Scene with likeable James WAS: Re: Eileen Pince

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 156327

>   Joe:
>   You believe the attack on Snape is unprovoked. Not knowing what 
might have happened earlier that day or the day before or the day 
before means that all of us are at best making an uneducated guess.

zgirnius:
We know what has been happening for the last two-three hours, even 
though we do not see it. The kids have all been taking the written 
part of their DADA OWL exam. I feel confident Rowling wrote it this 
way precisely so we would know that the attack was unprovoked in the 
usual sense of the word. Whatever provocation there might have been 
was anything but immediate.

She could have made it a lot more ambiguous, by starting it (say) 
where James and Sirius accost Severus.

The other problem is that there is no reference to anything about 
Severus in the Marauders' conversation. They are not recovering from 
some trauma, angry about some injustice, etc. They are killing time 
before lunch and the DADA practical (which one presumes took place 
that afternoon, based ont he pattern we are shown in OotP). They are 
bored, and Severus happens by.
   
Joe: 
>   I understand the desire to take the good guys down a peg or two 
esp. when they might seem to be a bit too good to be true but making 
wild assumptions based on a five minute span in their fifteenth year 
seems way over the top.

zgirnius:
Except it is not all we have. There's also that business of how Snape 
came to be in a tunnel with a werewolf.

JOe:  
>   Oh one more thing. Can we please stop calling people bullies 
because they hexed someone? We have a good bit of canon evidence that 
supports students hexing each other frequently. Its a guy thing and 
I'm guessing girls don't understand but boys play rough. The only 
thing that was wrong was Lily interfering in what obviously seemed to 
be a long term grudge on both sides.

zgirnius:
I'd be happy to give you the hex thing...but not in this incident. 
The numbers and the crowd of onlookers change things.