Sirius' words about Snape?Who are the people in Snape's memory?

[quick_silver71]

No: HPFGUIDX 143632

> Christina:
> 
> We've seen jealousy as a powerful motivator before, but James 
wouldn't
> have had the chance to show off his Quidditch talents right away. 
> Harry was the youngest Quidditch player in a long time, so there's 
no
> way James could have played right at the start of school. 
<SNIP>


Quick_silver:
But the snippets of Snape's memory that Harry saw describes the 
people as "boy and girl" meaning that they were probably still quite 
young and we know the first year Gryffindor and Slytherin have 
flying lessons together. 

Christina:
> That's an interesting thought- I just love speculation on those 
weird
> little snippets that we get from Snape's head.  However, if the boy
> was James, I think that Harry would have recognized him easily (he
> looks just like his father and picks him out of the crowd 
in "Snape's
> Worst Memory" easily).  Also, Snape's memory features a girl 
laughing
> at the boy on the broomstick; I find it much easier to believe 
that a
> girl was laughing at the skinny, unattractive weird kid than the
> popular athlete.

Quick_silver:
Yet Harry doesn't recognize Snape in the snippets he saw either. The 
reader is meant to assume we're seeing Snape and uses descriptions 
like "dark haired" and "hooked nose" to describe the "Snape 
apparent" in the scenes (Harry states that the cowering boy was 
Snape but he doesn't mention the other two memories snippets).  
That's what first alerted me to this memory
the boy is described 
as "scrawny "(at least I've never connected scrawny with Snape
I 
connect it with Harry) which has never been used to describe Snape 
but has been used to describe Harry who's apparently 95% James's 
clone in appearance. And James probably wouldn't have been the 
popular athlete yet either
it that scene occurred in Snape's first 
year (again based on the fact that "boy" is used) then said boy 
could have been at school for only a few weeks. I can certainly 
picture Lily laughing at James even if his broom was being hexed.

It should also be noted we are told hexing brooms is powerful dark 
magic (we're told this in the very first book by Hagrid who 
discounts Malfoy hexing Harry's broom because the charge is so 
serious and the magic advanced). I'd find James doing the hexing 
unlikely for what exact reason
we're constantly told he hated the 
Dark Arts (of course Sirius could be lying). What's more we have no 
hint that James was super advanced when he entered Hogwarts yet 
every character in that memory snippet is described as "boy or girl" 
which implies first maybe second years (if they're even in 
Hogwarts). Yet Sirius makes the claim that Snape knew more curses 
the half the 7th years
has it been considered that maybe Sirius had 
empirical evidence to back up that claim? 

Quick_Silver (who believes that we know every person that we saw in 
those memory snippets)