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

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 181174

> > Montavilla47:
> > 
> > Unless they have some definite project, they ought to be where all
> > the other fifth-year students are: 
> 
> Mike:
> Two possibilities - Sev was shown absentmindedly wandering outside 
> with his nose in his DADA test. Who says his housemates even went 
> outside? Or maybe the rest of the Slytherins headed to their favorite 
> spot down by the Forbidden Forest, out of sight and out of earshot of 
> the beech tree where the attack happened.

Montavilla47:
If they went to their "favorite spot," why wouldn't Snape go with them?
Especially if there were ongoing hostilities between his gang and the 
Marauders?

Mike:
> The other possibility - Avery, Mulciber, and most of *Sev's* crowd 
> were in a different year. I don't think that crowd was very big in 
> the first place. And Sev already showed the propensity to impress 
> and become a "gang member" with an older crowd. I had the impression 
> that Avery and Mulciber were older than fifth year, and were using 
> more advanced spells. Therefore, I didn't think Snape had any mates 
> around at this time.

Montavilla47:
I think this is the likeliest answer.  And it's quite possible in that
case that the older students would retaliate for what happened to
Snape that day.  Of course, if that were the case, I'd expect Lupin or
Sirius to mention it when Harry asks about the incident.  It would 
go a long way to soothe his distress.

> > Montavilla47:
> > 
> > From what Sirius says about Snape's cursing abilities, and from
> > SWM, it seems that Snape stood up for himself as well.  The 
> > difference between their situations seems to be that in Neville's
> > case, his tormentors backed off.  In Snape's case, they didn't.
> 
> Mike:
> I've been reading these exchanges and thinking my bud Sirius needs 
> some defending. Sirius speaks of Sev's early cursing ability from the 
> perspective of one on the receiving end of those hexes, or at least 
> saw Sev using them on others. Some people wondered if Sirius made up 
> that first year claim. But one doesn't make up something that shows 
> your opponent to be stronger than you.

Montavilla47:
For the record, I don't believe that Sirius made up that claim.  I think
he said it because it was true.  (Of course, that just makes Snape all
the more awesome, so hey, win-win!)

Mike:
> Then, we've been shown that Sev made friends with older Slyths. All 
> the clues point to Lucius taking Sev under his wing from day one and 
> that Snape aligned himself with the Malfoys enough for the "Lapdog" 
> comment to be legitimate, if outdated at the time of its utterance. 
> This would also put him at an advantage over the Marauders in their 
> early years. 

<snip>

> In Sev's later years, many of his friends having graduated, he was 
> more likely to be at a disadvantage numerically. And, yes, the 
> Marauders have become bullies, I am forced to admit that with at 
> least regards to Sev. But I find the clues of Sev's early years with 
> the upper hand giving the Marauders motivation for *getting back* at 
> the "little oddball" that bested them when they were younger. 

Montavilla47:
I agree with this assessment.  I also think there probably was a 
shift in advantage, from Snape's in the first three years, to the
Marauders in the later years.  Also, I have no problem with the 
idea that, although we see James and Sirius behaving somewhat
worse than Snape in that train compartment, Severus was likely to
be a brat and was plenty rude to all the Gryffindors (except LIly.)

Mike:
> Some point to the detention file of Sirius and James as proof of 
> their bulllying. First, Harry gets plenty of detentions and none of 
> them were for bullying. Second, Snape picked the Sirius and James 
> files and we see none of the others from that era. Maybe there were 
> many more detention-worthy encounters in those years, we don't know. 
> But it seemed like the times fostered more open encounters by budding 
> DEs that would lead to escalating the number of detentions. Lastly, 
> Sirius allowed as how Snape is a slippery character, smart enough to 
> keep himself off the radar (hell, even Bella says this). Again, not 
> something Sirius would make up, admitting Snape was smarter about 
> staying out of trouble.

Montavilla47:
Okay, a couple things about those files.  One:  The files were not sort 
by perpetrator.  They were sorted chronologically.  (Why were they
filed by date?  Goodness knows, except that it seems to be the very
least useful way of sorting detention files, which is in keeping with 
wizard logic.)

So, while Snape was making Harry look for the years James and Sirius
were running around making trouble, he wasn't just giving Harry
the slips relating to the Marauders.  Harry notes that he occasionally
reads his father's name, not that he reads it on every single card. He
also notes that it's often linked with Sirius, and less often with Lupin 
or Pettigrew.  But it implies that James and Sirius often worked as a
team, and sometimes brought in Lupin and Pettigrew.  Or perhaps,
Lupin and Pettrigrew were always involved, but less likely to require
punishment.

Second:  Harry see NO detention cards with Snape's name on them.
It's not stated directly, but given the seething hatred Harry feels
while he's doing this task, I can't imagine he wouldn't notice if he
found a slip showing that Snape was up to something bad.  So, either
Snape went in before the detention and removed all the cards with 
his name on them, or he was wily enough to slither out of trouble
every single time he did something wrong at Hogwarts, or, for the 
period of time that Harry goes over, he didn't do anything worthy
of punishment.


Mike:
> I read your FF that you linked, Motavilla - very nicely done and 
> plausible to a degree. However, I do not buy Sev's innocence in the 
> Prank (I realize you wrote it before DH, but that was my opinion 
> before DH also). I find him the most culpable in the whole affair. 
> Nobody lured him there, he seems to have been proposing the Lupin 
> werewolf scenario for some time to at least Lily, he knew it was the 
> full moon, he's seen Poppy taking Remus out there and evidently seen 
> the other three Marauders go in there too. 

Montavilla47:
First off, thanks!  I appreciate you taking the time to read it.  I'm not
sure what you mean by innocence, though.  I didn't actually go into
Snape's motive for going into the tunnel in that chapter (it was two
chapters earlier), but I think I had him partly going into the tunnel
in order to check his theory about Lupin (which he had broached 
earlier to Lily), partly to catch the Marauders doing something wrong,
and partly because Sirius pissed him off.

I pondered the idea of Sirius being more manipulative, setting up
Snape to "overhear" the vital information about pushing a bump 
with a stick, but it just worked better with it being stupid and 
childish.

Also, one of the things that I didn't expect, but ended up amusing
me was how stupid Severus really was.  I had him planning it out
carefully to give himself plenty of time to explore what he thinks is 
probably a cave under the tree, then getting all interested in the 
house he finds and completely forgetting that there's a werewolf 
on the way.   <eg>  Still cracks me up.