[HPforGrownups] Re: Hating Dark Arts (was re James' essence...)

[Marion Ros]

No: HPFGUIDX 154111

Hi again.

I had to break off my last mail on this subject because I had an appointment with the eye-surgeon (I'm typing this with one eye taped shut, btw :-)

So, in my last mail I stated that I thought that the whole Marauders-against-Snape thing (and the 'James hated Dark Arts' statement) started with Sirius and his ongoing battle against his family. A battle not because they were 'evil' and he was 'good' (he shares a lot of characteristics with his cousin Bellatrix: both are impulsive, rather showy and have a cruel streak) but because he simply was a contrary child and teenager, rebelling against his parents because he *could*. (I'm not saying that the Black family were paragons of virtue or even nice, but some children are simply like that. Some try to please their parents no matter how rotten their parents behave and some simply rebel without a direct cause) As for Sirius' parents, we don't know enough, really. All we've been shown is that portrait of his mum, and that portrait is... mad. Or drunk (Red Hen also made a wonderful suggestion that alcoholism might be a trait in that family. Sirius takes to the bottle when confined to Grimmauld Place, and who knows what his mum did, those few years before her death. When she died, her oldest son was in Azkaban for being a massmurderer, her youngest son was murdered by Voldemort and her husband had died in the same year as her youngest son (murdered by Voldemort's followers? We do know that he 'put all his money in defensive charms for the house') The poor woman might've grown mad with grief. I'd say she was probably a graceful, if oldfashioned, woman when her boys were still young. Exasperated by her oldest son, no doubt. But nothing tells us that Sirius' parents were abusive or didn't love him. They were rather oldfashioned and steeped in tradition, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. And Sirius, for all his ranting against his family, *did* adopt their attitude to the world, but more about that later.

Sirius is also one of those people who will find a 'legal cause' to dislike the people he dislikes. It's not that he lies, even to himself; he genuinely believes that 

Anyway, Sirius enters Hogwarts, determined not to become a Slytherin (to spite his family), he befriends James Potter, and somewhere along the line they aquire two followers: Lupin and Pettigrew. Lupin was a Dark Creature and how cool is *that*! Wouldn't his mother just *scream* if she knew he ran with a Werewolf each month! (hey, this is Sirius, the Pureblood who drove a charmed *motorbike*, a thing both Muggle and associated with rebellion) 
But does anybody ask themselves why two such clever, old-family, old-money little princes like James and Sirius hang out with Peter Pettigrew? 

Well, we can safely assume that, pureblood or halfblood or even muggleborn, Peter was nowhere in James' and Sirius' league *socially*. And the WW is a small world. Estemated population in the British Isles (according to Red Hen, my HP guru) about 17.000 wizards and witches. A large village. Or a small town. Anybody who is *anybody* knows eachother in such a society. Anybody who is anybody is related to eachother is one degree or another. But of course not all the wizarding families are Great And Noble Houses like the Blacks, the Malfoys, the Potters etc. There are also the Shunpikes and the Ollivanders. The tradespeople, so to speak. 
And if you don't belong to an Old Family, and want to come up in the world, you ally yourself to a Big Name, or and Old House. The Weasleys have allied themselves to Dumbledore (and doesn't Percy get flak when he chooses to ally himself to Barty Crouch sr?), Umbridge has connections to Fudge, but apparantly also to Malfoy (Fudge is Malfoy's creature?)
It's a rather Roman thing: you've got patrons and you've got clients.
I think that Peter Pettigrew was from a 'client' family and Peter allied himself to the oldest sons of *two* old and influential families, hence the syncopanthic behaviour. But Peter miscalculated: Sirius abdicated his role as oldest son and fritters away his early twenties having fun and flying his motorbike and James married a muggleborn witch and settled down in obscurity. They were neither going to be the great shakers and movers of the WW. Not good patron material. So Peter changed affilliations from the once-promising duds that James and Sirius turned out to be to the biggest kid on the political block. This was when Voldmort still had his charming human face and still spouted his partyline about pureblood culture coming first (something half the WW agreed with. Most of them were old enough and clever enough to not fall for it. That handful DE that is Voldemort's 'army' - what? forty, fifty in total? - he recruited when they were just out of Hogwarts. Very young and impressionable. Sirius parents never supported Voldemort. They probably thought him to be a annoying upstart. Who had ever *heard* of the Riddle family, after all..)

Anyway, back to the first year at Hogwarts for the Marauders and Snape. 
Snape is a ickle firstie, but also a very clever, shorttempered, ambitious little firstie. And when provokes, he hexes. And the hexes he uses are hexes no-one has ever *heard* of. Even Bellatrix is impressed. And if cousin Bellatrix is impressed, those hexes *must've* been Dark Arts, right? And that ugly little nobody (because who has ever heard of the *Snapes* after all) doesn't even behave as he should to his social superiors!! When you tell him to move, he spits abuse. When you manhandle him slightly ("as a *joke* you know") he kicks and bites and *hexes* you. Who does this rude, ugly kid in his secondhand gowns and his washed-so-often-they-are-grey underwear think he is? Sirius is a *Black*! That is practically *royalty*, you know! I'm telling you James, that kid is up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts. Didn't he impress my horrid cousin Bellatrix? And isn't she Bad News? My entire *family* is bad news. Well, they're all Slytherin as well. That tells you something.."

Self-justification, we call that.

And James swallowed it. Well, he might've been a very bright boy, but he was also an *eleven year old*, very spoiled, very pampered, very protected, very rich boy. The only son of doting elderly parents. Deferred to by his parents clients, no doubt. Homeschooled. Private tutor, perhaps? 
Both James and Sirius are very spoiled. Oh, they're charming and clever and they charmed their way into their teacher's hearts. Aren't those children charming and clever and *well-bred*?! But let one of their peers refuse to be charmed, let one of them have ambitions, not to be a syncophant like Pettigrew, but a mover and shaker on his own merit (but being a Slytherin not necessarily one that's in the spotlight) and all hell breaks loose.

That's how the whole Marauder versus Snape War began, if you ask me.

One more thing on the "James hated Dark Arts" thing, though: for a group that so hated Dark magic, they apparantly had no trouble using it themselves. I don't even mean the fact that they had no moral issue with stealing Snape's homemade hexes and using it on others (just like Harry who thinks a toenail-growing hex is quite hilarious when sneakily cast at Vincent Crabbe - or Greg Goyle, I forget which - but who thought it ab-so-lutely unforgivable when Malfoy cast a teeth-growing hex on Hermione. Well, I for one see no difference)

No, I mean that blasted Map.

There is something fishy about that map... Something Dark, even....
Interesting essay on the Map: http://lunar-music.livejournal.com/1537.html#cutid1
Let me quote Swythyv's (http://swythyv.livejournal.com/) reply on that essay:

>>>"The Map was apparently made during the Marauders' fifth year - the height of their extremely unpleasant flirtation with dark magic (fun antipersonnel magic) and personal irresponsibility. JKR about poked us in the eye with it, too.

Snape holds the Map and says that "this parchment is plainly full of dark magic." He may be easily aggravated, but this is his area of expertise. In book six, we discover that Argus Filch has a "Secrecy Sensor" which, it is thought, would have detected the Opal Necklace. He conficated something that looked like plain, fresh parchment and put it in a drawer marked "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous." For all that he's made mock of, we should perhaps assume Argus is competent, too.

Fred and George report that George dropped a dungbomb and Fred "whipped the drawer open and grabbed - this." So...one blind grab in Filch's "Dangerous" drawer and you get..."this." A bit of volition, there? When the twins say "This little beauty's taught us more than all the teachers at the school," they mean somthing that apparently was capable of thrusting itself into their hand and chosing to teach them its own password. 

Am I the only person who flinches when the words "I solemnly swear" are considered meaningless in real life? Should we really take those words so lightly in the story when they are said while holding your wand?

Remus confirms to Harry that the "manufacturers" of the Map would have wanted to lure him out of the school. "You said they would have thought it was funny." To which Lupin replied "And so we would have." Did it in fact do so?

Harry takes the map (p 192 PoA USed), reviews in his head Mr. Weasley's very words about things that think, and acknowledges that "This map was one of those dangerous magical objects that Mr. Weasley had been warning about." So while thinking this, after his rather recent experience with Tom Riddle's diary, "Then, quite suddenly, as though following orders, he rolled up the map, stuffed it inside his robes, and hurried to the door of the classroom." And proceeded repeatedly to Hogwarts for jokes and candy in one of the most disturbing examples of suicidal bad judgment we have in the books. 

Lupin originally rebuked Harry for his extremely thoughtless behavior. But after Lupin had had the map for a while, he "forgets" to come down for his potion. In fact, with the map open on his desk, he goes running outside at the full moon without taking his potion. And, to top it off, he admits its capacity for dangerous influence and returns it to Harry. Looks like it works on everyone."<<<


Looks like those 'Oh-we're-so-against-Dark-Arts' Marauders weren't so squeeky-clean and Light either.


Marion


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