What if other teachers behaved like Snape?

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 101372

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "darrin_burnett" 
<bard7696 at a...> wrote:
> 
> The werewolf as AIDS parallel has been drawn here. I use it to 
illustrate this 
> argument. What if a teacher "outed" a gay colleague? Reprehensible.
> 
As far as I know, "gay" and "AIDS" are not synonyms.  Outing someone 
who is gay is not nice.  Outing someone who has AIDS might be 
necessary to protect others.  Lupin doesn't just hang out with 
wolves in his spare time; he is a WEREWOLF.  He is *dangerous*.  And 
saying nothing about it is denying other people a chance to make a 
fully informed choice about whether or not they want to take a 
risk.  Should things go wrong, keeping quiet would amount to 
participating in a cover-up.  Snape's motives are seldom unmixed in 
any situation, but I don't see why we should assume that he was 
completely selfish in getting Lupin kicked out at the end.  He was 
against having him there from the first, but out of respect for 
Dumbledore he obeyed orders and went along with the game.  Why 
shouldn't his objections to Lupin have been at least partly because 
of the safety issue?  I think they were - I think he's very 
committed to keeping the students safe.  When the whole thing blows 
up at the end, Snape would see his arguments as being 
justified: "You see?  I TOLD you something like this would happen!  
I TOLD you he couldn't be relied upon, and the risk of accidents is 
just too high!"  As nothing happened to Snape as a result of 
his "indiscretion", and Lupin got the boot, I think it shows that 
Dumbledore was acknowledging that Snape had the better of the 
argument that time.

Wanda