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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185701

Carol:

> This is the context in which Lily asks her question, "Does it make 
any
> difference being a Muggle-born?"
> 
> Exactly what she means is unclear. Severus hesitates, taking time to
> look over her face and hair with his eager eyes before 
answering, "No.
> It doesn't make any difference."

Magpie:
Ah! That's the moment I meant. She asks if it makes a difference and 
he hesitates. I think he does understand--or think he does- what she 
means and he hesitates--not because he's outright lying. It reads to 
me like he's making a declaration about specifically her after 
eagerly gazing at her hair and face.

A scene that's just showing little Snape is totally ignorant of this 
stuff I'd expect would underline that ignorance with Snape 
saying, "Why would it matter?" Or maybe asking, puzzled, "What do you 
mean?" It's a clear, efficient way to show Snape as innocent before 
he was corrupted. This way reads as Snape declaring at that moment 
his position on the Muggleborn issue: It doesn't make any difference 
to him at that moment. Lily is just as good as any other Wizard. A 
declaration rather than the innocent puzzlement or carelessness of 
someone for whom the question has less meaning. And I think both of 
them are talking about something bigger than just academics.

Snape's view of Slytherin is probably somewhat skewed--as is James' 
view of Gryffindor, but I think they both learned from their parents, 
who were members of those houses. If Snape was just that confused, I 
think the Hat would have put him in Ravenclaw. The Hat wasn't wrong 
where it put him. I could believe his mother had brought in the good 
family bloodline in some way.

> Carol, resting her case that Severus did *not* hesitate to expect
> Lily, a Muggle-born, to be Sorted into Slytherin along with himself,
> and that, to do so, he could not have known that Slytherin did not
> accept Muggle-borns

Magpie:
Conceding that it wasn't whether or not Slytherin accepted 
Muggleborns about which hesitated, but still thinking the hesitation 
about the more straightforward question of whether it made a 
difference indicated there was already a conflict between things he 
had heard and his friendship with Lily. It reads to me as young Snape 
making a declaration of his feelings about Lily, whatever her 
background.

-m