back to Blacks was Re: Snape and DD

[lolita_ns]

No: HPFGUIDX 147297


> Potioncat:
> My mistake. I thought you were referring to Dorea Black as Harry's 
> grandmother.

> I'll still put my wizarding fortune on a Sirius-Severus connection 
> rather than a James-Severus connection. James seems to have overcome 
> his feeling about Severus, but Sirius never did.


Lolita:

Hm... James is dead, so he has no feelings about anyone or anything. 
And I don't recall having read about his overcoming his feelings 
towards Snape. Unless you are referring to Black & Lupin's 
conversation with Harry about the trip into Snape's pensieve? To me, 
it sounded more like James was both pretty spooked (by facing what  
Sirius really was - i.e. a reckless idiot who let himself be so 
carried away as to really endanger others, and one of those others was 
actually his friend - Lupin) and utterly fed up with their feud with 
Snape after the Werewolf prank. It seems that he let Snape be (not 
entirely, but he didn't make a sport of hexing Snape and being hexed 
by him in return after the event), and outgrew his earlier behaviour 
to the degree that he both became Head boy and got Lily to date him 
and eventually marry him. But I rather suspect that he still disliked 
Snape. And Snape disliked him even more than before, for now he owned 
him a life debt. 

I would really like to know whether Snape was always the one attacked. 
Somehow, I can't imagine him as an innocent victim who only defended 
himself... He *did* invent those curses, after all. Even one of those 
used on him. And he must have been the first one to use it, as he 
*was* the one who invented it. 

As for Sirius and Snape - yes, neither of them overcame their feelings 
towards the other. Both of them share some kind of arrested 
development syndrome - in terms of mutual conduct. I mean, really. We 
got two men 'on the wrong side of 35' who can't bring themselves to 
converse with one another at a level more mature than that expected of 
15 year-olds. Then again, Sirius was addled by his prolonged 'holiday' 
in Azkaban, and being stuck with 15 year-olds or people (at least) 
twice his age for better part of 15ish years didn't help Snape's 
emotional maturation either. 

And I would say that there is some more backstory than what we have 
been given so far, which both Snape and Sirius are (i.e. were, in 
Sirius's case) undoubtedly familiar with. And until we are given that 
backstory, we can only guess...

As for Snape-Sirius connection... I rather doubt it... First of all, I 
don't think that such information is a) needed to give additional fuel 
to the fire of Snape-Sirius mutual hatred and b) likely to be crammed 
into the one book that is left, when Rowling has so many loose ends to 
tie and new information to give... Book 7 would have to be 2000 pages 
long in order for her to tie everything (not that I would complain, 
mind you :) )...

I agree with the author of the red hen site about Sirius hating Snape 
for being the kind of boy that his family would approve of and for 
pointing him out to James in order to divert James's attention from 
*him* as the offspring of Dark Wizards. (James *was* known as a hater 
of all thigs dark - although, it escapes me how then he used the magic 
we saw him use on Snape which was later identified as dark... Rowling 
has some issues to resolve regarding dark magic if I am to respect her 
after the series is over... Not that she is about to listen to me, 
that much is certain... But I would much prefer to write a lengthy 
praise on her than a thesis based on disappointment in her skills and 
ideas...) And let's not forget that, according to Sirius, Snape used 
to hang out (in his first year only, given their respective ages) with 
dear cousin Bellatrix... Judging from Sirius's love for her, I would 
say that this would put him off Snape for certain, if nothing else 
did. And it's not like there was nothing else...

Finally, I don't believe that Snape and Sirius were related. Snape 
doesn't come across as somebody who has any connections with the upper 
crust of the society such as the Blacks. He strikes me more as a 
social climber, with churlish manners and general bad behaviour. 
Compare him to the Malfoys, and you'll get the idea. He is simply not 
in their league. His mother's family seem to have been nobodies.(I 
tend to doubt that they were pureblood at all... Or if they were, they 
were probably the 'new' purebloods - Rowling did say that families can 
lose the halfblood status over generations. They were certainly not 
the people any of the Blacks would have thought were good enough for 
them) And, judging from Snape's house, they were not very rich, to 
boot. 

So... I should better stop here. This is turning out to be a very long 
post, and I do have another, completely not Potter-related paper to 
finish... Duty calls... 

Anyway, feel free to disagree :)

Cheers,
Lolita.