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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181169

Alla wrote:
>
> Nobody contradicted Sirius at the end of seven books that Snape ran 
> with Slytherin gang. Nobody contradicted Sirius that Snape was in 
> close relationships with Malfoy and I think that the fact that 
> Narcissa came to him in HBP to save her son strengthens that 
> assertion. <snip>

> I conclude from this that there were plenty of times when Snape was 
> not outnumbered at all, while of course sometimes he could have been 
> and we saw one of those times IMO. 

Carol responds:

I think we agree here. At any rate, my point is that Severus could
hold his own one on one. snape tells Harry that the Marauders never
attacked him unless it was "four on one"--I guess that includes a
public two-on-one attack in which Wortmatil cheered them on and
Prefect Lupin did nothing. that's the only attack we see, and it was
definitely a sneak attack. Severus's quick reflexes aren't enough, nor
is his extensive knowledge of hexes and curses (some of them invented
by the HBP himself) because he's outnumbered and they already have
their wands drawn.

To respond to the thread in general rather than specifically to Alla
here, I don't think the fact that they bully other people two on one
(the kid with the swelled head) or that James, at least, hexes people
in the hallways simply because they annoy him is relevant here. I'm
not questioning that they were arrogant, bullying gits, or that
Sirius, in particular, seems to have hated Severus (though Severus's
animosity, IMO, was primarily for James, who initiate the enmity in
the first place and flirted with Lily).

My point, and I think I agree with Alla here, is that we shouldn't
look at Severus as a poor little helpless victim. They attacked him
two (or four) on one because if they attacked him individually and
openly, he'd have given them a run for their money, or perhaps beaten
them. He certainly could already do nonverbal spells (his own invented
Levicorpus and its countercurse is proof of that), I have no idea
whether he was already learning Occlumency and Legilimency, the latter
of which seems to be at least partly a natural ability if Voldemort is
any indication. So I'm quite sure that they attacked him two on one,
or three or four on one, because that was the only way to soundly
defeat and humiliate him (which, IMO, they wanted to do after he found
out that Moony was a werewolf by entering the Shrieking Shack. Of
course, they're conveniently forgetting who put him up to it).

Zara: 
> > Another is a detail of SWM not mentioned by Leah. The students 
whose  reaction to the scene was "apprehensive" seem, again, to point
to a pattern of behavior by the Marauders that intimidated other 
students. `Fair' hexing matches with `worthy' opponents seems 
unlikely to create this reaction, IMO.

Carol responds:
Here, I partially agree with you. There's no question that Sirius and
James together and James alone bullied other students, and I think
that's responsible for the apprehension. However, they may have feared
retaliation from Severus, who, according to Black, was "famous" for
his fascination with the Dark Arts. If you get the strongest students
in the school together in a fight, someone is likely to get hurt.
Severus, of course, was at a disadvantage (and his own gang wasn't
stepping in to help him in this instance), so he was the more likely
to be hurt in this instance. Of course, part of the apprehension could
have related to a teacher coming out and all three boys getting in
serious trouble.

Alla:
> 
> Um, that can be the reaction of people who are affraid that Snape
will get up and start hexing them with Sectusemptra left and right,  no?

Carol responds:
I doubt it. He couldn't have used Sectumsempra at school or he'd have
been expelled. I still say that the little cutting hex he uses on
James can't be Sectumsempra because Sectumsempra is Dark magic and
doesn't heal without the complicated countercurse that only Snape
seems to know (and perhaps Weverus hadn't invented it yet). James's
cut seems to be minor; either he could heal it himself or Madam
Pomfrey could with a wave of her wand (cf. Dumbledore healing his own
cut in the cave scene in HBP). I think that Sectumsempra ("for
enemies" was invented after this scene, and perhaps as a result of
it). While some of the apprehension could have been for James and
Sirius being attacked by Severus, I think the majority of it had to be
for them attacking him, simply because they were bullies and he, in
this instance, at least, was clearly their victim. (But had James
alone challenged him openly, without his having been caught off-guard
with his mind on the DADA exam, I think the results would have been
quite different.) 

Alla: 
> Or that Malfoy and Co shows up and do the same thing with Snape.

Carol:
Lucius Malfoy couldn't have shown up. He was five years older than
Severus and long since out of school. Bellatrix was even older. The
only Slytherins present were those in Severus's own year (perhaps
Mulciber and Avery among them), the kids who had just finished taking
the DADA exam. That they didn't help him shows, I suppose, the
Slytherin instinct for self-preservation. Evidently, he didn't hold it
against them. (He certainly didn't want help from Lily, but perhaps
his Slytherin friends sticking up for him would have been different.
Maybe they respected his abilities and realized that this was his fight?)

The relationship between Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy began as a
fifth- or sixth-year Prdfect welcoming a little first-year to
Slytherin. Lucius might have been a kind of mentor (or "patron" <winks
at Mike>) to Sev for his first year or two, which would explain Sirius
Black's "lap dog" comment, but they could not have been close friends.
Sev was a child and Lucius almost an adult when they were in school
together, and, as I said, Lucius was nowhere in sight during SWM. He'd
have been about twenty-one years old and an ambitious young DE,
probably already married to Narcissa at this point.
> 
 > > Carol:
> > > Just because he was skinny and nerdy doesn't mean he couldn't
cast a mean curse--and invent them as well, as we learn in HBP.
> > 
> > zgirnius:
> > As, indeed, he does in SWM, when not being choked, flipped upside
 down, and dropped on the ground by his two attackers. No one is 
suggesting he was a victim of bullying because, as an individual, he 
was weak magically, or spineless. We are suggesting he was  outnumbered.

Carol:
Good. Then we agree. He was not only outnumbered but caught off-guard,
too caught up in his DADA exam questions and mentally rehearsing his
answers, al al Hermione, to see them sneaking up on him, wands out.
But you're also suggesting that they made a habit of bullying him. (I
Personally thought that his angry words about "four on one" to Harry
were an exaggeration born of fury, frustration, and hatred of James).
If they did make a habit of attacking him as a group, it could not
have been because he was the sort of weakling that bullies like to
pick on (cf. Mark Evans in OoP). It could only be because they
particularly disliked him (in James's case, because of Lily). Maybe he
represented Slytherin to him. "Because he exists" somehow does not
explain the situation.

> Zara:
> > Also, the fact that he may on occasion have initiated one-on-one
hexing with James, and James may have retaliated in kind (especially
when hexing in public as a group activity could have annoyed the new
girlfriend in 7th year <g>) does not preclude his having been bullied
by James *and his gang* on other occasions. 

Carol:
True. But it does explain why they preferred to attack him as a pair
or a group. Alone, he was more than a match for them. Two or more on
one, especially caught off-guard, they could succeed in tormenting him
(and punishing him for wanting to get them in trouble--and, gee, I
wonder why he'd want that to happen?).

Carol, who doubts that the Hogwarts students as a group perceived
Severus as a victim, though they must have perceived James and Sirius
as bullies, or that he percieved himself that way