Mistaken identity - part three

[laylalast]

No: HPFGUIDX 80636

>Kirstini:

God, Lilian, I'm really, really sorry to do this to you when you've 
put in so much work, but I'm afraid I have to yellow flag you:

Lilian:

Ha! A challenge! Shouts: `Stand and fight, you mangy cur!' <bg> just 
had to slip that in.

On a more serious note: really no need to feel sorry, I'm rather 
relieved that I'm not yellow flagged all over as a I put it all 
together at top speed at the last moment. But there had to be a snag 
somewhere.

>Kirstini:

The only reason we know that Florence exists at all is because Bertha 
Jorkins names her to Dumbledore. "I saw him kissing Florence", she 
says. This presumes that she knows who Florence is. If she has seen 
and identified Florence, she's not going to tell Sirius "I saw him 
kissing a girl with red hair" if she knows the name of this girl. 
Therefore we can't deduce at all what Florence looks like from this 
tiny bit of information.

Lilian:

Uhm no, my deduction was more the other way around. I did not deduce 
that Florence has red hair on this information. I believe (still) 
that the Florence scene witnessed by Bertha leads to the Prank. As it 
is obviously not Lily, as indeed stated by Bertha –mind you, at that 
moment!- So I started thinking whether Bertha could have mistaken 
Florence for someone else who is connected to both MWPP and Snape? 
Bang! Lily with her red hair! That is how I actually deduced Florence 
red hair. 

As to the identification part, I may not have explained that too 
well. IMO it is not canon at all that Bertha has identified Florence 
at the moment she saw her kissing. She has identified Florence by the 
time that she tells Dumbledore about it. Bertha either:

1) did not get to see the face of the girl. All she has then, at 
first, a piece of gossip about Snape kissing a girl with red hair. 
And what a piece of gossip that is – Snape kissing! 
The kissing happened on Thursday and on Thursday she already tells 
Sirius. All the pensieve scene tells us that she was hexed after 
Thursday when she teased "he" (IMO Snape) that she had seen him 
kissing. It is possible (and that is my take on it) that Snape hexed 
her while shouting: `don't you dare tell anyone that I was kissing 
Florence!'. Only then learns Bertha -accidentally in fact- that the 
girl is Florence. And when she complains to Dumbledore about the 
hexing she gets the name of the girl right in her kissing-story.  

2) she really mistook her for Lily. Following events are the same as 
under 1). What can I say to that? These things happen. Only here the 
consequences were rather nasty.

3) she identified her as Florence and then Del's conversation comes 
in –post 80555(thanks for this, Del!). Bertha designs on Sirius are 
not necessary though, he is just one of the first people she runs 
into. Sirius simply did not wait until she told him the name or even 
withheld it on purpose to let him draw the wrong conclusions (big 
revelation coming in my mind right now– maybe she did! To get even 
with Snape for hexing her! Oh, oh, all those possibilities
<g>) 
> Kirstini:
Also, I don't really think that Sirius would be *that* bothered, 
Prank-causing-bothered, by Snape/Lily, even if he was sexist enough 
to view Snape as "moving in on James' patch" - "I think it means she 
thinks you're a bit conceited, mate." He's *amused* by Lily's 
rejection of James, as teenage boys always are when this sort of 
thing happens to their friends, really.
Lilian:
Difficult one that. To try and convince someone of your different 
point of view. But let's give it a try.
The reasons given by Sirius for the Prank:
POA pg 261: `It served him right,' he sneered. `Sneaking around, 
trying to find out what we were up to 
 hoping he could get us 
expelled 
'

Not very serious reasons IMO to stage the Prank, but that is what 
Sirius states. In GOF and OOtP he adds Snape's looks and interest in 
the Dark Arts to that – Snape stealing Lily under James nose might 
just be the additional drive for Sirius to take care of Snape for 
once and for all. 
And Sirius and James were inseparable (`you'd have thought they were 
brothers!' POA pg 152), Sirius was even prepared to lure Voldemort to 
him by becoming secretkeeper –not on second thoughts though (LOL)-. 
Sirius apparently just doesn't need much to act rashly (Molly's 
statement: OotP pg 85).

>Kirstini:

Finally - if he's going out with a Weasley the entire time, 
particularly such a sympathetic one, I don't quite understand where 
Snape gets the motivation to join and remain in the DEs for this sort 
of time period.

Lilian:

Whoa! Hold it a moment! I didn't say that Snape was going out with 
Florence the whole time. The Prank caused the Weasley-Snape going 
together to come to an end. And the rift between them was never 
solved until years later, when Florence found out from Lily (who was 
in the Order, just like Remus) that Remus was indeed a werewolf. The 
thread "Snape the iconoclast" is the explanation for me as to why 
Snape became, or was driven to become, a DE. On top of that I placed 
the rift between Florence and Snape and the school believing James to 
be Snape's rescuer, but then for the wrong reasons.

And then on to the age of Bertha at the time of the kissing scene:

>"K":
I think it's important to remember the age of Bertha at the time she 
was snooping as we will see later.

GoF/Ch 30 Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl 
of about sixteen...

Lilian:

This is what Harry sees, he sees a girl who HE guesses is about 
sixteen. That does not set it as canon that Bertha was actually 
sixteen at the moment. She might have been younger, she might have 
been older. When I was 16 I was constantly mistaken for 18. By the 
time I was really 18, and thus a legal adult, I had to prove that 
time and time again as everybody then thought I was 16. 
So Bertha may very well have been 17-18 and sitting her NEWTS and 
MWPP-S-L-F two classes lower, sitting their OWLS at their 15-16th.

Oh, and just a minor teaser: the DADA OWL that Harry takes is on a 
Thursday
. Same day perhaps 21-22 years ago? (Don't tell me: 
Transfiguration is NOT on the same day - that's why I call it a 
teaser)

Lilian