Headmaster for a day (was Prank WAS :Re: CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184890

> Magpie:
>  As I said I do hold Sirius 
> responsible for bad actions here. Just not Snape's bad actions. 
> They're both two teenagers doing reckless things. This is very 
> different than the way Snape made it seem to me when he first told 
> the story. Now it's more like Snape blaming Sirius for helping him do 
> something stupid without acknowledging that the desire to do this 
> stupid thing was also Snape's.
> 
> The fact that Snape had not been officially told there was a werewolf 
> is besides the point for me once Lily seemed to indicate that Snape 
> expected to find a werewolf there. 
> 
> I don't think I'm taking a charitable view towards Sirius here, just 
> describing what I see everyone doing. Sirius didn't seem to do much 
> tempting of Snape. His crime was enabling Snape. Both of them should 
> have known better. Years later Snape made it sound like something 
> else to me.

Montavilla47:
It's hard for me to remember back to whether I ever found Snape's
story entirely convincing.  I always figured that Snape was putting his
own spin on things and that Lupin's story was the most objective. 
Although, ironically, he's the one who would know *least* what was 
going on at the crucial moments--but he's trying not to make
Sirius or Snape look any particular way when he tells the story.

I never thought that Snape was entirely innocent or that he went
into the tunnel without a suspicion that Lupin was a werewolf.  The
question in my mind has always been--did he think he could
handle the werewolf because of hubris, or did he think that Lupin
was under further restraint?  Or was he too distraught (for whatever
reason) to think?  Or... in an extreme Snupin sense, did he think 
the werewolf might be more... er... cuddly?

I hear you about Sirius.  It doesn't make him any less foolhardy, rash
or responsible.  And I agree with Alla that he was acting worse towards
Lupin than towards Snape.  Because, by all accounts, Lupin wasn't in
on anything and was completely blindsided.  And, in all of this, Snape
and Lupin were in the most danger.  Snape was in danger of being
killed, wounded, or being made into a werewolf.  Lupin was in danger
of being exposed, expelled, and possibly executed.

But I think Leah makes an important point--when Snape goes ballastic,
it isn't just because of this old schoolboy "prank."  It's because he 
suspected long ago that there was a conspiracy (when there really 
wasn't) and he's seeing what looks like proof of a present conspiracy
(and again, there isn't one going on, it just looks like one) with far
worse consequences.  

>From Snape's POV, the schoolboy Prank nearly got him killed (never
mind that he was responsible for his own actions).  The subsequent
Prophecy debacle got Lily killed (never mind that Snape was greatly
responsible for that--it was Sirius who *knowingly* and *maliciously*
betrayed Lily.  And now, here is Sirius again, tricking the Hope of the 
Wizarding World (who isn't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree)
to who knows what madness!

I think one of the reasons this always becomes such a "tennis match"
for readers is that a lot of us fly to the edges of the argument, 
assuming bad intentions from either Sirius or Snape--which somehow
makes the one with the bad intentions wrong.  But that doesn't
make the other one right.