James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 181191

> Mike:
> So that proves the times didn't foster more openess of battles 
> between proto-DEs and Gryffs? Because in *one* case James and 
Sirius 
> hexed a kid that didn't become a DE?

zgirnius:
We know of two kids they hexed. One went on to be a DE, the other did 
not. Since this is not something I am considering in my professional 
capacity as a statistician (two instances prove nothing <g>), but 
rather are occurences in a work of literature meant to convey a story 
and introduce me to its characters, I attach significance to it. 
Namely, they went around hexing people because they could (as another 
character of the era in fact states), and WW politics had little to 
do with it.

There is no evidence I see of Gryff/Slyth battles in the 'Marauder 
Era' in the books. In fact, there is not a single mention of any 
friend/fellow gang member of Snape ever hexing a Marauder at school. 
I therefore felt no need to disprove such a supposition, though I do 
consider it unlikely both based on what Lily says in SWM, and based 
on James and Sirius' performance in the *actual* war, as young 
adults. They seem rather lacking in caution and wariness, for 
supposed victims of older Slytherins and possible ambushes. It makes 
a lot more sense for me to imagine them acquiring a sense of 
invincibility from successes in school. My point with poor Bertram is 
that one can try to paint the Snape war as being all about politics, 
or self defense/retaliation, and basically a noble prequel to being 
Order members, or what not, but we're still left with Bertram.

I find it simpler (as in, requiring fewer inventions) to conclude 
that Bertram and Snape were part of the same picture. 

> Mike:
> I find it hard to believe 
> that Sev was clean in the battles between him and MWPP. Less of an 
> atagonist than James and Sirius, sure, everyone was less than those 
> two it seems. But I don't buy Sev standing on the sidelines.

zgirnius:
Yes, in the one instance we see, he definitely makes every effort to 
fight back. I was not proposing he took a Gandhi-esque approach to 
his problems with the Marauders. I was suggesting that unlike James 
in the time period in question, Severus, at least while he remained a 
friend of Lily's, did not go around hexing people in the hallways 
just because he could. (It seems also that James, before he became a 
boyfriend of Lily's, ceased this behavior - this would have been in 
sixth or seventh year, a time during which I think it quite possible 
Severus might have moved in the opposite direction, having no longer 
any countervailing influence to his Slytherin buddies in his life).

What he may have done or tried to do to Sirius or James, is a totally 
different story, and I was not trying to address it. My own guess is 
he certainly tried things. And sometimes they probably worked quite 
nicely.