hogsmeade.  For that matter, 
later in PoA, Harry overhears Percy is reporting to Dumbledore as if he were 
part of the Hogwarts chain of command (this is when Sirius is spotted in the 
school and the students are camping in the great hall), which as I 
understand the role of prefects and heads in British boarding schools, is 
pretty accurate.

I do find, however, that the question of why James was made Head Boy as 
opposed to Lupin is an intriguing one.  We know from Sirius that when the 
prefect badges were handed out, both he and James were considered too 
wild to have one.  Whether or not Headship is an academic distinction, I find 
it hard to believe that it would be bestowed on a trouble-maker - if that were 
the case, why didn't Fred or George become Head Boy?  They're both 
prodigiously talented wizards, as we can see from their ingenious methods 
of resistance at the end of OOP.  No, I believe that at some point between 
handing out the prefect badges and selecting a Head Boy in James and Lupin's 
year, James went through a transformation of character.

We already know this happened.  I'm not sure if it's canon that James and Lily 
were already dating by their seventh year, but they married soon after leaving 
Hogwarts, which makes it quite likely.  Sirius also tells Harry that by the end 
of James' stay at Hogwarts, his treatment of Snape was purely defensive as 
opposed to the bullying we see when he's 15.  In other words, James grows up.  
He goes from being someone who needs to be calmed down by his best friend, 
to someone who can be trusted to calm other students.

Which leaves us with the question of why Lupin wasn't made Head Boy, even if 
James was a good candidate.  I don't necessarily believe that the HB is selected 
solely from among the prefects.  Molly's statement that becoming a prefect is 
the first step to Head Boy-hood could be interpreted either way.  She could 
mean that, having been a prefect, Ron would be well-placed to draw attention to 
himself as a candidate for HB, or that becoming a prefect is the first qualification, 
but Ron will still have to compete with the other three male prefects of his year 
for the job.  Either way, there can be no doubt that Lupin should have been in 
the running.  So why wasn't he chosen?

I think it all comes down to the Prank.  

It's a pretty common perception that the changes in James' character have a 
lot to do with the Prank.  He saw that his teasing and bullying were having 
real consequences, and that a man could have died, and this shook him up.  
I also believe that there were repercussions for the other Marauders involved.  
In the SS, Lupin says that Snape was sworn to secrecy because if he had 
spoken, Lupin, who was innocent in all things, would have been expelled.  In 
a previous post (#78512), I wrote that Snape might have felt betrayed by this 
lack of punishment.  I suggested that he would have seen it as a hypocritical 
action by Dumbledore, who claimed to be impartial but was in fact playing 
favorites.  What if Dumbledore realized that this was how it might look to 
Snape - and, in order to appease him, stripped Lupin of prefect's badge, or 
at least swung the vote against him when it came time to choose a Head Boy?

The Prank, in my opinion, was a pivotal moment in the lives of all the 
Marauders, and, of course, in Snape's (as I wrote in my post, I believe that it 
was Snape's perception that Dumbledore was playing favorites that helped to 
drive him into Voldemort's arms).  It was the beginning of adulthood for 
James.  It was the end of his carefree existence, and the first of many major 
screw-ups for Sirius.  We don't know how Peter was involved, although there 
are several theories floating around here.  For Lupin, I suspect, it was the point 
at which his treatment as a normal, trustworthy person ended.  I think that we 
can draw a straight line from the Prank and Lupin's being passed over for Head 
Boy to Sirius' decision to choose Peter as a secret keeper over Lupin.  From 
that point on, I think the  people closest to him looked at Lupin and thought 
"Well, he's a good guy, but there's that werewolf thing...".  I don't think that 
perception dies until Sirius admits his mistake in the SS.

Abigail
Marking, with this post, her 100th post to HPfGU.  Of course, that took me nearly 
two years, and I'm responding to Steve who, I believe, reached 100 posts in 
something like two weeks, but it's still a pretty big day.