Prank WAS: Re: CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184919

Magpie wrote:
> <snip>
> But regardless the only way Sirius got involved was to give Snape 
> information on how to get into the willow. Snape's decision to go 
> into the willow was actually pretty well-informed. He knew the 
> dangerous creature concealed inside. He didn't know what form or 
> protection he would need or would use against him, it seems, but he 
> knew he didn't know that.

Carol responds:

However much severus may have wanted to verify his theory and find out
what the Marauders were up to and regardless of his reason or resasons
for wanting to do so, he could not have gotten past the Whomping
Willow had Sirius not told him how to do so--Here's how to get *into*
danger, in essence. But Severus could not have gotten out again
because he wasn't an Animagus--information which would have saved his
life had he known it because he would not have gone down there.
Instead, he had to be saved by James. Sirius would have let him die.

He did not have the information he needed to make an informed decision
because Sirius withheld it from him. Had he known that WPP were
Animagi and were safe from the werewolf as he, not being an Animagus
was not, we could blame him for suicidal stupidity and deliberate
self-endangerment. But since he only thought he would be safe, he
*was* tricked or tempted into going down by someone who knew full well
that Severus did not have the same protection that he, Sirius, did--or
any protection at all.

I just don't see how Sirius can get off the hook for giving him the
key to the werewolf's cage without another key to get back out again.

Not being a lawyer, I'm not sure what specific charges Sirius would
have faced in a court of law had severus died, assuming that he was
tried as an adult, but I can think of three possibilities:
second-degree murder, manslaughter, and criminal endangerment.
Regardless, providing the means to enable a fellow student to endanger
himself is about as "amusing" as bringing Death Eaters into the
school, the fact that it endangered only one student notwithstanding.

Carol, who thinks that if the shoe had been on the other foot, Sirius
would have been at least as eager to prove his bravery and competence
as Severus was to prove his theory, particularly if he thought he
could get Severus in trouble into the bargain