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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181173

> Montavilla47:
> > As for Rosier, Wilkes, Mulciber, or Avery, they might have shown
up, but they pointed didn't.  None of Snape's housemates lifted a
finger.  He had to be rescued by a *girl*.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> But they were not in the vicinity, no? Snape's classmates I mean.

Carol responds:
The entire fifth-year class had just taken their DADA exam. However,
the only people whose whereabouts are mentioned are Severus, who
quietly studies his exam questions alone, MWPP, who sit around
watching James catch the Snitch while Remus studies and Sirius moans
about being bored, and Lily, who's sitting by the lake with a bunch of
other girls, probably her Gryffindor dormmates but possibly girls from
other Houses as well given that she's "popular." No mention is
specifically made of Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, or Slytherins other than
Severus. The Slytherin boys in his year, Avery and Mulciber among
them, may or may not have witnessed the bullying. They were not with
him when he wandered off alone, but that was his choice. He was more
interested in his DADA OWL than in socializing. (A hint of young
Snape's "ambition," which we also glimpse in "The Prince's Tale"? Poor
Sevvie. I think he wanted to be "great" and never achieved it thanks
to Voldemort and the mistake of joining the DEs.)
>  
> Montavilla47:
> <SNIP>
> > But it seems wrong in the dynamics of school boy groups for one
group to attack the mascot of another gang without instant 
retaliation.  So that if Snape had any value to the Future Death
Eaters of Hogwarts, they'd have come running with their wands out
immediately, no matter how "cool" James and Sirius are.
> 
Carol:
Not necessarily. We don't know whether they were present or how
Severus would have reacted if they'd tried to help him. Maybe he
didn't want their help any more than he wanted Lily's because help
would have implied that he couldn't have handled this himself. Or
maybe they were simply interested in self-preservation.

He considered Mulciber and Avery, at least, to be his friends (We
don't know whether Wilkes and Rosier were in his year or closer to
Lucius Malfoy's age. Same with the always forgotten Rabastan
Lestrange), and their nonparticipation seems to have had no effect on
his later decision to become a Death Eater (as they were already
planning to do). Nor do I think that his being a Half-Blood from a
poor family would have mattered nearly as much as his brilliant mind.
Possibly, they thought that the inventor of Levicorpus and Muffliato
and the toe-nail hex and Langlock and all those potions improvements
was just as "cool" as the Gryffindors considered James and Sirius to
be. Once he invented Sectumsempra, they certainly would have thought
so. (Consider the reaction of Harry and Ron to the HBP's Potions book.
Harry studies it at night because he finds the notations so
enthralling and considers the Prince to be his "friend" because he's
so helpful. And Ron says (correctly, IMO) that the Prince was a
genius. I'm quite sure that his Slytherin friends held the same view.
And I'm pretty sure that they wanted Severus on their side when they
got out of school and joined the DEs.

Leah:
> If Snape had used Sectumsempra left right and centre he would have
been in very serious trouble- see McGonagall's reaction to Harry's use
in HBP. <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> Yes of course if teachers ever caught him, he would have been, I 
agree, but I also think that teachers in Hogwarts did not see a 
plenty of things going on. <snip>

Carol:
He could not possibly have used an unhealable cutting curse without
being caught. The teachers, DD, and Madam Pomfrey would have known
that it was Dark magic, and she would not have been able to heal the
victim of the curse, any more than Mrs. Weasley was able to put
George's ear back on. At most, they could have stopped the bleeding
but not healed the cut itself. Sectumsempra means "cut always." IOW,
the cut or injury (a severed hand, if Snape had hit the DE instead of
George) is permanent unless someone recites the countercurse (and
Snape seems to be the only one who knows it). DD tells Harry in HBP
that Snape knows much more about the Dark Arts than Madam Pomfrey,
which is why Snape, not Madam Pomfrey, stops the curse on Katie Bell,
and why DD summoned Snape, not Madam Pomfrey, when he stupidly put on
the Peverell ring.

Carol, who thinks that if Severus were universally regarded as an
evil, Dark Wizard in the making, Lily would have ended their
friendship much sooner and James would have come up with a better
justification than "because he exists" for attacking him unprovoked