OotP: That Hazing Scene

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 135157

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kat Macfarlane" <katmac at k...> 
wrote:
> Ruminations of a nitpicker: With regard to the scene in the 
Pensieve in which James Potter humiliates Snape:
> 
> 1. How come Snape is running around in nothing but his underwear 
under his robes? O.K., O.K., it's end of spring term,  the weather 
is warmish, I've been to a fair number of graduations where..., 
etc., etc., but it does seem as if the Hogwarts students usually 
wear normal kid clothes under their school robes (see, e.g., PS/SS, 
p. 110, hb U.S. edition), especially since the robes, as depicted in 
the illustrations, are rather casually worn and apparently sans 
zippers. (One wonders whether Hogwarts has any sort of dress code in 
effect.)
> 

Canon wizards don't wear anything under their robes, most of the 
time.  They don't dress in Muggle clothing.  Snape doesn't wear 
pants under his robes as a teacher, either.  The movie Snape--who 
comes equipped with dozens of buttons and a frock coat--is not 
supported by the books.

> 2. Why does Lily tell Snape to wash his pants (apart, of course, 
from the fact that they needed it)? Wouldn't laundry arrangements at 
Hogwarts be a trifle more...magical?
> 

Snape grew up poor.  It's evident that poor people at Hogwarts (and 
elsewhere) have shabbier clothing.  Lupin, the Weasleys, etc.  
Snape's underclothes probably weren't dirty--just grey the way old 
underwear tends to be.  

> 3. I wonder whether Snape lashes out so viciously at Lily because 
he has just been rescued by a girl (and a mudblood at that) from his 
two most hated enemies.
> 

Which is exactly why he lashes out.

> 4. Finally, if Snape is such a hotshot at magic and runs with a 
tough Slitherin gang (GoF, p. 531, hb U.S. edition), how did he get 
into such a relationship with the Marauders in the first place? One 
can easily imagine him being unpopular, even antisocial, but the 
class victim??? I'd expect any confrontation with James and Co. to 
be more on the order of jock-versus-greaser battles that made life 
in my junior high school so interesting.
> 

I don't know if this is supported by canon, but my guess is that 
James and Sirius--good looking, popular, athletic, etc. nearly 
immediately started picking on him.  Snape was just the type of kid 
that such boys tend to gather together to humiliate (I remember high 
school).    

Leslie41