[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's detention - James saved Snape's life incident

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 135945

> bboyminn:
> 
> Why was it a crime? Why was it attempted murder? Sirius didn't throw
> Snape to the 'wolves'. Snape went by his own choice and of his own
> accord knowing full well that he was acting against the wishes of the
> administration. All Sirius did was tell him how to get past the
> Whomping Willow. How is that a crime? 
> 

Because Sirius KNEW that Lupin was dangerous.  Snape did not.  I
quoted the passage from Lupin, because EVEN Lupin knew it could have
killed both Snape & James.  James saved Snape's life, at great risk to
his own....Hence, the life-debt that Snape owed James.  Those things
aren't given out lightly.  Sirius set up Snape - he knew Snape would
go looking.  True, Snape didn't HAVE to go, he could have stayed in
his dorm.  But Sirius knew that Snape would go - he taunted him -
probably even called him coward.  And we know what 16 year old boys
are like - hell, even some grown men & women have issues being called
a coward.   Snape wanted to know what Lupin was up to - he did not
know that Lupin was a werewolf.  If he had known, he wouldn't have
gone.  I don't think it even crossed his mind that Sirius would go so
low as to *murder* him.  Perhaps Sirius didn't think that Snape would
get hurt - perhaps he thought as you have posted - Snape has his wand,
knows magic, and so forth.  But, remember, even the MMPPW couldn't
face Lupin as themselves when Lupin turned into a werewolf.  They had
to go to their animal forms.  Snape, as far as we know, is not an
Animagus.  




Sherry now:

You are forgetting the infamous pensive scene.  The one Harry saw, when he
shouldn't have.  That took place in fifth year, and since the so called
prank happened when they were 16, it is most likely in the sixth year.  In
the pensive scene, Snape's memory, the marauders are talking about Lupin
being a werewolf.  There's no way Snape didn't know it, or at least guess.
Sirius was wrong, but he was guilty of being a reckless brash teenage boy,
not a murderer.  Kids of that age aren't allowed to do magic outside school
in the WW.  They aren't allowed to work long hours or use dangerous
equipment and can't work at certain jobs in the real world.  Because they
still haven't developed enough judgment to do these things safely.  i am
sure that Sirius didn't think about the worst consequence that could have
happened, the danger to Lupin, if something had happened to Snape.  He was
foolish, absolutely, but not criminal.

And we don't really know all the details of what led up to Snape going into
that tunnel.  We've been given a few words about it, but with Snape's hatred
of the marauders, i wouldn't be surprised if the circumstances were not
quite as they've been told.  Even Lupin doesn't explain what actually
happened.  And Snape is the one who did indeed become a murderer, probably
in his active life with the death eaters, and as we just saw, on the
Astronomy Tower at the end of HBP.  He's not a poor helpless victim in any
way.

Sherry