Lily. Was: Prank revisited.

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 99333

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Renee" <R.Vink2 at c...> wrote:
> Renee wrote previously
> >Of course, it would take a saint to ignore Snape's reaction 
> > > altogether; that Lily pays him back in kind shows she's no 
saint 
> or 
> > > angel but a normal human being. It's what she does next that I 
> find 
> > > so disappointing. 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >she leaves, practically begging James to continue his torment 
> > > of Snape. After all, how else is he to remain cool in the eyes  
> > > of the general public? 
> 
> > > Would James have turned Snape upside down again if Lily had 
> stayed, 
> > > without defending Snape verbally, yet showing she wasn't going 
> to 
> > > abandon her responsibility as a prefect? I don't think so. > 
> > 
> 
> Ally: 
> 
> > The question I want to ask - does it really matter? For whatever 
> > reasons she wanted to help. She interfered. Snape called her the 
> most 
> > degrating word possible in the WW as a gratitude. I perfectly 
> > understand why she walked away.
> > 
> 
> Renee previously:
> 
> Oh, I do understand why she walked away. I'm just not inclined to 
> excuse it. My problem - and maybe I didn't make myself clear in my 
> previous post - is that she's not just Lily Evans in this scene. 
> She's a prefect. If she really thinks what James does is wrong, 
it's 
> her duty as a prefect to put an end to his treatment of Snape. By 
> walking away, she pracically made sure James would go on. 
> 
> Lily may have been right to leave (though she'd already put Snape 
in 
> place verbally). My question is: was *Prefect Evans* right to 
leave? 
> Isn't this another instance of right vs. easy? 
> 
> Unless her reason for intervening was drawing James's attention, 
but 
> that would actually make it worse. It would mean she's merely using 
> Snape's predicament as a pretext. So yes, to me it does matter why 
> she did it.
> 
> Renee



I'll concede, if Lily as a prefect had an affirmative duty to 
intervene to prevent wrongdoing, the situation takes a slightly 
different turn.

The question is then how much is required of prefects? Are they 
required to prevent every wrong they see on their way? Are they 
required to do more than they are capable of handling emotionally?


Lily tried to intervene, she was degraded for that. Surely, in the 
ideal scenario, she would have still defended Snape, what if she was 
too annoyed to do that.


Without doubt, she was probably supposed to notify the teacher, if 
she could not handle the situation herself. (After all, prefects only 
help teachers to maintain discipline, right?)


We did not see what happened after she left. It is possible that she 
did call the teacher.


Alla