relationships among the marauders

[sherry gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 156324

We've been discussing the pensieve scene, and the relative merits 
of James, Sirius, Snape and others, all based on that one moment 
in time.  It's been suggested that Sirius was only kind or decent 
to others he considered in his pack, and someone else, I believe 
Justcarol 67, suggested that in reality, James and Sirius treated 
Remus and Peter badly as well.  I'm leaving out Peter in my 
response here, but I want to address how I see the treatment of 
Remus by James and Sirius.

I am a disabled person.  I am blind and I was born with a disease 
called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.  I have a fused knee, an 
artificial one and two artificial hips.  My disability does not 
cause me to turn into a vicious monster, but it has caused me 
physical pain of course.  It has also taught me about how very 
unkind people can be to those who are different from the norm, 
and about how much discrimination there is out there.  I have to 
try harder and be ten times better than other applicants to get 
jobs.  I face discrimination or condescension in the workplace, 
in the social realm and anywhere else.

Except among my true friends and family.  Those who truly accept 
me the way I am, to the point that they can tease me about it 
without causing offense.  There are slang terms for blind people 
or for people with mobility disabilities.  If my friends and 
family knew these terms, they could get away with using them 
around me, though a stranger could not.  They've been known to 
take me to task for not telling them where to turn in the car, to 
tease me if I bump into something and ask why I wasn't looking 
where I was going.  Occasionally, they refer to me as the "Bionic 
Woman" because of my artificial joints, and I joke back about 
getting the bionics without the super powers.  They don't mean 
any of this to hurt me or offend me.  They never say it because 
they think I'm somehow less than they.  On the contrary, they can 
get away with it, precisely because they do accept me, 100 
percent, completely.

When I first read OOTP, I didn't take the banter with Remus about 
werewolf questions to be anything but the same kind of teasing 
that goes on with my family and friends.  In fact, the rapport 
between the marauders in that scene really cemented their bond 
for me, and made the eventual tragedy even more sad.  Something 
happened between then and later to cause them to distrust each 
other, but this scene doesn't show that to me at all.  In fact, 
it made me love them even more.  Leaving out the Snape thing, I 
mean.  And I'm willing to give them some benefit of the doubt 
even on that, because I've had many, many pages of seeing Snape 
as a mean, twisted, bitter man, who takes his bitterness out on 
those weaker than he is, those who cannot fight back without 
serious consequences.  But I've only seen one small episode of 
James being a bully.  James is no nice guy in that scene, 
obviously, but then, for me, Snape is no nice guy in the entire 
series.

Sherry