CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 184842

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <mcrudele78 at ...> wrote:
>> But then Sev starts to show his true colors. Sure, he wants to be 
> accepted by his peers so he's going to try to blend in with hs 
fellow 
> Slytherins. But he shows himself to be jealous of Potter and his 
> mates long before Lily has ever shown any interest in James.

Leah: No, despite all her 'arrogant toerag' protestations, she's 
interested.  She knows James has saved her 'best friend' from 
something dangerous, but doesn't bother to find out any details from 
Severus or ask how he is, until he broaches the subject.  And she's 
completely taken up with the Marauder version,'James Potter saved 
your life...', and leaps to the defence of Potter and his mates.  


He's 
> sneaking around, trying to catch those Gryffs at something when 
Lily 
> is still thinking of that Potter boy as a "toerag". And Sev is 
> breaking the rules himself to do it, which makes him no better 
than 
> the boys he's trying to get something on.

Leah: He breaks curfew, granted. However, he doesn't encourage 
someone to betray Dumbledore's trust by leaving the Shrieking Shack, 
he doesn't take a werewolf around local houses, having a few 'near 
misses' and he doesn't entrap someone into nearly getting killed or 
turned by a werewolf.  


> 
> Aside: I find the criticism of Lily's actions in all this a bit 
> harsh. She's remained friends with this geek of a boy (admit it, 
he 
> was) despite all the probable peer pressure on her to drop him. So 
> while Sev is giving in, to some degree, to his Slyth buddy's peer 
> pressure, Lily is not. 

Leah: She's actually given up on the friendship in her own mind 
before the 
werewolf prank.  If you knew that your friend, let alone your best 
friend, had been saved from some serious danger, you might make some 
attempt to talk to them about it. Lily clearly hasn't. Her comment 
in the 'apology' scene, 'my friends wonder...', not 'my other 
friends' is another indicator. I'm not saying that Lily has to 
remain friends with Severus; even without all the House pressures 
etc, a lot of childhood friendships break down in the teenage years. 
All the indications are that instead of just telling him she was no 
longer interested, she continued to let him trail after her until 
the mudblood comment allowed to her to be in the right when she 
ended the relationship.   




And her actions in SWM take on a new light 
> after reading the backstory that lead up to it. She wasn't 
flirting 
> with James, she was actually trying to come to Sev's rescue. And 
that 
> smirk when Sev's greying underpants are revealed; come on, what 16-
> year-old girl wouldn't smirk for a fraction of a second upon 
seeing 
> that, even if it was your friend? It wasn't until Snape calls 
> her "Mudblood", a slur she knew he was using with some regularity, 
> that she decides enough is enough. And Snape not denying that he 
was 
> a DE in training tips the scales all the way for her.

Leah: I liked her a lot better in SWM, where she just appears to be 
a disinterested spectator who is the only one to come to Snape's 
rescue.  I certainly didn't get the impression from that scene of a 
long established friendship (of course, we weren't meant to).  Then 
the flirtation with James wasn't a big deal, because she was still 
the only one making any effort on Severus' behalf.  Knowing that she 
had been his 'best friend' for some six/seven years put a different 
light on it for me. Of course, she should have come to his rescue, 
that's what you would do for your friend. JKR herself more or less 
confirmed that Lily is flirting with James in an interview when 
someone asked her why Lily married James when she hated him in SWM. 
JKR replied along the lines of "Did she hate him?  You're a 
woman...."  She certainly carries on a long interchange with James 
while Severus is choking away on soap bubbles.  As to the smirk at 
the underpants, I think a lot of sixteen year old girls might not 
find their friend being publically humiliated desperately amusing.  
She's entitled to object to the Mudblood comment and the potential 
Death Eating, and end the friendship, but I also think that SWM gave 
her the opportunity to do so while putting all the blame on Severus 
for something she had mentally decided on long before. 





> 
> Back to Severus: The fact that he was a young DE in training, does 
> bother me more, in his case. Who knows, maybe Voldemort was still 
> being his charming self to the outsiders and maybe Severus was 
taken 
> in just like so many others were. OTOH, with all we know and all 
> we've been lead to believe about this guy's intelligence and 
savvy, 
> shouldn't we have expected a little more out of him than from the 
> likes of Mulciber or Crabbe or Goyle? Sure, lots of kids joined 
the 
> Hitler youth. But that whole country was subsumed with that dogma, 
> there really wasn't any other way to go. Severus doesn't have that 
> excuse, there were alternatives for him. Maybe not as appealing, 
but 
> certainly more moralistic.

Leah: Being academically bright doesn't necessarily mean having 
common sense or being savvy, especially as a angry teenager. A 
lot of intelligent people seemed to have joined Voldemort for 
various reasons that aren't told to us.  Malfoy is clearly smart, 
and we can assume Karkaroff, who is Headmaster of a wizarding school 
is quite bright, also Rookwood who operates as a spy in the Ministry 
and is only found out when Karkaroff grasses him up. Sirius is 
intelligent, so it is likely Regulus was too.  We don't know 
anything about Mulciber's intellectual or academic ability. Riddle 
is nasty from birth, but I get the impression that after his 
resurrection he couldn't or didn't want to mask it anymore, also 
that he had been further damaged and destablised by his making of 
the seventh horcrux and his resurrection.  I agree Snape wanted to 
join the Death Eaters - he could just have gone away and got some 
sort of job.  I'm not sure that he would have seen the Order as a 
more moralistic alternative. 

>> The windswept hill scene must be after Harry's birth, which means 
it 
> has to be a good three years after they all left Hogwarts. Severus 
> Snape joined a terrorist organization and found nothing wrong with 
> being a member of that organization for three years. It is obvious 
> from Dumbledore's words that Snape remained a loyal DE, right up 
to 
> that meeting. I cannot abide these actions and I cannot forgive 
him 
> for that. In my eyes, this is not forgivable. Penitence for the 
rest 
> of his life will not wash away this sin. He will forever remain a 
DE 
> that converted, but a DE first.

Leah: Quite possibly, you're right and Snape was Voldy's number one 
fan until Lily was endangered.  Quite possibly, he wanted out before 
that, but you joined for life, as Sirius points out and Karkaroff 
illustrates.  After Voldemort's vapourisation precisely four Death 
Eaters (or possibly two if the LeStrange brothers simply did what 
Bellatrix told them) were interested in finding out what had 
happened to him.  Even Wormtail who could have ratted off to Albania 
at any time doesn't bother until he needs protection against 
Sirius.  That's not a huge indication of personal loyalty to 
Voldemort from anyone in the ranks. It suggests to me that there 
were probably as many reasons for joining the Death Eaters as there 
were Death Eaters, and while some people no doubt just wanted to 
kill Mudbloods, it was probably a lot more complex than that.

Given the reactions after Dumbledore's death in HBP, it seems likely 
that a number of Order members shared your view of Snape's 
penitence, which IMO makes the dogged way he carried on with his 
tasks, and ones he took on himself, saving those he could, all the 
more remarkable.

Leah
    



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