What might Snape consider cowardice?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163711

Valky wrote:
> I remember what you are referring to here, Betsy, I was speculating
on the detention slips, (James had many, Snape none as far as we could
know), and was relating it to a possible background for the
"Snivellus" moniker. It wasn't "Snitch" I was pressing for as the
synonym, but rather "crying/complaining which is insincere and
intentionally manipulative", ie grovelling. My thinking was that Snape
recieved his reputation with the Marauders by virtue of what they
percieved as Snivelling which was a cowardly way of ever having to
deal with the consequences of his own ill-doings. This translates into
a Teen Snape who was into the evil sort of magic, hanging out with the
evil crowd, cursing James at every opportunity, *sneaking around*
trying to get the Marauders in trouble, basically being a complete
a*se but never actually recieving a punishment/detention or admitting
to himself or others that he was short of a great guy. <snip>

Carol responds:
For the record, I see Teen!Severus as a more sympathetic figure, as
indicated by both the Pensieve scene in OoP and HBP. Granted, he calls
Lily a Mudblood (under duress and feeling furious that a Gryffindor
and a girl is trying to rescue him when in a fair fight, he could have
defended himself handily) and he (later, perhaps as a result of this
incident) invents a Dark spell. (No, I don't think that the spell that
caused a small cut on James's face was Sectumsempra. He wasn't "cut
always" or he'd have bled to death like a hemophiliac, and there's no
indication that the cut left a scar. It may be a precursor to
Sectumsempra, but it clearly is not sufficiently Dark or dangerous to
be Sectumsempra itself.)

But the Severus we see in the Pensieve scene is a studious little nerd
who needs to get everything he knows about DADA (plainly a lot) onto
his DADA OWL in a tiny handwriting and is so anxious about it that,
Hermionelike, he studies the exam paper and goes over his answers in
his mind after the exam. He's caught offguard yet very quickly pulls
out his wand--evidently, he's developed good reflexes from having been
attacked before--but James and Sirius already have theirs out and
James hexes him before he has a chance to defend himself. And James's
excuse is "because he exists"--not because he's done anything to
James, other than hexing him in retaliation at every opportunity--not
because he's a Dark wizard in the making (that's Sirius Black's
after-the-fact rationalization) or because he supports the pureblood
supremacy ideology (he's probably sensitive about his half=blood
status and keeps his mouth shut about such things most of the time; he
uses the word "Mudblood" *after* the attack). Anyway, even Harry sees
that Teen!Severus is a pale, stooped who looks like a plant left in
the dark, neglected and overly studious. And at this point, he's not
hanging out with any prospective DEs. They're all older than he is and
have left Hogwarts. If any, say Macnair or CrabbenGoyle, are left,
they're not his close friends and don't stick up for him.

HBP shows us a brilliant boy whose potions improvements are real
improvements and clearly the result of his own experiments. (I'm among
those who believe that the adult Snape writes his potions directions
on the board rather than assigning them out of any book because he's
using his improved versions in class.) He came to school at eleven
knowing more "curses" (surely hexes and jinxes) than most seventh
years. It's possible that James and Sirius, not being familiar with
these spells, believed them to be Dark, not realizing that the reason
they didn't know the spells was that some of them at least were
Severus's own inventions. (The older Slytherins, OTOH, immediately
realized that they had a prodigy on their hands and adopted him into
their gang despite his being only a little boy and a Half-blood at
that.) His invented spells, except for Sectumsempra, are mostly
imaginative hexes no more Dark or dangerous than the spells the kids
already use against each other--the toenail hex, Langlock (the
tongue-locking curse which Harry unfairly uses against the Squib
Filch), Levicorpus--and useful charms like Muffliato (which any
teenager of my acquaintance would love to be able to use, secretive
creatures that they naturally are). He also invented a countercurse
for Levicorpus (the others could probably be reversed by Finite
Incantatem, but Levicorpus, being nonverbal, probably required its own
 <nvbl> countercurse) and either invented or researched and discovered
a complex countercurse for Sectumsempra.

So I see the young Snape as extremely bright but underappreciated
except by the Slytherins and misunderstood by the Gryffindors, for
whom he naturally developed an enmity because they teased and bullied
him. The absence of detentions can hardly be held against him. I'd
hate to be judged in that way. ("Never put in detention? She must a
sly little tattletale!") I don't think Snivellus means what you think
it means. I think it's a cruel play on Severus's name (like Peeves's
"loony. loopy Lupin!" which for all we know could date to a time when
Severus had a head cold and was caught sniffling (or was overheard
crying because someone he loved was killed?) If he had reached a point
in his sixth year where he was following the Marauders around hoping
to get them in trouble, it was surely because he wanted revenge for
their treatment of him--and suspected that they were up to something
seriously wrong. Rather like Harry following Draco to eavesdrop, IMO.

On a sidenote, I think that the adult Snape developed his graceful,
sweeping movements (no mention of his being stoop-shouldered like
teen!Severus) and cold, sarcastic manner in an attempt to escape from
the nerdy image that caused him so much grief as a child and
adolescent. But the Snape we see in the Pensieve scene is no more a
coward than the later Snape who risked personal injury and death to
spy for Dumbledore against Voldemort. He joined the Death Eaters, to
be sure, and we can't be sure of his motives. I think it was at least
partly a desire for recognition and appreciation, which he had
received from the Slytherins but not from the Gryffindors. But by the
time Harry was born, he regretted that decision, and, in particular,
having revealed the Prophecy to Voldemort.

Carol, not arguing that Valky is wrong, just presenting her own view