The Huge overreactions from a five minute time span.

[Joe Goodwin]

No: HPFGUIDX 150090

Snape's worst memory has to be the single most hysteria-inducing piece of Harry Potter. It gives rise to a lot of clap trap including:
   
  1. Snape would be a teddybear if only the mean old James Potter hadn't tortured him in school.
   
  2. James and the other Marauders were really nasty people and Dumbledore let them get away with everything.
   
  3. Now we have James and Sirius sexually harrassing Snape.
   
  Can we just put these things to bed now? James Potter was a great guy. How do we know? We know because a great many highly intelligent and very nice people thought the world of him. Lily Potter was no ones fool and if she loved him enough to marry him and have his child then that should speak volumes. Nothing speaks of a man as much as his associates. 
   
  Let's not forget that Snape hated James because he was cocky. Lots of teenagers can be branded with that label. James hated Snape because he was, to quote Remus Lupin "Up to his neck in the Dark Arts." Now this wasn't teenage Remus Lupin who said this it was adult Remus Lupin who is one of the few people JKR sets up and paragons of wisdom and forgiveness. It was interesting to note that Snape was like that when he arrived at Hogwarts.
   
  One teenager is cocky and one is using illegal Dark Magic. Hmm James doesn't sound too bad now, does he?
   
  We also have the whole James and Sirius always attacked Snape two to one idea. Honestly we have no reason to think that aside from one five minute memory. Yes James and Sirius had friends to help them and it is easy to see Snape not having friends. Yet we know that many of Snape's classmates ended up as Death Eaters. They obviously thought enough and knew enough about him to bring him to Voldemort's attention. 
   
  The truth is probably that the Gryffindors and the Slytherins constantly jinxed and hexed each other on many occations sheerly out of house rivalry. A war that was for the most part between their houses was on the horizon as well. It was probably this that forged the Snape-Potter feud as much as anything.
   
  Yeah James and Sirius were a bit much and could have been nicer. But James Potter stood his ground and faced off against Voldemort, even though he had to know he had no chance, in an attempt to save his wife and child. James Potter stood by his friend Remus Lupin when most of the wizarding world would not have. James Potter became an Auror and worked to help people
   
  Snape willingly joined a group of racists bent on torture, murder and the ethnic cleansing of the Muggleborn and the best thing we can say is that he was sorry when someone who he knew was murdered by them.
   
  There really isn't much else to say.
   
  Joe