Werewolves and RL equivalents (was:Re: Snape - a werewolf bigot?...)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 170421

 Lanval:
> I'd need more evidence for Lupin resenting the potion, still. As I 
wrote in a reply to another poster, Lupin can't be too tired of it 
yet -- it gives him, after all, the most relief he's had in years, 
and this is only the third time around he's "on" it.
> 
> That he's tired to death of the condition itself, and probably not 
to happy for having to be grateful to Snape, of all people -- *that* I
have no trouble believing.
> > 

Carol responds:
Well, we know that Lupin thinks the potion is disgusting and comments,
"Too bad sugar makes it useless." He'd certainly be more willing to
take it if it tasted like, say, pumpkin juice. Also, I don't know
about you, but I find it all too easy to put off doing what's good for
me or necessary to my existence, whether it's going to the doctor for
a check-up (it's been about seven years since I made myself do that)
or paying my electric bill (which usually requires a reminder notice
from the electric company threatening to turn off the power if I don't
pay by a set date). Lupin, being human, probably has the same
tendency. And Snape, of all people, knows how important it is that
Lupin not forget or procrastinate too long. and Lupin, IMO, tends to
do what's easy rather than what's right, as we see from his days as
Hogwarts' least effectual Prefect.

Lanval:
> Hm, I guess I just don't see that part of his personality as all 
> that significant. All the kids act irresponsibly, and constantly 
> endanger themselves and others (if they did not, we'd have no 
> story). Teen Snape acts irresponsibly by ignoring both school rules 
> and his Headmaster's judgment. He moreover invents at least one very 
> dark curse, one that inflicts serious injury if not death, and uses 
> it on another student, in the middle of a crowd. I don't see anyone 
> claiming that being irresponsible is a hallmark of young Snape, just 
> as a example. <snip>

Carol responds:
I keep seeing the assumption that the little cutting hex that Severus
uses on James is Sectumsempra, but where's all the blood? There's only
a bit spattered on his robes? Where's the danger that no one sees? Why
does everyone from James to Lily act as if Severus has cast something
no worse than a Jelly Legs Jinx? Where's the unhealed cut that
requires a complex countercurse to cure? If it's really Sectumsempra,
neither James nor Madam Pomfrey could have cured the gash on James's
cheek. We have no indication that he even bears a scar as a result of
that little cutting hex, which can probably be healed as quickly and
easily as DD heals his knife wound in the cave scene in HBP. (Surely,
if Severus had been forced to recite his chant to cure James, we'd
have heard about it.) 

Nor does Severus have any reason, at this point, to invent a Dark
Curse "for enemies." IMO, that desire for revenge was prompted by the
so-called Prank the following year. I think that the little cutting
hex was merely a precursor. At any rate, we can't assume that it was
Sectumsempra given what we know about that spell's effects, not to
mention how angry Severus was when he cast that hex. If, in his fury,
he'd set aside the consequences to himself of casting a genuinely Dark
and deadly curse in front of forty or so witnesses, he'd have ended up
in Azkaban despite his youth. So either he controlled the curse (and
someone who didn't know the countercurse was somehow able to heal the
gash and keep James from bleeding to death or having a permanently
open gash on his cheek) or Sectumsempra proper (and its complex
countercurse) hadn't been invented yet because Severus did not yet
have the incentive to invent anything worse than Levicorpus and the
toenail hex.

I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think we can safely assume
that the two cutting spells are one and the same just because Severus
cast the first and invented the second. Another thing, too. There's no
indication that the cutting hex was a nonverbal spell. Harry must have
heard the incantation, and if it were "Sectumsempra," surely even he
would remember having heard it somewhere before when he read it in the
margins of the HBP's Potions book.

Carol, pretty sure that Sectumsempra was invented in Severus's sixth
year, after the so-called Prank and in retaliation for it