Headmaster for a day (was Prank WAS :Re: CHAPDISC: DH33, The Princ

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 184958

> Carol responds:
> 
> He *suspected* there was a werewolf, but he didn't know it was loose
> or how to escape it.

Magpie:
Yes, that's the enticement, but it didn't come from Sirius. It came 
from what he deduced based on what he saw--and he was right. 

Carol:

 He didn't know the full extent of his danger, any
> more than Dudley (who knew the sweet was dropped by Wizards and had
> suffered from Wizard magic before) did. Sirius knew he was 
withholding
> the key information--how he and his friends escaped--and that 
Severus
> could *not* escape as they did.

Magpie:
Well, he didn't know the full extent of the danger, yes. Nor did he 
know the extent of the safety precautions. If he thought the werewolf 
was chained up that was just his imagining. Sirius didn't tell him to 
drop by for a visit because Remus was chained up.

Dudley is a Muggle picking up a piece of candy--something that looked 
like any other piece of candy and was intended to look like a piece 
of candy. He had never had any experience with Wizard candy, would 
not even have any reason to think such a thing existed. He'd had a 
guy give him a pig's tail with a wand but that's not reason to think 
that a piece of candy on his floor must be something magic. Sure in 
retrospect he could say he shouldn't have trusted anything that 
appeared with Wizards, but I think there was plenty of good reason 
for him to think they'd just dropped a regular piece of candy that 
they were planning to eat themselves. The Twins played it so that he 
would think that. 

What Snape suspected and so was planning on was a werewolf at the end 
of the tunnel. Any ideas about the werewolf being restrained or a 
DADA defense immediately came from his imagination. He knew (or 
thought he knew) he was facing a werewolf and decided he didn't need 
to know anything more specific beforehand once he found out how to 
get into the tree. It was an uninformed informed choice. He didn't 
find out the answers to these questions.

Carol: 
> You don't give someone information that could lead to their death,
> *especially* knowing that the person will act on it, without being
> morally responsible for the consequences. 

Magpie:
I didn't say Sirius didn't have moral responsibility for the 
consequences. I think Alla and I have both said that Sirius *did* 
have moral responsibility for the consequences. We just said he 
didn't trick Snape or entice him. He helped him do something 
dangerous and didn't try to stop him. Snape tricked himself and 
Sirius, when he saw he was doing that, helped him do it.

Carol:
Severus acted on incomplete
> information and endangered only himself. Sirius had complete
> information, some of which he withheld, and endangered another 
person.

Magpie:
Yes, Sirius had more information--but Snape knew how little 
information he himself had. And Snape's decision to act on incomplete 
information was not down to Sirius lying. Sirius was guilty of a) not 
stepping in to stop Snape when he saw him doing something that he 
(Sirius) should have seen was dangerous and even worse b) making it 
easier for him to do this dangerous thing. 

Carol:
> He is obviously, IMO, the more guilty of the two. Had Severus
> attempted to endanger or entice him in return, it would be another 
matter.
> 
> It seems that we disagree, permanently and irrevocably.

Magpie:
We seem to be talking about two different things. Snape obviously had 
no malice against himself in mind when he went into the tunnel. He 
wasn't trying to get himself hurt or scared. Sirius, otoh, wanted 
Snape to be at best scared and at worse hurt or killed. So Sirius's 
intentions were worse than Snape's--at least towards Snape himself 
(Snape's intentions towards Lupin may have been malicious).

But what Alla and I are saying is that Snape was enticed not by 
Sirius but by things he saw on his own. It wasn't Sirius who gave 
Snape a reason to go into the tunnel or a plan to get into the 
tunnel. All Sirius did was to not try to stop Snape from doing 
something dangerous without knowing if Snape could survive it, and 
worse he removed an obstacle to Snape going through with his plan. 
Sirius just got out of the way--and got the willow out of the way. 
Snape talked himself into it. He didn't argue Snape out of the 
obvious objections, Snape did that himself. It seems like you're 
giving Sirius responsibility over those things, as if a werewolf lair 
Snape knows nothing about is as innocent-looking as a piece of candy 
falling out of a guest's pocket. It's a werewolf lair.

When we thought Snape was just curious about where Lupin was going 
*that* was more like the candy on the floor. Why would he think there 
should be anything dangerous? But once he knows there's a werewolf 
the danger is inherent in the situation and I just think Snape did 
more convincing of himself than Sirius did to him. I think the 
promise of what was at the end of that tunnel (proving his theory to 
Lily, proving the Marauders-at least one of them-were monsters) was 
what enticed him to recklessly run in and tell himself the place was 
safe for visitors without doing the sort of research he'd need to do 
to know that. The kind of research Snape would usually demand. The 
Prank, in the end, still seems far more Snape vs. Snape now to me 
than Snape vs. Sirius. 

Sirius did have a moral responsibility for what he did, and he did 
have more information about how he himself handled the risk (the 
Marauders didn't just rush into the tunnel to see what was at the 
other end) and no reason to think Snape had a plan that was just as 
good. But that's not enticement or trickery, it's sitting back and 
letting a fellow human being hang himself when you should be not only 
not helping him but taking some care to prevent it.

-m