First lesson WAS: Re: Marietta, was Slytherin's Reputation

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 185695

> Montavilla47:
> Adding to that her upset at
> Snape costing her cool points with her friends and it seems to
> me that popularity was important to Lily.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> That I do not see at all. I mean, I do not see how you interpret her 
> remark to Snape that he costs her cool points with her friends. Isn't 
> she being upset on behalf of her friend and saying that her friends 
> warned her about him? Or are you talking about another accident?

Montavilla47:
I'm not talking about any accident.  (Or did you mean *incident*?)
I'm talking about the memory where Lily scolds Snape for being
friends with people who did... something unspecified to her 
friend Mary.

I think you're right that she's concerned about her friend--but I 
think that she's also concerned that Snape's association with 
Slytherin bad boys is costing her points with her friends.  The reason
I think this is because she says that she's been making excuses to
those friends for him for years.  She sounds fed up about that.

To be honest, she sounds to me more upset about that than about
Mary--if she were mainly concerned about Mary, then Snape isn't
the person she should be talking to.  She ought to be talking to 
a teacher, or maybe a prefect.  Oh, wait.  Isn't Lily a prefect?  (Or
is that just fanon?) Maybe she ought to be exerting that authority 
over the people responsible.

Of course, there's nothing in the scene that indicates that she
hasn't spoken to the boys responsible.  Maybe she's just going
beyond that to scold those who laughed along with those who
did whatever it was they did.  


Alla:
> Again, I cannot disprove that popularity was important to Lily; I 
> just do not think that we can prove it either. IMO of course.

Montavilla47:
Yes.  That's the thing about inferences.  They can be supported,
but they can't be proven.


> Carol:
> <SNIP>
> Whatever Snape's
> *intentions*, the consequence was that Harry was clearly not regarded
> as a genius or prodigy by his schoolmates (who would have found out
> quickly enough, in any case, that Harry was no better than they were
> at anything except flying).
> <SNIP>
> 
> Carol, not defending Snape so much as pointing out that actions, as so
> often in the HP books, have unintended consequences, in this case,
> good ones

Montavilla47:
Yes.  But I think there's at least a possibility that he wasn't targeting
Harry *only* because of his James-hate.