Hating Dark Arts (was re James' essence...)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 154048

Marion:

> Enter cousin Bellatrix. Now she *was* nasty. And according 
> to the Black familytree she was six years older. So when 
> Sirius (and Snape)entered Hogwarts Bellatrix was a seventh year. 
 
> Remember that Sirius told Harry in the Shrieking Shack 
> that Snape was part of a group that included the 'Lestranges' 
> (Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black he means, but clearly 
> disassociates from his cousin) but adult Snape and Bellatrix 
> are fire and water. No buddies, that's for sure. Besides, 
> what firstie was ever part of a social group of seventh years?

houyhnhnm:

I am confused about this.  Images of the original scanned drawing that 
I can find online do not show Bellatrix on the Black family Tree at 
all.  Then there is the facsimile at the Lexicon site that gives her 
birth year as 1951.  I don't know where they got that information, but 
if it is bona fide, if it can be considered "canon", then Bellatrix 
was at least eight, possibly nine years older than Snape, et al.

Her years at Hogwarts could not have overlapped even by one with 
Sirius and Snape's class.  Even if Snape hung around with the 
Lestranges after leaving Hogwarts, how would Sirius know.  He hadn't 
seen Bellatrix since he was about 15.  He didn't even know Snape had 
joined the Death Eaters.  I'm wondering at this point if *any* 
information coming from Sirius is reliable.

Perhaps Snape's immersion in the Dark Arts, at the time he came to 
Hogwarts, was nothing more than a fascination with things that 
official Wizarding society considered off-limits for 11-year-olds, and 
a determination to study them ("wizards of a certain calibre have 
always been drawn, etc"), rather than a budding inclination toward 
Evil.

Then added to that was the fact that Snape was different.  He didn't 
fit in.  An outsider, a greasy little oddball.  Someone who played by 
different rules.

I kind of imagine their early confrontations would be similar to what 
might have occurred if respectably middle class, gangsta wannabe 
Dudley had run into a scholarship student at Smeltings who came from a 
neigborhood where there were real gangsters.  Where the result of an 
insult was more likely to be a cutting rather than a rock throwing.  
Both would think that they were playing by the rules, but the other 
wasn't, because they were not following the same rules.