Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 144091

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lagattalucianese" 
<katmac at k...> wrote:

> O.K., La Gatta understands your feelings. But part of the reason 
> kids like Sirius get away with the things they do (and Sirius has 
> made a career of getting away with things ever since he came to 
> Hogwarts) is that far too many adults have this EEK! reaction, and 
> go and stick their heads under the covers. (No, not *those* covers, 
> you gubbins!)

But again, I want to ask you directly: are you accusing Dumbledore of 
knowing and not doing anything?  You argue below that Molly knows and 
that's why she acts the way that she does.  

I'm talking about cold hard canon plausibility here, because if you 
want to connect this to the books and not simply have it floating in 
the realm of fairly distasteful fanfiction, there are a lot of 
hurdles to jump.

> JKR makes the point, when James is playing with the Snitch, that he 
> has lightning-fast reflexes, and I think she says somewhere that 
> both James and Sirius are bigger than Snape. She certainly implies 
> in the aftermath to the Pensieve, when she describes Snape as "full-
> grown" that fifteen-year-old Snape had some growing still to do.

But again, we find out in book 6 that Snape is indeed the creator of 
the implement that he's become the victim of; we also find out that 
everyone has used it.  I'm leery of constructing this into 
Marauders=always the bullies/Snape=always the victim.  We do have 
Sirius' statement that Snape gave as good as he got, which Lupin 
doesn't challenge.  And again, if you want to dismiss *everything* 
that Sirius says as biased, you're going to have to be evenhanded and 
cut out Snape's take on events as well.  That finally leaves us with 
Dumbledore, who seems not to have thought that Sirius deserved 
expulsion, for whatever reason.  Doesn't fit with the nasty deeply 
sick deviant picture you're trying to extrapolate here.

> I don't. I'm suggesting that Molly knows about his behavior toward 
> Snape (and possibly other "non-U" kids as well), and is taking no 
> chances when Harry is around him. You can't miss her biddy-hen 
> protectiveness in the first Grimauld Place interlude, and I don't 
> think it's because she thinks something is going to come down the 
> chimney and blaspheme the aspidistra if she takes her eyes off 
> Harry for a moment (and she's just as protective of Ron and 
> Hermione, as I recall).

Or it can be her generally Molly-ish territorial instincts regarding 
Harry, which lead to her probably not intentionally so but rather 
spiteful comments about Sirius as guardian.  Dumbledore, again, 
reinforces that Sirius is a genuine and profound loss to Harry, and 
they should have had a long time together.  Oh, I know--just sparing 
the boy's tender feelings.
 
-Nora suggests taking some deep thoughts about the spirit of canon as 
opposed to all the possibilities 'possibly' open by the fine details