The Prince interpreted

[Lisa]

No: HPFGUIDX 173471

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dana" <ida3 at ...> wrote:

<huge snip> 
> 
> These two points become separate issues of debate. 1) Snape put 
> himself in a situation that could have gotten him killed 2) 
Sirius's 
> reasons for telling Snape how to get passed the willow. These two 
> issues are no longer part of the same event. If Snape had gotten 
> killed then it was not because Sirius tricked him but because Snape 
> wanted to go there to find out what the marauders were up to. 
> 
> It is like saying Snape wanted to kill Harry when he revealed 
Harry's 
> ability to speak parseltongue and thus giving Harry the tool to 
enter 
> the Chamber of Secrets. Harry knew what he could face in the 
chamber 
> but he went anyway. Snape had nothing to do with it. Harry to some 
> level could have find out by other means that he could speak 
> parceltongue but it was Snape who tricked him into revealing it. 
> 
>
Lisa:

While I disagree with everything I've snipped, there's little point 
in responding point-by-point, as we've now come to reiterating the 
same points we've already made.  However, as to the above:

Snape could not have put himself in a situation that could've gotten 
him killed if Sirius hadn't specifically told him how to do so.  
Smart as Snape was, he didn't know how to get into the Shrieking 
Shack.  Only someone with knowledge of how to do so and a malicious 
intent could've done so.  Somehow, I don't think Sirius told 
Snape, "This is how to get in, but since you're not an animagus, you 
won't be able to get away, so you'll be bitten or die."  I guess you 
could believe that -- but that's not canon, either.  The thing is, 
Snape didn't know there was no other way out.  If the Marauders could 
survive, why couldn't he?

As for Sirius' reasons for telling Snape how to get past the Willow?  
Not altruistic, wouldn't you say?  He claims it was to "teach him a 
lesson."  What lesson would that be?  "Being nosy gets you killed?"  
That's quite a lesson, I would say ...

And since Snape had no clue that Harry could speak Parseltongue, he 
didn't know the outcome of that action and couldn't have begun for 
foresee it, so the attempted allegorical situation ... isn't.  Sirius 
knew the only possible outcomes (bite or death) of his "prank."