What is with the "Prank" ?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 99901

Amber wrote of the young Snape:
> At school, he is unpopular, bullied, can't fly, and his closest
reputed "friends" are Bellatrix Black and her future DE gang....what
emotional support they  must have given him....

Carol:
Sorry to repond only to part of your post, but I don't have time to
answer the whole thing. First, Bellatrix and possibly the Lestrange
brothers had already graduated when the Pensieve incident occurred. We
know from OoP that she was three years older than Sirius and therefore
three years older than Snape. My sense is that the entire gang was
older than Snape and that the was left alone in his fifth year, which
is why the incident occurred in that year and not before.

Also, I don't think we can conclude that a powerful wizard like
Severus Snape couldn't fly as a boy, especially as late as his fifth
year. Severus would have learned to fly in his first year at Hogwarts
if not before that--even Neville presumably learns. And certainly
Professor Snape has no trouble controlling his broom when he referees
the Quidditch game in CoS. 

The memory we see in the occlumency chapter is of a young boy, perhaps
eight or ten years old, trying to control an unruly broom. The broom's
behavior is not in itself an indication of the rider's skill: We know
that a good broom doesn't try to throw off its rider. Even the old
school brooms respond to a firm, fearless command, and Severus is no
coward, whatever his faults. Most likely he's trying in the memory to
ride a hexed or jinxed broom, bound and determined to control it
despite the laughing girl. Wish I knew who she was and why she found
his struggle so amusing.

Carol