[HPforGrownups] Re: Nice vs. Good, honesty, and Snape: Was Snape, Apologies, and Redemption

[IreneMikhlin]

No: HPFGUIDX 153221

lanval1015 wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin 
> <irene_mikhlin at ...> wrote:
>  Now, I'm going out on a limb here, but the fact that this 
>> was not reciprocated suggests strongly to me that it was uninvited.
>> Lupin has no business to be on the first name basis with Snape.
> 
> Lanval:
> Of course he does. They're contemporaries; they were at school 
> together. Whether Snape likes it or not is another thing.

But how do you imagine their first meeting went, after Dumbledore 
introduced his new DADA professor? How could Lupin not to pick up the 
clue that Snape does not reciprocate with the first name? Sure, he has a 
right to persist with it, it's not crime, but nice and friendly it's not 
either.

> 
> Lanval:
> Don't know which scene precisely you're referring to, but if it's in 
> front of students, it's to be expected. 
> There really are no set rules in the WW, are there? McGonagall and 
> Trelawney call one another by their first names, though there's no 
> love lost between them.

"Call one another" is the operative word here. If Snape reciprocated, I 
would not have a problem with that.

  Fudge calls everyone but DD (I think) by
> their first name.

Fudge is the governor, he is allowed to do it.

> 
> As for the notion that he calls Snape 'Severus' merely to annoy him, 
> well, canon would refute that: he still calls him 'Severus' with 
> Snape's wand pointed at him, in the Shrieking Shack. And whatever 
> Lupin may be, stupid he's not.

In the Shrieking shack Lupin continues his line of behaviour "Severus, 
we were at school together". It only serves to infuriate Snape further, 
and it does not take a PhD in Psychology to figure it out upfront.
So either Lupin was evil there :-), or very, very naive (to the point 
where some people will call it stupidity).

> Irene:
>  
>> If one of my schooldays' tormentors appeared at my work place and 
>> started behaving as if we were the best of chums, I'm not sure I'd 
> be 
>> able to keep my cool even to the level Snape does in PoA.
>>
> 
> Lanval:
> Guess we're different then. I'd simply assume, until further notice, 
> that this person had decided to move on, stopped being childish, and 
> was making an effort to be pleasant. 

Lovely. I think an effort to be pleasant starts with apologies (or, at 
the very least) acknowledgment of previous unpleasantness. To pretend 
that nothing out of ordinary playground tussle has ever happened, to 
refer to "childish grudges" or some such, to continue with the bullshit 
"jealous of James's quidditch skills" does not strike me as moving on at 
all.

Snape's biggest issue, as I see it, stems from the fact that no one has 
ever acknowledged that he was wronged during his Hogwarts years. Now, 
maybe he should move on of his own volition, forgive and forget. But the 
participants of the events have no right to expect it from him.
Even Dumbledore, and certainly not the active participants, like Black 
or Lupin.

If in PS Dumbledore didn't take the line with Harry "Your father was the 
bee's knees, and Professor Snape didn't like him for some unfathomable 
reasons, a spiteful old meanie that he is", but instead something like 
"Your father was a wonderful man. Professor Snape had some private 
reasons to dislike him, but that should not reflect badly on your 
father's shining personality in any way", the whole Snape-Harry dynamics 
would not be as poisonous.
But then, we would not have the big payoff in book 7. :-)


Irene