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

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 170460

> Lanval:
> Anything is of course feasible again, because we don't know if, or 
> how, the arrangement has been changed. Snape sounds as if he 
> expected Lupin to drop by, and when he didn't, Snape went to 
Lupin's 
> office, bringing a goblet along. Which is oddly enough the exact 
> scenario of the first scene, where this arrangement appears 
> to be taken for granted.

zgirnius:
The arrangement could have been changed, either as a result of this 
incident or for other reasons (as Lupin seems to have students hang 
around him, going to Snape's dungeon, which students avoid like the 
plague, would provide privacy). Or, it could be that Lupin did miss 
his appointed time to stop by Snape's owing to his meeting Harry - I 
doubt he knew Harry would not have permission to go to Hogsmeade with 
his friends.

Or Snape could be lying in the Shack, but why? Why accuse Lupin of 
carelessness, when he has already accused him of being the accomplice 
of the mass-murderer Sirius Black? Especially as he says the bit 
about Lupin forgetting in such a matter of course way, he is just 
outlining the facts that led him to follow Lupin, without placing any 
emphasis on this (supposed) mistake by Lupin.

> Lanval:
> Carol, are you trying to tell me that at the time of SWM, Snape 
> didn't consider James & Co his 'enemies'? That he harbored no 
> yearning for revenge just yet at that time?  :)

zgirnius:
This touches on the issue of what makes this Snape's Worst Memory 
(assuming that it is. I tend to want to ask, 'In whose opinion?' but 
that is neither here nor there). One explanation is that Snape views 
it in retrospect as when he started moving down the path he would 
later regret (assuming he did regret it, I realize not everyone sees 
it that way...) 

Of course Snape must have wanted revenge, but what form he envisioned 
it taking may have changed. Look at Harry - Draco is his enemy, but 
Harry was horrified when he nearly killed him in HBP. Unless you 
believe Snape at the age of 11 came to Hogwarts already willing to 
kill or maim his enemies, and added James and Co. to that list on 
sight, you must admit something changed at some point, and SWM seems 
like a reasonable point to mark that change. You think Snape used 
dangerous Dark magic of his own invention against James - maybe it 
was the first time? Carol suggests this is when he decided he might 
*want* to, and set about making the simple cutting hex she supposes 
Snape used into something far more potent.


> Lanval:
> About the incentive -- I'd say that by the time we see the boys in 
> SWM, Snape may have needed no more incentive to create potentially 
> fatal curses for his "enemies" than the fact that they exist. JMO.

zgirnius:
My difficulty with this is, when do you think Snape reached this 
point? Voldemort may or may not have been born this way, and 
certainly seems to have been well on his way by the time he got his 
Hogwarts letter, but my impression is that he is supposed to be 
unique in this respect, within the Potterverse. 

Lanval:
> wouldn't it be just like JKR to give us an early, harmless glimpse 
> of it?

zgirnius:
It seems to me that regardless of whether Snape used the full blown 
curse in a refined or controlled way, whether he used it with lethal 
intent and just missed, or whether he did a little cutting hex he 
later modified, its descritption in SWM is a clue/foreshadowing about 
Sectumsempra in HBP. Even if it is a little hex as Carol proposes, it 
is one related to the Dark Curse Sectumsempra.

> Lanval:
> About Snape's anger, we see him losing it in PoA as an adult over 
> something much less humiliating than the scene called so 
> aptly 'Snape's Worst Memory'. 

zgirnius:
Two objections - first, that is in the eye of the beholder. I can see 
an argument that the Prank was more humiliating, both because it was 
something Snape in some ways set in motion by his own decisions, and 
also because it seems James saved his life in that incident 
(something we are told he could not stand).

Second, you are assuming this is why Snape lost it. Snape, the only 
one who knows why he lost it, does not confirm he is losing it over 
the Prank. "You should have died like your father, too arrogant to 
believe he was mistaken in Black" suggests to me Snape's anger at 
Sirius that night could be over later events as well.


> Lanval:
> You're right, of course, we can't safely determine *anything* based 
> on what we know. It's only a possibility. Also, I got the 
impression 
> that any spell can be performed nonverbally with practice. 

zgirnius:
This is my opinion as well. I assume that because Harry did not hear 
an incantation, the spell WAS nonverbal. Snape is a master at 
nonverbal spells as an adult (he uses a variety of spells in his duel 
with Harry, with no mention of any incantations); he had already 
invented one by the time of this incident, so I presume that whether 
the spell was a hex or Sectumsempra, he cast it nonverablly. It could 
be a reason the spell was less effective, too, like Dolohiv's on the 
MoM, as at this stage Snape would still have been improving his 
nonverbal spellcasting technique.

 
> > Carol, pretty sure that Sectumsempra was invented in Severus's 
> sixth
> > year, after the so-called Prank and in retaliation for it
> >
> Lanval:
> Possible. But 'in retaliation' makes it sound as if Snape really, 
> really planned to use it. *eg*

zgirnius:
Perhaps he planned to use it next time he found himself cornered by 
an XXXXX Magical Beast, in the event James's conscience proved less 
sensitive, or Sirius proved more secretive? *eg*