James and Snape. Was. Re: Snape and Harry again.

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 113800

> Carol:
> Sirius, who is not the best person to guess what is going on in
> Severus's mind, tells Harry that he thinks the young Snape was 
jealous
> of James's Quidditch talent. But I doubt that Severus ever 
expressed
> any such sentiments to him or to James. He was not exactly in their
> confidence, or they in his. James was a Quidditch hero, a renowned 
and
> popular school athlete, so Sirius is *guessing* that Severus was
> jealous. (Quite possibly it was James's *popularity* rather than 
his
> Quidditch talent that Severus was jealous of--if he was jealous at
> all. There were clearly other reasons for his intense dislike of
> James.) We can't take Sirius's guess as fact (canon) here.

Neri:
Actually, Lupin had the same hypothesis about Snape even before 
Sirius: "We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn't 
like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I 
think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field" (PoA, Ch. 18). Of 
course, both Sirius and Lupin might be wrong about it, but it would 
be a reasonable conjecture for them to make if they know that Snape 
was in the Slytherin team.

It is also revealing that current-day Prof. Snape takes a lot of 
interest in his house team. In fact, whenever McGonagall becomes 
obsessive regarding the Gryffindor team she makes some remark 
revealing that it is because Snape is goading her about it. Also, 
when Snape trashes James in front of Harry he says: "How 
extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter. He too was 
exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch 
field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. 
Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers
" (PoA, Ch. 
14). You could have interpreted this as the typical sneer of the 
Professor towards athletes who are not academically inclined, if you 
didn't know that Severus takes so much interest in Quidditch and 
that James was also a star student. So what is Snape's thing about 
Quidditch?    

> Carol: 
> As for the idea that the Slytherin gang might have been a Quidditch
> team, that appears to be pure speculation at the moment. (Besides, 
a
> Quidditch team has seven members. With Lucius Malfoy gone, the
> Slytherin gang would have had six members that we know of: 
Bellatrix
> Black, the two Lestrange brothers, Evan Rosier, Wilkes, and Severus
> Snape. Who's the seventh? Macnair? I don't think he's named.)

Neri:
You forgot Avery, whom Sirius mentioned as one of the Slytherin 
gang, but OTOH Sirius didn't mention the second Lestrange brother. 
Another player could be Regulus Black, although he'd be even younger 
than Severus. His favorite cousin Bella might have let him into the 
team if she was the captain. Narcissa Black is also a possibility, 
though my privet impression is that she's not one to risk messing 
her hair.

Of course this is all highly speculative, but there are some 
indications that the "Slyhtherin gang" was a multi-year gang (as you 
know well; I think you were the first to notice that Bellatrix must 
be at least two years older than Sirius) and the Quidditch team 
might be a possible way for such a gang to form. There is no need to 
assume a 100% overlap between the team and the gang.

There are other ways for a multi-year gang to form. It could be that 
these kids were all active in some kind of a pro-Voldemort political 
youth organization. It seems that at that time the LV's party was a 
legitimate political force, of the type that loves recruiting 
teenagers. We somehow assume that these kids turned out Death Eaters 
because they were together in the same gang, but it could be the 
other way around: they were in the gang because of their political 
inclinations. The other way to form the gang is that there was a 
secret club, similar to the present-day DA, for learning the Dark 
Arts, perhaps out of anger towards DD who elected not to teach it in 
Hogwarts, while wizarding schools like Durmstrang do have it in 
their curriculum. This Dark Arts club would probably be sponsored by 
LV, and it would be an obvious way for a strange reclusive type like 
young Severus to become popular and make friends. Of course, all the 
above three explanations: the sportive, the political and the 
military, are not mutually exclusive.


Neri, who takes advantage of Yom Kippur to appologize to anybody in 
this list he has offended during the last year.