Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 18: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Pron

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190504

 
> Alla:

> If I know that I go to a location where say cobra is living nearby, (thinking of cobra which temporarily run away from Bronx zoo couple or so months ago lol), I do not expect that cobra will be constrained, tamed, and happy to see me, I expect that she has a pretty good chance to bite me and kill me. And if I ever decide to entertain such foolishness, you bet I will go very prepared to visit her.

Pippin:

If, OTOH, you saw the cobra  being moved from one place to another under guard, the way Snape saw Lupin with Mme Pomfrey, you wouldn't think it was loose. You'd expect wherever it was going it would still be in a cage, with a large "venomous" warning placard prominently displayed, because that's the way people usually keep cobras. 

If you saw a responsible person take a caged cobra into subway station you wouldn't assume they meant to turn the cobra loose down there. 

I assume you don't arm yourself with tranquilizer darts when you vist the zoo :) You expect the zoo to have things under control. If you were inclined to sneak behind the scenes, like a teenager on a dare, to the back offices or the animal hospital, you still wouldn't expect to come on a dangerous animal without warning. 

> 
> Alla:
> 
> Thank you for the excellent examples, but it does not say anywhere that werewolves are actually immune to Avada, right?

Pippin:
Not as far as I know.  What we do know is that all 5X monsters are "known wizard killers", impossible to tame, and dangerous even to the most highly skilled, trained and competent. So they have shown themselves able to overcome even the most skilled wizarding defenses in some way. 

IIRC, there is a report of a werewolf killing someone in HBP. Harry expresses  puzzlement, because, he says, werewolves just try to turn you into one of them. But Hermione says they can get carried away. In the confined space of the tunnel, with nowhere to run and Lupin  already mad enough to bite furniture, he would have bitten Snape and kept on biting. 

There is not even a hint of a suggestion that Snape would have been able to defend himself, much less that he meant to attack Lupin. Wouldn't he have said so, in the Shrieking Shack? "I should have killed you twenty years ago, Lupin,  but I'll let the dementors  deal with you now!"

Getting carried away is the point here, I think. JKR delights in having her  brilliant and logical characters  prove that, when acting on a false assumption or carried away by their emotions, they can behave as stupidly as anyone else. That's what happened to Sirius and Snape, IMO. Snape acted on a false assumption, just as Hermione did when she put cat hairs into her polyjuice. And Sirius got carried away. 

Snape might have tried to use Sectum Sempra rather than AK. But that would have been in desperate hope that it would stop the werewolf, because he wouldn't have been able to test it first. As I said, the Marauders could have tested it. And I think they did, and knew it wouldn't work. 

But mainly I don't think Snape went into the tunnel to kill Lupin, because IMO Snape is no more of a natural killer than Draco is. "Give me a reason. Give me a reason and I swear I will!"  Bella or Voldemort would never say something like that. They'd kill first, and come up with a reason afterwards.  

If young Snape did want to kill Lupin, and I'm sure he'd have had the greatest sympathy with anyone who did, he'd just have slipped a few drops of something into his pumpkin juice. ;)

Alla:
 if I were in Remus' place, there would have been no turning back. Friendships have been ruined over less than one friend putting another friend in the position when he could have possibly made somebody a werewolfie, or kill him. As I said above, this does truly boggles my mind, how fast Remus forgave him.

Pippin:
It takes courage to leave an abusive relationship, especially if the good times are the happiest you've ever known. 

Pippin