Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181296

Mike wrote:
><snip>
> But Siriusly folks, I agree with Alla on this point, nobody besides 
> Severus exposed Severus to a werewolf. If someone can convice me that 
> Severus would have done something different had he gained the Willow 
> information via some other means, then I would entertain changing my 
> harsh criticism and assignment of blame to Mr. Snape.

Carol responds:
As you say, his motive could not have been to get them Marauders in
trouble. It had to be to find out whether his theory was right. There
can be no other motive that I can see. (Alla has suggested that he
wanted to try out his DADA skills on the werewolf, but there's nothing
about that in canon. The DADA skills in question involved *ientifying*
a werewolf, which he had already done.)

So, suppose that he followed Madam Pomfrey to the Willow and learned
how to get in that way. In that case, he'd have only his own
carelessness, overconfidence, and recklessness to blame. Curiosity
would have killed Severus, and no one would be to blame but himself.

However, in this case, another person is involved. That person did
give him just enough information to enable him to get hurt (actually,
killed or turned into a werewolf if if weren't for James). *And* that
person withheld the crucial information that would have kept him from
entering ("we're Animagi and you're not, so we can survive, but you're
dead meat if you go in there").

With one person, the blame has to be 100 percent, since we could
hardly blame Madam Pomfrey or Remus for what they didn't know that
Severus saw. But with two people, especially with one tempting the
other and providing just enough information to get him in but none to
help him out, you have to distribute the blame. (I'm assuming for the
purpose of this discussion that James and Peter weren't involved, but
if they were, they'd share the blame, with James's share reduced by
his action in saving Severus, subsequent conduct notwithstanding).

Carol, hoping that Mike sees the difference between Severus's acting
on his own initiative and acting on partial information, with the key
point suppressed (too bad that Severus wasn't a Legilimens then!)