Snape's dirty past uncovered/UK vs. US

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170511

> Carol:
> I'm not so sure that Fudge already knew. The horror and shock on 
his
> face indicate otherwise. I don't think that all of the Slytherins
> necessarily know that he's a former DE (or believe, as of HBP, that
> he's a current one). Draco does, but his father is a DE and a 
friend
> of Snape's, and Bellatrix has evidently persuaded him that Snape is
> out to "steal his glory." I suspect that Theo Nott and Crabbe and
> Goyle also know, but unless Draco has mentioned it to the others, 
say
> Pansy Parkinson or Blaise Zabini (the latter of whom he doesn't 
seem
> particularly close to), I don't see why they would know it. The
> students in other houses certainly don't. The worst that someone 
like
> Percy says of Snape is that he knows a lot about the Dark Arts and
> covets the DADA position. I doubt that their parents know, either, 
or
> they'd have protested. Notice how angry Snape is when Karkaroff 
enters
> his class and lifts up his sleeve. Snape doesn't want anyone to see
> Karkaroff's Dark Mark, let alone suspect that he has one himself.

Magpie:
I think I sounded like Snape's was actually more public about his DE 
past than I thought he was in my rush to say he wouldn't be crushed 
by its coming out. 

In saying the Slytherins know I actually agree that it doesn't seem 
to be something bandied about. I just meant that the DE kids know, 
and might have told others--Draco could have told Blaise or Pansy, 
for instance. Now that you mention it, though, I realize that this 
could be sort of a mirror of the things the Trio knows about some of 
the people in the Order. It's possible that Draco and the other DE 
kids have always considered Snape's past something to keep secret, 
where they believe his sympathies officially lie now. I had been 
going on the assumption that Draco et al. weren't specifically told 
not to share this information, and that they might have talked about 
it as part of showing all the stuff they know about their side. But 
now I realize it's possible it was a secret they themselves guarded--
or perhaps only Draco himself knew and guarded, for all we know. 
(Goes off on reverie of wanting to know everything about Draco and 
Snape's relationship.) We don't know when Draco found out himself.

I still think that Snape would be prepared to weather a storm of 
protest from parents in ways that Lupin isn't when it comes to his 
being a werewolf, which is why I don't think Lupin's being able to 
out Snape as an ex-DE would have been the same kind of trump card. 
When I say he has an identity now that includes his being an ex-DE, 
I didn't mean this was publically known far and wide, but just that 
if his past is exposed, this is his answer to it. He *was* a DE, but 
he was cleared and Dumbledore considers him on the right side--
unlike Lupin, who's being outed as a werewolf, something that's 
always shown as a secret of his. I would assume Dumbledore, too, 
would be willing to defend his choice of Snape just as he defended 
him before the court. Snape might not want his past advertised, but 
he has an answer for it in ways that Lupin unfortunately can't 
answer for being a werewolf.


Carol:
> Carol, who thinks that Snape's DE past *was* a secret, otherwise 
the
> exposure of it would not have deterred DD from giving him the DADA
> post for so long

Magpie:
Wait, I didn't understand this last part. Are you saying that 
Dumbledore didn't give Snape the DADA position until HBP because it 
would expose his DE past?

Geoff:
The Philosopher's Stone is supposed to exist as a legendary
object sought by folk such as alchemists. Nicolas Flamel was
supposed to have made one. If you Google these two names,
there are useful links to relevant pages in Wikipedia.

I read somewhere that, when the book came to be published
in the US, the publishers believed that readers would be ignorant
of and put off by this name and so settled on the title of
Sorcerer's Stone for the American edition rather than JKR's
original name.

Magpie:
Apparently, it wasn't that they thought they would ignorant, so much 
as that they wanted something in the title that suggested magic and 
wizardry. That's what was misleading, not necessarily that Americans 
didn't know what the Philosopher's Stone was. They asked JKR for an 
alternate title like "Harry Potter and the School of Magic" to give 
more of an idea of that, and she suggested Sorcerer's Stone. 

-m