JKR and Inconsistency (was:Re: Sirius and Prank again? Fools Rush...)

[magistera_coi]

No: HPFGUIDX 130074

> Betsy Hp:
> Welcome to the list. I'm glad you jumped in. :)  I *am* going to 
> posit that Snape did not hear what the Mauraders said to each
other.  
> Because if he had it would have been game over for Lupin.  (Same if 
> anyone else had overheard what they were saying -- *very* careless
of 
> the boys, but completely in character.)  One word to a well placed 
> parent (and Snape, per canon, is connected to some high placed 
> families) and pressure would have been brought to bare on
Dumbledore 
> and Lupin would have been out.  (Dumbledore may well have lost his 
> position as Headmaster as well.)

Mags:
But if he didn't hear it, how is it in his memory? I know you said you
didn't want to get into the pensieve issue, but it seems as though, if
pensieve scenes contain things that are both true and not remembered
by the owner of the memory, that they'd be the ultimate surveillance
tool. Pull out your memory of breakfast and find out what Lord Thingy
is up to today! Or, even if you have to be close by (as Harry
believes) - stand outside a door for a minute, then go find out what
was going on in there. It just doesn't make any sense, IMO.

But even stipulating that the memory somehow does contain true things
that Snape didn't hear - as I mentioned earlier, it comes back to the
fact that if they were talking about it that openly (and frequently),
someone who was trying to find out their secrets would have heard them
make other references to it.

<snip>
> Betsy Hp:
> But we know for 
> a fact that Snape is *not* paying attention to the Mauraders.  In 
> fact the only reason he settles so close to them is because he has
no 
> idea that they're there until he's attacked.

Mags:
Well, we knew he didn't *appear* to be paying attention. On the other
hand, he does react "so fast it was as though he had been expecting an
attack" (OotP 646). (I've used the nose-in-a-book trick myself many
times, so I never trust that someone who's apparently absorbed in
something can't hear me :P)

<snip>
> Betsy Hp:
> Why would Snape know anything about where Lupin slept?   And as I
said 
> upthread, Snape was more interested in what James and Sirius got up 
> to than Lupin, IMO, who as far as we've been shown had little to do 
> with the war James and Sirius were waging on Snape.  

Mags:
I'm going by what Lupin said in the Shack - that Snape was "very
interested in where [he] went every month". Unless he's flat-out lying
there, it sounds like enough of Snape's attention was focused on Lupin
to at least give him that impression (IMO, it sounds almost like Snape
had made his intentions clear, actually). The fact that Snape saw
Madame Pomfrey leading Lupin out to the Willow suggests to me that he
was following Lupin around as well. 

And if he's noticed that Lupin disappears from classes and so on once
a month, and become interested in it enough to try to solve the
mystery - well, as was mentioned elsewhere on the thread, it didn't
take long for Hermione to figure it out, and it didn't take the other
Marauders much longer once they started wondering what was up.

> Betsy Hp:
>As to what Lupin 
> tells Harry, I don't trust he's telling the whole truth. 
Throughout 
> PoA he holds back information and uses dribs and drabs of
information 
> to misdirect people.  He tells Harry, in PoA, that Snape hated
James 
> because of James' quidditch skills.  As we learn in OotP, there's a 
> lot more to it.

Mags:
Well, he does say that he only thinks that's the reason - but I guess
it comes down to whether you believe their confrontations were mostly
one-sided or not - which, ironically enough, comes down to whether you
believe Lupin is telling the truth or not when he says they weren't.
Personally, I think what we saw in the pensieve scene was one act in a
play that had been going on for a long time. At the beginning it
probably was something as simple as jealousy on Snape's end (although
I'm not saying that *was* the cause, just something along those lines)
and something equally stupid on James' side, but they found all sorts
of new reasons to hate each other as time went on. 

> Betsy Hp:
> Plus, I just cannot see Snape, even at fifteen, being stupid enough 
> to try and take on a full grown werewolf by himself. 

Mags:
He might not have intended to take him on, though. He could, for
example, been looking for proof - either to try to get Lupin expelled,
or (depending on whether or not he was in Voldemort's camp yet) to
discredit Dumbledore. Or for blackmail purposes - who knows? I do
agree, though, that he probably wasn't planning on a battle (although
I don't know why Stupefy wouldn't work, if you were prepared in
advance).

<snip>
> 
> >>Mags: 
> or c) the Prank actually happened before 
> the Pensieve scene; but it seems to me that one of those things
must 
> be true, and (a) strikes me as the most likely.<
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I seriously doubt (c) is true.  Otherwise Sirius and James are even 
> bigger jerks than they appear.  And Snape would have been *way*
more 
> leery of Lupin.  

I agree with you here :) Lupin does say that Snape & James continued
to take every opportunity to curse each other right through seventh
year, but I tend to doubt it escalated to the level of the pensieve
scene post-Prank.

-Mags