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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181137

> > > Leah:> 
> > > 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'.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> It did not read to me that he was struggling much. More like he 
was 
> almost flat out telling Lily. And maybe what actually happened in 
> addition to Sirius telling Snape how to get in was Snape knowing 
> full well that he will see werewolf there and going there anyways.

Magpie:
I've been thinking about this since DH too--and I agree with 
Potioncat about Snape redirecting his rage about Sirius betraying 
Lily into the Prank.

But I think the Prank still must exist in exactly the form everyone 
agrees it does in PoA. I mean first, if Snape knew there was a 
werewolf and went in there anyway, we lose a lot. Why doesn't Sirius 
accuse him of that? How did James save his life if Lupin was still 
at the end of the tunnel if Snape went in fully knowing the danger?

I actually think that if you imagine yourself in the situation, 
Snape simply couldn't "know" anything. He might very well have had 
a "werewolf theory" that he shared with Lily, but being a 15-year-
old with a theory is very different than knowing it to be true. 
Simply seeing the Marauders going in and out of the willow would 
surely hint that his theory wasn't correct, right? If he imagined 
Lupin was caged up it would mean that the Prank was exactly the way 
Snape had described it, with Sirius luring him into someplace where 
Sirius knows the danger is deadly and also knows that Snape doesn't 
know that. 

I think a werewolf at Hogwarts was an absurd idea. It happened to be 
true, but I think Snape could have thrown it out as a theory without 
truly believing it himself. It had never happened before or since, 
and werewolves seem often used as a sort of shorthand for scary 
monster by a lot of people. (Actually now that I think about it, 
could Lily be referring to something Snape only put out as 
a "theory" after the Prank happened and he actually knew the truth 
and was dancing around it? I can't remember how the scene goes.) So 
I feel like however we look at it we still have Snape the clueless 
teen who's real crime is trying to get something on his hated 
rivals, and Sirius setting him up as a fool in a potentially deadly 
way.

I mean, if Snape was more culpable than he lets on why wouldn't 
Sirius of all people call him on it? It seems a bit too much like 
conveniently erasing Sirius' culpability even without Sirius knowing 
it in ways JKR doesn't usually do. Sirius *is* known for putting 
people in danger for fun because he's not thinking. (I feel 
compelled to argue with myself here and say, "Ah, but he's also 
known to be falsely accused and take the blame anyway!" but I think 
this is a different thing. With James and Lily Sirius knew he was 
falsely accused but felt guilty. With Snape Sirius is owning up to 
things he actually did and doesn't feel guilty at all.) 

And the same goes for Snape--he's not a werewolf hunter. It's not 
recklessness that gets him into trouble, it's bitterness and hatred. 
That fits perfectly into his trying to find out Lupin's secret and 
get the Marauders in trouble--and possibly prove that Lily shouldn't 
be friends with them. 

Also from a writing standpoint, I don't think JKR is above saying 
things wrong when she has people talk about them. In the Snape/Lily 
scene I think a big point is to show Lily having exactly the 
attitude about the whole thing that bugs Snape--that James saved 
Snape and Snape was silly about these claims of being put in danger 
by Sirius. I would not be surprised if she actually hadn't worked 
out whether the exact phrasing in the scene fit what would actually 
have happened. (If the Pensieve memories were actually as mutable as 
memories I would explain it by saying that Snape's remembering it 
slightly wrong.) Afaik we've never really had those two versions of 
Snape overhearing the prophecy explained either--I think this might 
be like that. She needs to have Lily and Snape show their positions 
on the Prank in broad strokes.

-m