student!Snape keeping Lupin's secret (was Re: Sirius as a dog)

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 181112

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Bex" <kaleeyj at ...> wrote:
>
> > Bex:
> Interesting.. For research purposes, I read that particular memory
> from DH. Snape hints to Lily ("Every month at the full moon") 
what's
> "weird" about Lupin - he truly did keep it a secret.(And Lily is in
> complete denial about it, unless she's pretending ("I know your 
theory")).
> 
> Perhaps Snape enjoyed lording it over the Marauders? Knowing that
> Lupin owed him his continuing education (and possibly his life)?
> 
> Some other thoughts:
> Maybe Lily was close friends with Remus? Remus has been
> self-admittedly hopeless at Potions - maybe Lily was a tutor, and
> getting Lupin expelled would upset her, so Snape didn't tell to 
save
> her feelings?

Leah:

Snape was instructed by Dumbledore not to reveal Lupin's 
secret: '"Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He 
was forbidden to tell anyone by Dumbledore but from that time on he 
knew what I was..."' Lupin in POA.

Far from enabling Snape to 'lord it' over the Marauders, being 
forbidden to tell puts Snape in a very awkward position vis a vis 
Lily, because he can not explain to her what actually  happened in 
the Prank, ie Sirius played a trick which would have killed Snape or 
turned him into a werewolf, and he can not warn Lily that he was 
right in his suspicions of Lupin.  He is struggling with this in his 
memory of talking with Lily in 'The Prince's Tale'. 

It also seems clear that the Marauders were not in any way cowed by 
Snape's knowledge of Lupin's condition.  If the memories in 'The 
Prince's Tale' are in chronological order, (and they certainly 
appear to be), then it was after the Prank that the Marauders 
publically humiliated Snape with Levicorpus etc after the DADA 
exam.  We are also told (by Sirius) in OOTP that James continued to 
hex Snape even after James and Lily were an item (well after the 
Prank).   

Bex: 
> Perhaps Snape didn't have as much a grudge against Lupin as he did
> Sirius and James, and getting Lupin expelled wasn't what he 
wanted? (I
> bet if he could have gotten Sirius expelled without Lupin being 
thrown
> out, he would have done it in a heartbeat.)
> 
> On a similar note - has Snape always been willing to implicate the
> person he didn't like with very little evidence? Perhaps he had a 
bit
> of fairness in him that didn't *want* Remus to be expelled, since 
it
> wasn't Remus' fault. And if he managed to get Sirius expelled, 
Lupin 
> would be kicked out as well, by association and stigma. Perhaps 
Snape
> didn't want to see Lupin get the blame for something he had no 
control
> over?
> 
> Snape may have been sent to the hospital wing after his little
> altercation with James and perhaps Sirius followed them. Snape may
> have had a chance to hear James rip into Sirius (which would have
> happened, I'm sure), and sadistic Severus leapt with joy at a way 
of
> torturing one or both of them. Sirius feels guilty about 
endangering
> Remus' life (James feels guilty about letting it go that far), and
> both of them know the only reason Remus is still in school is that
> Severus is keeping mum? Snape might have REALLY enjoyed that.
> 
> 
> 
> Take your pick, boys and girls. I prefer the ones where Snape is a
> sadistic bastard, since I feel like that would have been his main
> motive - but the Lily factor may have a role in this. Possibly a
> combination of some of the above?
> 
>Leah:

Actually, Snape did not know Lupin was not in on the Prank until the 
encounter in the Shrieking Shack in POA.  '"So that's why Snape 
doesn't like you", said Harry slowly [to Lupin], "because he thought 
you were in on the joke?".  "That's right", sneered a cold voice 
from the wall behind Lupin. Severus Snape...'

Snape would have like the Marauders expelled, since they had been 
bullying him for some time (since the first day at Hogwarts, 'The 
Prince's Tale' strongly suggests).  Since James explains to Lily 
that Snape is being bullied 'because he exists' (OOTP), wishing to 
have them expelled is rather less sadistic than what they are doing 
to him.  (or than Sirius' comment in POA that if Snape had been 
killed by WereLupin, it would 'have served him right'.)

Snape in fact makes the Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin throughout POA, 
even though at this stage, Snape believes Lupin was in on the Prank, 
and that he is both helping Sirius (wrong) and witholding 
information from Dumbledore (correct, that Sirius is an animagus).  
Since we are told that the potion is very complex and dangerous, 
Snape could presumably cause Lupin some discomfort, at least, each 
month, by a small 'slip' of the hand, but by Lupin's own testimony 
to Harry, the potion is made 'perfectly'.   Not very sadistic.

Leah