Are there no depths to which Siriophiles wont sink?

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 99291

Major snips and then Meri jumps back in:  
> Potioncat:
> My opinion is that DD trusted both as loyal.  But he gave Snape a 
> job and an active, dangerous role in the Order.  He told Black to 
> sit still and stay put.  Now, I know some of that was to protect 
> Black....but he didn't seem to think that Severus needed 
> protection.  So perhaps I should say he felt Severus was the one 
he 
> could depend on? The one he gave more responsibility to? 

Meri now: DD was, of course, protecting Sirius, but not from LV. 
He's being protected from the Ministry, which is at the time doing 
all it can to undermine DD and is still desperately clining to the 
belief that Sirius is a mass murderer. Sirius is still a wanted man 
with a 10000 Galleon price on his head, and his dog-disguise was 
blown, so there wasn't really anything he actively could do. Snape, 
as a former member of LV's inner circle, would obviously have the 
more important job. And of course Snape didn't need protection. He's 
not a wanted man. And even if he did need protecting, wouldn't DD's 
protection have blown Snape's cover as well? 


>  Meri:
> However,  as a human being I find him lacking, as evidenced by his 
> treatment of Harry and Neville in class, as evidenced by his 
actions 
> in the  Shreiking Shack, and as evidenced by his comment to 
Hermione 
> as she was hit by a stray curse in GoF that made her front teeth 
> grow  abnormally large: "I see no difference." Cruel, petty and 
> immature? 
> > I think so. 
> > 
> 
> 
> Potioncat:
> I agree, as a human being he could use some work.  I cannot excuse 
> or forgive his treatment of Hermione, even though I have come up 
> with a possible reason for it.
> 
> But what did he do in the Shrieking Shack that you found so bad?
> 

Meri again: In the Shreiking Shack he let his petty schoolboy 
quarrells take over. He wouldn't listen to reason from any of them, 
and seemingly fully intended to throw not just Sirius, but Lupin as 
well to the dementors, two perfectly innocent men whom he could not 
forgive long enough to listen to hear them out. Even Harry, who 
believed Sirius to be responsible for his parents' murder wound up 
listening to Sirius, and he had far more cause to be angry at Sirius 
than Snape does. Anyway, as Harry said himself, Snape acted 
pathetically. And I would be very interested to know what you think 
his reasoning is behind his insult of Hermione. 

Meri - who often wonders how things would have been different if 
Snape had been made to listen.