The Prince interpreted

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173062

Carol earlier:
> > We see that he and Lily are really friends, that he's different
from the boys he runs around with (and blind to their faults). Oddly,
as Valky also noticed, the worst memory comes *after* the so-called
Prank, which means that James did not suddenly become noble and
heroic. He's still willing to ambush Severus and publicly humiliate
him. We're given no alternate version, so Severus's idea that James
saved him because he got cold feet must be right.
> <snip>
> 
Dana responded:
> I think you should read it again. (Sorry to lazy to quote) 
> 
> Snape tries to excuse Mulciber using Dark Magic on a girl and when
he fails, he pulls in James Potter and his nightly activities. Snape 
already knew what Lupin was and not just from glimpsing him just that
night. Lily specifically states that she knows his theories about 
Lupin, while she clearly had not talked to Snape after the ordeal
happened. She goes on about Snape sneaking into the tunnel behind the
Willow and that James saved him. Snape tries to make her see that 
James did not do it to be heroic but that he only wanted to safe his
friends but never accuses him of trying to kill him. He just says 
that he doesn't want Lily to be fooled by him. <snip>

Carol:
And where did I argue against any of this? All I said was that the
so-called Prank came before the worst memory (canon) and that we get
no alternative version of what happened to contradict Snape's view
that James got cold feet.

Note that Lily doesn't know exactly what happened, only that James
saved Severus, but she doesn't view James as a hero. She calls him "an
arrogant toerag" (DH Am. ed. 674). And she's right. James certainly
has not become noble as a result of rescuing Severus (which was what I
assumed had prompted him to start on the path toward maturity and
heroism). The scene where he bullies and humiliates him occurs *after*
he rescues Severus (unfortunately, we still don't know how). Where is
the canon that he didn't rescue Severus because he got cold feet? It
certainly was no noble heroic impulse to save an enemy.

Dana:
> Snape lied to DD about why he was in the tunnel and tried to use it
to get the Marauders expelled but his plan failed. And DD, 20 years 
after the fact, is still not buying. <snip>

Carol responds:
Huh? Where are you getting all this stuff about Snape lying to
Dumbledore? I didn't mention DD in relation to "The Prince's Tale," so
you're arguing against some imaginary straw man. Even if you can find
canon to support your point, the relevance to my post escapes me.

My point, since you seem to have missed it completely, was that the
so-called Prank came before the worst memory and was therefore not the
turning point for Snape, who had apparently *not* made up his mind to
be a DE as Lily supposes after the worst memory scene, and that we
have no alternative to Snape's version of the rescue by James, which
Lily didn't witness (she doesn't know what's "down there" in the
Shrieking Shack and Severus doesn't tell her that his theory about the
werewolf is right). Lily still thinks that James is a "toerag," and
Severus is happy to find that she doesn't think he's as wonderful as
the rest of the school seems to. There's no indication whatever that
he's going down the same road as Avery and Mulciber, only that he,
like Lupin and Black later in life, can't see the flaws in his friends
or the difference between their cruelty and James Potter's hexing
people in the hallways. (Makes me wonder what would have happened if
he'd been sorted into Gryffindor and become friends with James and
Sirius instead of having them judge him from day one based on his wish
to be in a house he thinks represents brains not brawn (672). If only
he'd wanted to be sorted into Ravenclaw!)
  
Dana: 
> The scene actually says several things. Snape was not continuously 
bullied by the Marauders and the attack on Snape in SWM did not come 
totally out of the blue. Snape was as Sirius stated always sneaking 
around them, trying to find out what they where up to, trying to get
them expelled. <snip>

Carol:
I have never believed nor have I ever stated that Severus was
continually bullied (though I know that others have expressed that
view). We agree there. Given his arsenal of hexes, many of them his
own inventions, I'm pretty sure that in a fair fight (not a sneak
two-on-one attack that cannot be justified by Severus's peek into the
Shrieking Shack, which could have killed him), he could have held his
own. (We see later just how brilliant the adult Snape is at duelling.
The teenage snape was probably no slouch at it, either.) 

But that's beside the point. James is at this point, in the words of
his own friend, "an arrogant berk," and in the words of the woman who
ultimately married him, "a bullying toerag" who hexes people in the
corridors if they annoy him. His countless detentions show that he was
a troublemaker. So whatever turned James into the man who died tried
trying to fight Voldemort, it wasn't his unwilling rescue of Severus
Snape from the Shrieking Shack. And what turned Severus Snape to the
Dark side wasn't the so-called Prank. It was Lily's rejction, her
refusal to forgive him, that left him, in his own view, with nowhere
to turn but to his "friends," Mulciber and Avery and any others who
had not yet left school.

Dana: 
> Only JKR can resolve the issue of how Sirius played the trick on 
Snape but Snape did not go in unknowing. He took the bait in an 
attempt to get rid of the Marauders and in particularly James.  He 
tried to play it for all it was worth with DD and later Harry but did
not dare to do that with Lily. 

Carol:
I agree that he expected to see a werewolf, but his going into the
Shrieking Shack willingly does not justify Sirius's showing him how to
go in. Have you forgotten that the Marauders, being Animagi, could do
so safely but Severus couldn't? As for playing it for all it was
worth, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but it has
nothing to do with the points I was making.

Please do me the courtesy of responding to what I actually said rather
than making assumptions about what I meant. And it might be a good
idea to actually consult the canon you confess to being too lazy to
quote before you advise me to reread it.

Carol, still interested in the implications of having the so-called
Prank come before the worst memory