Maraurders/he exists

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 168163

secretkeeper24:>

> I don't see James' reply "just because he exists" as proof Snape 
> never did anything to cause these 'attacks'. To cool, popular 
> fifteen year old James, I think he found it sounded wittier to reply 
> in those terms instead of stating to Lily just yesterday Snape did 
> X, Y, and Z and that's why we are retaliating. 
> 
> I don't understand how in SWM some readers do not literally 
> interpret Snape's words in calling Lily a mudblood (Snape didn't 
> mean it...he was embarrassed), but then they turn around and take 
> the words James says (while he's trying to impress unsuccessfully, 
> mind you, the girl he likes) completely literally. 
> 

Pippin:
Nice to hear a new voice in the perennial debates, welcome! 
I interpret James's words literally because Lily's question,
"What's he done to you?" sounds completely sincere. 

Lily didn't just drop in from the Planet Koozbain, after all.
She'd been going to Hogwarts for five years. If Snape 
had a habit of picking on other people, especially Muggleborns, 
she'd know about it. She was a popular girl with a lot of friends,
and she was certainly well up on James's interactions with other
students.  Snape can't have been a secret bully like 
Riddle, either, or people would have been  frightened or awed
when James turned him upside down. They wouldn't dare
laugh, that's for sure.

Her blink shows she's taken aback by Snape's use of the 
M word, so it can hardly be something Snape's in the habit
of saying. Full disclosure, I once, in a moment of desperation,
used a slur against a retarded person because her brother
and the gang he was part of were tormenting me, while she
stood innocently nearby. I had nothing against her at all,
but I knew using that word would hurt her brother too.

I apologized and I've been ashamed of myself  ever since, 
but I can sure understand how Snape could have said that 
without having anything against Lily or muggleborns whatever. He
could have said it because he thought it would hurt *James.*

Lupin's statements about James's acquisition of the levicorpus
spell sound particularly disingenous. If Snape knew that James
had stolen the spell from him, how could Lupin not know? I
can't see any reason for Snape to be lying about that in the
midst of fleeing from Hogwarts, or for James to have concealed
it from his friends. It's the sort of thing he'd have bragged about. 

Pippin