[HPforGrownups] Re: Sirius revisited

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 104180

 
> Let's see, he talks about the full moon fondly to his werewolf 
> friend, who suffers greatly because of what he is.  That's kind.  
> Then he refuses to help his friend study because he knows everything 
> already.  Never mind that his friend might need some help.  Not a 
> concern of Sirius', who acts as though the world revolves around 
> him.  
> And why does he send Snape to the shreiking shack knowing harm will 
> befall Lupin as well. Perhaps it is another example of Sirius acting 
> without thinking.  Or, perhaps he was trying to kill two birds with 
> one stone..punish both Snape and Lupin.  
>  I'm convinced 
> there is more to the Snape/Lupin dynamic than meets the eye.  Both 
> seem to have been bookish when in school.  James and Sirius don't.  
> Is it possible that Lupin and Snape ran across each other in the 
> library - like Hermione and Krum?  Could a tentative friendship have 
> started - something that Sirius felt a need to end, and if Snape ends 
> up dead more's the better?  And if Lupin could tentatively befriend 
> someone like Snape, couldn't you see Sirius taking that as evidence 
> that Lupin was the one who was betraying the order later?  
> 

> My only problem is that at the end of GoF Dumbledore says he trusts 
> both Snape and Sirius.  So despite all my misgivings, I can concede that =

Sherry now

I am a Sirius defender, but I don't really like debate and argument, so I
hate having to chime in, ... but I wanted to make a few points about what
you said.  First of all, it's proven over and over, that boys do mature
slower than girls.  All of my brothers were irritating gits, when they were
teenagers.  What made them grow up?  Time, responsibility, things like that.
They got out of high school, got jobs, got married, had kids.  All those
things, over time helped them to mature into the wonderful men they are
today.  Not only do I love my brothers, but I genuinely like them and would
choose them as friends if we weren't siblings.  So, I think it's quite
possible for Sirius not to have been very mature at 16 or younger.  He never
got to do the normal things kids do after school, go to college--or whatever
the wizard equivalent would be--get a job, earn money, pay bills, get
married.  Nobody can convince me that spending 12 years with beings like the
dementors would help a person mature!  

About his teasing Lupin, well, I am disabled.  I am blind.  My best friends
can make teasing cracks to me, and it is funny.  Comments like, what do you
mean, where is such and such, can't you see?  Are you blind or something?
We laugh about it.  If a stranger were to talk to me like that, or a
coworker, I would consider it offensive and inappropriate.  Just like I
tease my best friend, who can yell fit to make the roof fly off the house at
her kids, that she is a meek and gentle person.  It's among friends and it
isn't meant as a slap.  I am quite sure that Lupin never minded Sirius
teasing him.  In fact, his attitude in OOTP is warm and fond.  The image in
my mind is of them having feelings of almost being brothers.   

As far as the possibility of a Snape/Lupin tentative friendship goes, no, I
don't buy it at all.  Snape was venomous toward Lupin in the shrieking shack
scene In POA.  In fact, he seemed more furious and more out to get Lupin
than Sirius.  He tied up Lupin, not Sirius.  I don't believe it was because
of the fear of the full moon.  I doubt that ropes tied to restrain a human
could hold a werewolf.  Snape also warned Dumbledore against Lupin in POA.
So I don't believe there was any old friendship there.

None of that is to say that Sirius wasn't rash and reckless.  He was all of
that.  But maybe, he would have become a better person, if he had time and
opportunity to live a normal sort of life.  

Sherry G