If the Marauders weren't so mean to Snape would he have been nicer to Harry.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 192510



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nikkalmati" <puduhepa98 at ...> wrote:

> >
> Nikkalmati
> snip<
> 
>  (I am not sure what Pippin means that Snape kept quiet about Lupin's condition because he had to conceal that he himnself was consorting with Death Eaters. He was 16 years old.  Do you mean he was consorting with his house mates?  I always thought DD told him he would be expelled, if he revealed the secret.)
> 



Pippin:
That may be. But Snape also suspected the Marauders of sneaking out of school at night, and he wasn't told to keep quiet about that.  He could have kept trying to prove that the Marauders were rule breaking. Instead, according to Lupin, James's issue was that Snape was hexing James every chance he got.

I agree that Voldemort would have no use for a bunch of half-trained hotheads scribbling "Death Eaters Rule" on the chalkboards and aimlessly attacking Muggleborns. It does not follow that he would have no interest in grooming Slytherins to be Death Eaters. Since Voldemort intended  to live forever, he had to think about where his future servants were coming from. Snape and his housemates would  soon be fully qualified wizards, free of The Trace and adult supervision. It would be convenient  if their loyalties could be won while  they were still impressionable, still under one roof, and still thought to be of too little consequence to protect.

Voldemort also always tried to collect the scions of rich and influential pure blood families, and there were people like that in Snape's circle, some of whom had older relatives who'd been collected already.

None of this proves that Snape was knowingly associating with Death Eaters at the time. But his world was at war; he would not have found it easy to sit on the sidelines hoping the right side would win, and he would not have had any doubts about which side was the right one -- it would be the one his friends and their families supported.

The question is, what made Snape choose those people as friends? Lily couldn't understand it, and yet she knew  the unpleasant side of Snape's personality well enough.

I don't think it was coincidence that Snape's gang of Slytherins nearly all became Death Eaters. I think it likely that Lucius and others were keeping an eye out for the sort of student Slughorn would have no time for. Snape was visibly one of those.

We know that Snape was secretly inventing some nasty curses -- if that had become known, Lily wouldn't have been the only one to guess that he was planning to join the Death Eaters. And even a guess was enough to get people  in trouble. But it didn't become known, so my guess is Snape was keeping his head down, and avoiding anything that might bring him to  the attention of the school authorities, such as complaining to them about James. 



Nikkalmati:
> The question assums Harry was born, so Lily and James must have gotten married.  Would Snape still have joined Voldemort?  That assumes we know something of why he joined.  If he joined for protection, then of course the bullying of the Mauraders played a key role in that decision.  If you think he joined because he was a mean, nasty person from childhood, then it would not have made a difference.   



Pippin:

I think the situation between Sirius and Kreacher helps to explain things. Sirius's bullying didn't force Kreacher to defect, nor can we say that Kreacher wouldn't have defected with out It. But it definitely made joining Narcissa and Bellatrix look a lot more attractive than it would have otherwise. The same might be said of Snape and his choice of friends.  

But then what?


If Snape hadn't joined Voldemort, would Harry be alive at all? Even without the prophecy, Voldemort wouldn't have let James and Lily defy him forever. As Dumbledore tells Harry, the consequences of our actions are so complex and various that predicting the future is a difficult business. Or to put it another way, JKR's books are so tightly plotted that trying to change one consequence of an event is almost impossible.

Pippin