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We all remember Sirius' claim that Severus knew more curses upon entering Hogwarts than many seventh year students. OTOH Bellatrix claims to have learned Dark Arts directly from the Dark Lord. I think the obvious conclusion is that she learned Dark Arts from Tom as a Death Eater, after her Hogwarts days, just as the first war was about to break out and throughout the first war.
But let's look at this from a different angle: If we follow the implication in canon that Voldemort returned from his wanderings in December 1956, thus coinciding with Dumbledore's appointment as headmaster and McGonagall replacing him as Transfiguration professor (I wonder if Tom implied in his request for interview that he was after the open Transfiguration position?) then this happened when Bellatrix was 5 years old (her sisters were probably 3 and 1, Lucius was 2). If we follow the corrected version of the Black family Tree, her father, Cygnus Black, was about 2 years younger than Tom, and must have known him from school. Was Tom Riddle a frequent house guest in the Black household? Did Bellatrix call him Uncle Voldemort? Is it possible IOW, that Tom started grooming the rank and file of his followers even before they entered Hogwarts if he had access to them through their parents?
So how does Sirius' description of Severus' Dark Arts knowledge fit in? I doubt Sirius was comparing Severus with Bellatrix. When Bellatrix entered school he was a little kid, by the time she was in seventh year he had still not entered school. Even if the Blacks were more lenient than the Weasleys about underage magic outside school I doubt Bellatrix was allowed to curse her cousins on a regular basis. If Sirius was comparing Severus to anyone in particular, and if he wasn't simply exaggerating based on Severus' performance in later years, he would be thinking of Lucius and his contemporaries.
But let's look at this from a different angle: If we follow the implication in canon that Voldemort returned from his wanderings in December 1956, thus coinciding with Dumbledore's appointment as headmaster and McGonagall replacing him as Transfiguration professor (I wonder if Tom implied in his request for interview that he was after the open Transfiguration position?) then this happened when Bellatrix was 5 years old (her sisters were probably 3 and 1, Lucius was 2). If we follow the corrected version of the Black family Tree, her father, Cygnus Black, was about 2 years younger than Tom, and must have known him from school. Was Tom Riddle a frequent house guest in the Black household? Did Bellatrix call him Uncle Voldemort? Is it possible IOW, that Tom started grooming the rank and file of his followers even before they entered Hogwarts if he had access to them through their parents?
So how does Sirius' description of Severus' Dark Arts knowledge fit in? I doubt Sirius was comparing Severus with Bellatrix. When Bellatrix entered school he was a little kid, by the time she was in seventh year he had still not entered school. Even if the Blacks were more lenient than the Weasleys about underage magic outside school I doubt Bellatrix was allowed to curse her cousins on a regular basis. If Sirius was comparing Severus to anyone in particular, and if he wasn't simply exaggerating based on Severus' performance in later years, he would be thinking of Lucius and his contemporaries.
part I
"He knew more Dark Arts as a First Year than any Seventh Year" is one of those sentences which the readers have taken for Honest Truth and ran with it, to their detriment, but they still believe it, no matter how much canon has trown at them to show them otherwise.
First, the fans were convinced that Sev was an aristocratic pureblood, because he was a Slytherins (and aren't they all nasty aristos? Off with their head!) and because He Knew More Dark Arts Than Any Seventh Year. Why? Because Sirius Said So.
So enter Pureblood Severus fanfics, complete with sprawling Manor House, weird and wonderful familymembers and a bullying father who taught his unwilling son Dark Arts.
Then it turned out that our Sev was a halfblood Northerner so, although that didn't really stop the Manor House fanfics, enter Abused Severus Who Was Taught Advanced Potions And Dark Arts By HIs Slytherin Mother Because Sirius Said That etc fanfic (or slight twists on this, such as the fic where a young Severus works in some shady Knock Turn Alley shop to earn some cash for his ailing mum who gets knocked about by Abusive Toby).
And on and on and on....
Look, what canon shows us is a young Sirius Black who is a rebellion pre-teen. Probably not because his family is Evuhl, but more because the more standard things like 'mum likes Reggie best' kind of things. Then he goes to Hogwarts, expecting to be in Slytherin, but he meets this Cool Guy who brags that HE's going to be in Gryffindor, and they bond by tag-teaming against this obvious poor kid whose obviously a wuss 'cause he's got a *girl* for a friend and she bosses him around too.
So Sirius gets into Gryffindor (no doubt getting patted on the head for being so 'brave' as to 'dare to reject his heinious family' by Dumbles and McGonegal and the rest of the staff, who are all in Dumbles' pockets) and starts his career as a Marauder.
Now, the Marauders keep on targeting Severus because:
1) he's a typical loner kid with 'social cooties' so nobody would protect him
2) he's a Slytherin and they are evil, right?
3) he hasn't got a single familymember in the WW to back him up or champion him, and if he has they wouldn't bother since he's the son of that bloodtraitor Eileen
4) he's a Slytherin, they're evil and must be fought
5) Slughorn isn't going to rub a scion of the mighty Black or Potter families the wrong way in order to protect an insignificant (and ugly and awkward) student
4) he's a Slytherin, allright?!
5) he's just so much FUN to torture: he usually fights back, nothing they can't handle four-to-one of course, but it's just *so* fun-ny to watch him sputter furiously and trying to fight back, ha ha!
6) well, he's a Slytherin and we must defend ourselves against those EVIL DARK MAGIC USERS!
continued beneath
part II
We see Sirius (and Lupin) come with all kinds of rationalisations and justifications of their former bullying.
For example: Snape reminds them that they nearly killed him.
Justification/rationalisation: oh well, it was all a lark, we were young and Snape really should get over it, he just has an immature grudge against these cleanlimbed, redblooded Gryffindors (and the number of rants I've read about how Sev is 'immature' and 'holds a grudge'! If somebody got raped when she was fifteen, and twenty years later she comes face to face with her rapist, and she flips, would you tell her that she holds an immature grudge? Would you tell this to somebody who got tortured? Then why would you think this of somebody who was nearly ripped limb to limb by a slavering monster *as a lark*? Really!)
Or how about this: the Marauders made that map. With it, they could spy on their victim. Sev could never hide from them, they always knew where he was, and they could ambush him accordingly.
Justification/rationalisation: we have to keep an eye on him, because he's a Slytherin and into Dark Arts (as they all are) and he hates us and spies on us (typical turnaround of actual facts) and will try to get us expelled if he could, so we'd better keep an eye on him.
So, to end this looong rant, did Snape have a larger bag of Dark Arts in his bag as a Firstie?
No.
1) Where should he get that knowledge from? Lily? His cowering mum? Laughable
2) We never see him use Dark Magic, but we see Gryffindors use Dark Magic plenty
3) This is Potterverse, where Gryffindors can use Dark Unmentionable Unforgivable spells, bully, torment, steal, cheat and be a total snot to boot, but this is Not Bad, whilst anything a Slytherin does is Bad by definition.
(here's another trope for you: 'Snape gives his Slytherins points and unjustly takes points from Gryffindors'. Then go and count all the points Snape takes and all the points he gives. You will find that NOWHERE we see Snape give points, to his Snakes or anybody else, and in the first book - I counted them - he takes a grand total of ELEVEN points and all of them for disciplining problems, backtalk, etc. Or, the trope 'Snape just hates Harry because he looks like James' - hah!)
We've been TOLD these things like 'Snape had as an eleven year old a large bag of Dark Arts spells', but nothing in the seven books indicates that this was true. So why do we still believe it? Who told us? Sirius. Why should we believe Sirius? Sirius was trying to make Harry like him and painted himself in a better light. Besides, I don't doubt that Sirius actually believed it. People do tend to believe the lies they tell themselves if the truth is uncomfortable. It's basic psychology.
Re: part I + II
WORD. WORD. WORD!!!!
THIS is how I see things as well. There is nothing that I could add that would improve the sheer and utter brilliance of your analysis. You have put EVERY. SINGLE. THING. perfectly.
Thank you for this brilliant, perfect post. Thank you.
Re: part I + II
*grins*
Re: part II
Re: part II
Here, let me give you another example.
We've been told, in book I by Hagrid that all Slytherins are bad. Well, okay, he said 'there's not been a bad wizard that didn't come from Slytherin', firmly establishing Slytherin as a nest of Evuhl in our minds as well as in Harry's.
Harry, being the impressionable and not very clever boy that he is (can we say 'thick as a two-inch plank? Sure we can!) instantly buys into this concept, because he likes Hagrid. Hagrid is deferential. Hagrid hurts and denigrated the Dursleys and Harry enjoyed see them suffer and cower and Hagrid bought him a birthday present, so he (and we) likes Hagrid and takes his words as gospel truth. Harry goes so far as to chant 'not Slytherin, not Slytherin!' to the Hat, and, whilst looking at the Slytherin table, agrees that they *do* look unsavory. When he looks at Quirrell and his head hurts, he immediately suspects that Snape, who sits next to Quirrell, caused it because he's the Head of Slytherin (and Percy said that 'he's into Dark Arts', which he is, the Defence AGAINST Dark Arts that is, just like Harry will, one day).
And we love it. We even go so far as to cheer when Dumbledore steals the House Cups victory away from Slytherin and gives it to Harry, because we automatically assume that, evil as they are, they are cheats and have gained all those points illegally or that Snape gave his House all those points, mean, nasty Snape that he is, and that they don't deserve that Cup, so there!
But... Is Hagrid's statement true?
No.
We've seen Peter Pettigrew, whose a Death Eater. We've seen evil Dolores Umbridge, who is certainly not a Slytherin.
Hagrid's statement was a PREJUDICE.
Well, Hagrid didn't know about Peter being a DE. Yes, but still, for a member of the faculty or staff to be so biased against a House to infect a Firstie to such an extent that he actively begs the Hat not to place him with the 'evil guys', that takes some serious hating.
Then we learn that Hagrid was expelled as a boy because he was framed by Tom Riddle. Now, he assumably didn't know he was framed by Tom, anyway, but I don't doubt that Tom had been quite nasty to the half giant Gryffindor boy for years, so Hagrid's antipathy is no doubt fuelled by... oh, what will I call it? A schoolboy's grudge?
We've been also shown that Hagrid isn't free from other prejudices. He uses 'Muggle' as the worst kind of perjorative, as he does squibs (he calls Filch 'you fithy squib' somewhere), so it comes really to no surprise to discover that he was quite prejudiced against Slytherin.
Not to say that most DE's weren't Slytherins, of course. I don't doubt it. Twenty-five years (at the least) of Hogwarts indoctrination of students will have its effect. Kick a pack of dogs long enough, and if some psycho comes along with a smooth tongue and a rallying call of 'lets change society so it no longer kicks us, instead WE'LL do the kicking', you'd have a pack of dogs following a psycho. It has happened before. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Revolution, to name but a few.
My point is, it would be very foolish to believe Hagrid about only Slytherins being All Bad or Sirius about Snape being a junior Dark Arts prodigy, not so much because they are unreliable narrators (although they are, since they are, being utterly prejudiced and subjective), but more because their utterances have been PROVEN to be wrong by canon.
Re: part I and II
smallpotato - kudos! This post is superb. Thank you.
Re: part II
On Harry's first trip to Diagon Alley he notices a book of curses and counter-curses at Flourish and Blotts. And Muggle-born Hermione started practicing spells before arriving at school (successfully). So it isn't impossible to acquire some facility with magic before school if one is driven that way, especially if one has someone to learn from. And I doubt Eileen avoided magic completely - there must have been some basis for Severus' expectation that being among magical people would be an improvement in his life, that doing magic can be helpful and that Slytherin was the place to be. I think she avoided doing magic in front of Tobias because she didn't want to drive him away, but Severus could have gotten some idea of wand movements and other basics from her. I do think Sirius' comparison to 7th years is exaggerated. At my most generous, I think it may have been based on an incident when Severus knew a couple of spells Sirius was unfamiliar with - because they came from different sources (for example if Eileen's books taught something different than what the Blacks practiced).
I agree Hagrid is prejudiced (against Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, Muggles and anyone who does not worship Dumbledore at the very least, I'd probably add giants, maybe goblins as well) and everything he says is colored by his prejudices. In fact, I am trying to compile a list of 'lies that Hagrid told me', sorting information we get from Hagrid to supported, doubtful and proven wrong. It's not a small task.
I agree Sirius tries to avoid any connection to the Blacks. Note that the first time he mentions Bellatrix he mentions her as one of the Lestranges, a married couple that is in Azkaban. Unless she married right out of school she wasn't a Lestrange when she was doing Voldemort's recruiting at Hogwarts (whether through the Slug Club or when visiting her sisters or her boyfriend). Once he can't avoid them he makes an effort to paint them as black as possible, claiming the only decent ones were the ones that got burnt off the tapestry. (Completely ignoring James' mother, whom Sirius obviously liked, but she had the misfortune to remain on the tapestry so let's not mention her. And who knows, maybe aunt Lucretia or whoever wasn't that bad either, but that's not worth mentioning.) So while I don't think Sirius is lying when he brings up specific actions of family members I still doubt his generalizations.
We've seen evil Dolores Umbridge, who is certainly not a Slytherin.
How do you know? We aren't told what her House was. She certainly recruits Slytherins for her purposes. IMO she could be either a Slytherin, based on her tactics and apparent ties, or a Hufflepuff, if we assume she was sincere in her belief that Harry was a danger to the Ministry and the inter-belum status quo.
Re: part II
'we see Sirius and Lupin come with all kinds of rationalisations'
Wasn't that kinda..obviously what they were doing? Sirius does admit they were 'arrogant little berks'. I suppose he and Lupin prefer to remember the positive things about the times they had with their dead best friend.
'would you tell this to someone who got tortured?'
Pantsing and humiliation = / = rape or torture. Of course, I've seen you claim that Harry 'torments' Dudley while giving Snape's treatment of Neville a free pass, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
The Shrieking Shack incident: Sirius is still flippant about this years after the fact, true, but A: by that point he'd spent more than a decade in Azkaban with only his worst memories for company, and B: there's that whole inbreeding thing working against him. I'm not saying it was in any way justified, although we learn in DH that Snape already suspected what might be at the other end of the tunnel, and went down anway to try and out Lupin as a werewolf, apparently just to show Lily that he was right about the Marauders.
As for Snape the teacher....he singles Harry out in their very first lesson, before the kid breaks a single rule or even says a single WORD to him. Harry = underfed, overwhelmed 11-year-old in an unfamiliar world. Snape = teacher in his 30s. Who has the most responsibility in that situation?
For that matter, just look at what he says about Neville at the start of Lupin's first lesson - that wasn't even his class, but he still singled out a clumsy, insecure 13-year-old in front of all his friends. James grew out of picking on people who couldn't retaliate. Snape, obviously, didn't. Deal.
Re: part II
Which, of course, they (any of us) might have been.
I'll go so far as to say that people who really really hate Severus Snape with a passion--a character who turned out to be fundamentally good, but whose need for security and safety and power led him to make his worst choices and to develop a hostile, defensive persona--may be rejecting that side of themselves: the side that is wounded, vulnerable, and cannot bear to be "weak," the side that is capable of being less-than-admirable in the quest to assuage internalized shame.
To empathize with the very-empathetic and very-human Severus Snape is to open up whatever wounds we each harbor within ourselves.
I have no rant or no conclusions or speculations or sympathetic/unsympathetic treatment of characters to throw down, except to say that JKR expects us to believe there's a connection between Riddle/Voldemort and contemporary purelblood families -- those with proclivities towards dark magic -- that isn't fleshed out.
Regarding the first, our view is limited to Harry and Hermione, who were Muggle raised, and Ron, who was constantly exposed to magic, yet was naive enough to believe Fred had given him a real spell to turn his rat yellow. But obviously the twins knew more, probably used the occasional borrowed wand, just like little Kevin at the Quidditch World Cup (the one who enlarged a slug with his father's wand). Notice that Narcissa was the one who went to buy Draco's wand. I tend to believe Draco had some practice at home and his parents already knew he was compatible with Narcissa's wand.
However by second year whatever advantage some kids brought from home must have been overcome by knowledge acquired officially and unofficially at Hogwarts, because Harry did reasonably well against Draco in the Dueling Club.
Regarding Voldmeort: The ideal age for recruitment into criminal and terrorist organizations is from late teen-age to early twenties, before people settle into families and jobs. That was why I used to think Voldemort returned to Britain in the mid-1960s or thereabouts: the sons (and nephews and sons-in-law) of his friends from school were beginning to enter that stage around then, when he had enough of them he could start scaling up his act. But the simple interpretation of canon is that Voldemort returned much earlier (also supported by the fact that until his return the Ministry was only offered to Dumbledore for the third time, when in DH he says the first offers already came before his duel with Grindelwald). So yes, I want to know why he did so then and how it served his goals. His own friends from school were just getting too old for being recruited themselves - they were in their late twenties, early thirties. So I was wondering if he started working on their children as early as that. Heck, he needed to earn a living somehow. He did not go back to the magical artifact line of business. Was he offering his services as highly specialized tutor?
This weird thing where Sirius Black, yes *Sirius Black*, heir and oldest son of the infamous Black family, the guy who has a mansion *full* of Dark Objects, would point his finger at the muggle-raised cootie kid from the wrong side of the tracks as being the one who knew a lot of Dark Arts. If this isn't projection, I'd eat my hat.
If I were to psychoanalyse Sirius, I'd say that he so hated to be a Black that he hated everything that smacked of 'the Blacks' to him. House Slytherin, for one. And 'Dark Arts'. Somehow those things became one and the same to him in his guilty mind. Oh, the fear that *he* would be like them. Of course he was like them, there was no running away from Self, but what better way to absolve oneself from sin than appointing a scape-goat, project all ones own failings onto it and then reject and destroy it.
If there was one little boy that day on the Hogwarts train that had learned dubious, nasty hexes and curses at his mummy's and daddy's, grandparent's and cousin's knees, it must've been Sirius Black, heir apparent of the Noble House of Black, and not Severus Snape, whose father was a muggle, whose mother let him run around in rags and was frightened of her muggle husband when he yelled at her.
Hmm, interesting idea...
The quote actually has Sirius saying Snape knew more hexes and curses than half of the 7th years. Now consider the fact that we DO see other firsties uses hexes and curses throughout the books. Wasn't that Ginny's claim to fame that the twins bragged about? Her Bat-Bogey hex? And what about Ron's comment about Hermione's use of Petrificus Totalis (also known as the Body-Bind Curse) when she leaves first year Neville frozen in place on the floor.
So, really, young Snape most probably knew more than the other first years - most likely something like Hermione. But it's more hexes and curses (which one can freely buy a book on at Flourish & Blott's), not dark arts.
And then there's the bit about knowing more than HALF of the 7th years. IF that's really referring to 'Dark Arts' then the other half of the 7th years knew more Dark Arts than firstie Snape. I could understand it if Sirius was referring to 1/4 of them, since he would surely believe all the 7th year Slytherins knew Dark Arts, but just who else in Hogwarts would be the other 1/4? Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw? Surely not Gryffindor!
I've always believed that was the Marauders way of explaining to themselves just what those upper year Slytherins saw in 'befriending' firstie Snape.
And it is quite correct to point out that Sirius is OFTEN wrong. He is absolutely wrong in several places in the books.
1) He says Snape was friends with a 'gang' of Slytherins that include Bella. Bella was out of school before Snape's first year (unless she had to repeat a year and if so then we should have been told so) So, unless we are talking about a 'gang' that develops AFTER Hogwarts, Sirius is wrong. And I can't believe Bella would ever feel 'friendly' towards half-blood Snape, even once he joined Voldy.
2) He's totally wrong about Regulus' death
3) He's even wrong about whether Albus would hire an ex-DE.
4) Then we get to where he's wrong about even the people he knew very well. He believed Remus was the traitor. And then even after learning Peter was the real traitor, Sirius still underestimates him, leading to the end of PoA and Peter's escape.
Let's face it - Sirius was NOT a good judge of character. -- Hwyla
Nobody in HP canon knows what the Dark Arts are so it is hard to make such a distinction. Hexes and Curses are supposed to be Dark Arts except when they aren't.
Did Severus Practice Dark Magic?, Part 1
"Look, Harry," said Sirius placatingly, "James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other...Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and James–whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry–always hated the Dark Arts." (OotP, Chapter 29)
Let’s not assume what Sirius or anybody else says is the truth. Let’s just look at the evidence.
OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE
1) Snape’s being a Death Eater argues in favor of a liking for Dark Magic on his part. Not really. A lot depends on why he joined. Having evaluated his career options after graduating Hogwarts, he probably realized all of his choices were terrible, so he chose the one that appeared to be least terrible.
Little is known about what he did for Voldemort. Given his genius for potions, it’s likely he was stuck in a laboratory somewhere and left alone to work with his cauldrons. This view is buttressed by Bellatrix’s resentment about Snape’s not going on raids with the other DEs. She obviously thought he was pampered and needed to get his hands dirty. (HBP, Chapter 2)
2) Snape’s sixth year potions textbook had a lot of dark spells written in it. We don’t know why those spells were in there. Since the book used to be Eileen’s, did she write them in the book? (Family members can have very similar handwriting.) Did Severus learn them from his mother and write them in there? Did he ever use them or intend to use them, or were they just curiosities? If they were intended to be used, were they offensive or defensive?
Many people collect guns or knives. That doesn’t mean they go around shooting or stabbing people. The only known time Severus freely chooses to use a Dark spell is in self-defense when James is attacking him. Even then, he uses a mild version that can be easily healed. Severus could have disemboweled James if he’d wanted to. (Repeat to self: It’s not nice to laugh at that image. It’s not nice to laugh at that image.)
The other time he uses a Dark spell is to kill Dumbledore on DD’s orders. Contrast Snape’s history with James’s and Sirius’s history of hexing other kids at random just for fun. Then decide who the bad guy is.
Did Severus Practice Dark Magic?, Part 2
Sirius says Severus was into Dark Magic and knew a lot of curses when they were kids.
3) How would he know this? They were in different houses and had little to do with each other except in class or when the Potter gang was attacking Severus. Severus undoubtedly avoided James et al as much as he could because he didn’t want to be attacked or ridiculed. If there’s one thing Snape wasn’t, it was stupid, and it would be very stupid of him to use curses in public, especially in front of his enemies. This would justify their attacks on him and get him into trouble with the school authorities. It’s possible the James gang could have tailed Snape and caught him doing curses surreptitiously, but that makes them look even more sneaky and desperate than *he* supposedly does for following *them* around.
4) Is there any other source, anywhere else in canon, who also accuses Severus of using DM? Sirius quotes James as hating Severus because of Severus’s alleged use of DM, but James is dead, so no one can question him directly. James was also the best friend of Sirius, so they can be expected to support each other’s stories. This goes even more for the pathetic Remus, who never loses an opportunity to accommodate his more powerful “friends,” even when it means putting children in danger.
Apart from Sirius, possibly James, and their subservient buddy, Remus, *no one else accuses Snape of using Dark Magic.* Not even Dumbledore. It’s implied he doesn’t want Snape to have the DADA job because it might present too much temptation, but that’s never stated outright. Then it comes out the position is cursed so no one can keep it for more than a year. Since DD needs Snape to stick around indefinitely, that seems a much more likely reason for denying it to him. (Thanks to phantomtf for pointing this out in her excellent story, “The Final Year.”) Once DD realizes he’s dying and Snape will probably be headmaster after his death, he lets Severus have the job.
How reliable a source is Sirius Black for information on Severus Snape? Not at all.
5) He’s Snape’s mortal enemy. He tried to get Severus killed when they were both in school and still expresses no remorse at all over this attack. In typical predatory criminal fashion, he says his victim asked for it.
6) He’s a psychopath. See my reply to 00sevvie referenced above for details.
7) He quotes James Potter, another probable psychopath, to back up his own accusation. Ditto.
8) He’s a pathological liar. Pathological dishonesty accompanies psychopathy. This means *nothing* he says can be trusted. Ditto for James. (If people have no conscience or empathy--the defining characteristics of the Antisocial Personality Disorder--they have no reason not to lie when it suits their purposes, and they think they can get away with it.)
9) He makes this accusation *only* when he’s alone with Harry and Remus. This is safe because he knows Lupin won’t contradict him on anything. He also knows Harry hates Snape, wants to think the worst of him, and avoids him as much as possible. Harry therefore won’t check out the accuracy of the story with Snape.
10) His baseless accusation against Severus is classic misdirection. If he can convince people Snape was a “bad seed,” then the Potter gang’s unprovoked attacks on him are not bullying. They’re a meritorious effort to contain a wicked influence on other students. James and Sirius weren’t beating up on Severus because he was poor, plain, and friendless. They were saving Hogwarts from the contaminating influence of a born Dark Wizard.
11) If Sirius is telling the truth, why doesn’t he make the accusation to Severus’s face? Why does he only trash Snape when Snape’s not around to defend himself? Is big, brave, pureblood Sirius afraid of little, greasy, half-blood Snivellus? Surely not! Surely someone brave and manly enough to attack another boy four against one, try to trick him into a close encounter with a werewolf, and sneak into a castle in the dark of night to knife his enemy despite the fact that enemy is sharing the bed with an innocent sleeping child, wouldn’t fear a one-on-one duel with wimpy little--Oh, wait. Never mind.
Re: Did Severus Practice Dark Magic?, Part 2
Also Karkaroff, while being able to tell the court that Severus was a Death Eater was unable to accuse him of any specific crime, as opposed to what he said of Dolohov, Travers, Mulciber and Rookwood.
Severus could have disemboweled James if he’d wanted to. (Repeat to self: It’s not nice to laugh at that image. It’s not nice to laugh at that image.)
But that would have gotten him expelled. Until he left school it was a good idea to limit himself to repairable damage. In any case, Sectumsempra was marked 'for enemies' and by then Severus had some lethal ones. (We aren't told if it works on werewolves.) The other spells were no more harmful than standard Hogwarts fare.
3) How would he know this? They were in different houses and had little to do with each other except in class or when the Potter gang was attacking Severus.
Quite obviously, they knew this when he used said curses to defend himself (oldest playground line 'it all started when he hit me back!).
11) If Sirius is telling the truth, why doesn’t he make the accusation to Severus’s face? Why does he only trash Snape when Snape’s not around to defend himself?
To be fair, I think there was only one conversation in canon where Severus and Sirius face one another in Harry's presence for any length of time (in the Shrieking Shack Severus was first invisible and later unconscious). In that conversation the only thing Sirius says about Severus' past was that Dumbledore says he has reformed but Sirius has his doubts, or words to that effect. In the year of OOTP Severus and Sirius hardly saw one another outside of closed Order meetings.
My thoughts were on those two points: firstly, Lily had "heard" about it, she doesn't say who by, but obviously Severus hadn't told her. So one of the other participants, sworn to silence as they were, told her. And she seemed quite familiar with "that tunnel by the Whomping Willow", plus that there was something hidden at the other end. How many other students knew that there was a tunnel there, I wonder, and that mysterious "something"? How dangerous was it, therefore, to keep a transformed werewolf at the other end, unrestrained? Good one, Dumbledore!
Not only that, but it sounds from this conversation between Lily and Severus that the idea of Remus being a werewolf is still only just a theory, so Severus couldn't have actually seen him when James Potter apparently "rescued" him. That's not exactly pulling him from the jaws of death and looks a whole lot less heroic.
Looking at it like that, I wondered if perhaps Severus went down the tunnel expecting a werewolf and perhaps thinking to use his spell of Sectum Sempra on it when he encountered it. It could be that he thought that would look good to the DEs: "I killed a werewolf, let me join, I know how to handle myself". Looked at like that, it could have been that James Potter was not acting to save Severus, but to save Remus.
Alison (who always gets plot bunnies galore from Snapedom!)
“What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."
We see that a lot through the series. Things that were supposed to be a complete secret somehow get discovered and gossiped about by the students. In OOTP, the source of this is revealed by Terry Boot - one of the portraits told him about Harry killing the basilisk with Gryffindor's sword. And we see that in GOF as well with the portrait from that room off the great hall rushing up to the Fat Lady's portrait to share the news about Harry being chosen as a Hogwarts champion in the tournament. Having portraits all over the castle - with the capability of visiting each other and sharing gossip - makes it pretty much impossible for anything to be kept a secret for long.
Lily wasn't friends with the Marauders at that point so it wasn't one of them who told her what happened - everyone knew about it and was talking about it from what she said. But they didn't know what actually happened - all she knew was that Snape had snuck down there and James had saved him. From what - she had no idea. And she didn't believe Snape's "theory" about Lupin.
That's what is really disturbing about that - Snape had promised not to tell anyone about Lupin, but immediately goes about telling everyone about his "theory" hoping that they will figure out that Lupin is a werewolf. He didn't directly break his word - not until POA anyway - but he did put a lot of effort into trying to reveal that Lupin was a werewolf. I think that gives us more insight into what a sneaky bastard Snape was more than anything.
But you make an excellent point and I hadn't really thought about that before. Given Snape's reputation for knowing all those hexes and curses - as well as his reputation for Sectumsempra being his specialty revealed by Lupin in DH - it does seem most likely that James was looking to save Lupin from Snape that night. Snape was so steeped in the Dark Arts and prejudice, who knows what he would have done to Lupin if he'd actually got to the end of that tunnel.
1) Bella's mother was a Rosier - and according to Sirius, Snape was part of a 'gang of Slytherins' that included Evan Rosier. Of course Bella was also part of this 'gang' and she was finished with Hogwarts before Snape got there, so the 'gang' might just be a group that became his friends after Hogwarts, but IF there was some connection with this group before Sirius left home in 5th year, then it's possible that Sirius assumed Snape and Bella were friends because he saw them together at Bella's home. IF so, then the connection would either be because Evan Rosier took Sev with him on a visit to his aunt (Druella Rosier Black - Bella's mom) or through a friendship with Narcissa.
The problem with a friendship with Narcissa is that we don't have Sirius saying anything about one. He does call Snape "Lucius' lapdog", which hardly sounds like a true friendship, but Sirius also did not include Lucius in his list of the 'gang of Slytherins'. Additionally, when Narcissa goes to Snape for help (Spinners End), she relies on him as Lucius' "old friend". She does not ask for Draco's protection based on a friendship of her own with Snape. So, canon-wise, we are pretty much left with Evan Rosier as a possible connection way for young Sev to have visited the Black home.
I will say that in response to Oryx's line about doubting Bella was allowed to hex her cousin Sirius while he was still at home, that he was not taking the duel with her seriously and his comment to Bella just before his death was "Come on, you can do better than that!" This does leave a suggestion that they may have dueled before. For him to not take a duel with a DE seriously, to me suggests that in their previous duels she would have been more likely to have gone much easier on him. And that suggests that it was when he was younger, before leaving the family, when she might have been dueling with him to teach him (and therefore going easy).
The only way I see that happening is pre-Hogwarts for Sirius. We do not know for a fact that Sirius was against his family's beliefs before Hogwarts. The scene on that first Hogwarts Express only suggests that he liked the idea of James' approval, not particularly that he didn't want to be a Slytherin before James commented on them. And pre-Hogwarts, Bella would have been the cool older cousin, possibly teaching a minor hex or jinx when he was 9 or 10. And I find that a believable possibility, at least before he sorted into Gryffindor. Once Sirius followed James' assumption that Slytherins are all 'evil', then I think he would automatically think that any additional hexes Bella might have to teach him would be 'dark' and so would not be learning anything more from her.
How does this all play out for Snape? IF Evan ever did take him to see Aunt Druella, it would obviously be after Sirius has begun to see his family as 'dark' (based on what James believed). Seeing any interaction between Sev and Bella (even just visiting her home to meet Evan's aunt) would probably give Sirius some thoughts of connecting her into that 'gang of Slytherins' Even if it's just because Evan is hanging out with HIS older, 'cool' cousin. This also leaves open the possibilty that the 'gang' still happened during Snape's school years, but Bella was around because of visits to Evan during Hogsmeade trips. -- continued in next post -- Hwyla
2) The other possibility would be through Eileen. IF young Sev's NEWT-level Potions Book was originally hers (which is not necessarily the case - it could have merely been purchased second-hand), then her time at Hogwarts might overlaps Tom's. IF the date in the book was exactly 50 years earlier AND that was the year she took her NEWT Potions (since current version of the book doesn't appear to have been updated, that publishing date might not mean anything), then Tom was at Hogwarts for her first 4 years. As were Orion & Cygnus Black (actually ther were possibly even in her 'year')
Remember during this time period, Tom was well-respected at Hogwarts (by everyone except Albus). He made Head Boy and was considered a 'hero' for turning in Hagrid after Myrtle died. Slytherin did not necessarily have a bad reputation yet. James' dislike of the house MIGHT come from rumors of things Slytherins did during the 60's, while the war was still brewing. But this might be why young Sev thought of Slytherin as brainy, instead of hoping for Ravenclaw.
We still do not have anything that tells us that Eileen was a Slytherin, so we cannot automatically believe he wanted in Slytherin because it was his mother's house. But we do know that Slughorn was head of Slytherin when Eileen was there, so she might push for Slytherin for Sev in hopes that Sluggie would be more likely to aid her son in getting out of poverty.
So, I think IF Eileen's time at Hogwarts overlapped Tom's, then it's possible that her opinion of Tom might have affected Sev's wish to sort into Slytherin (not that he wouldn't have anyways). I feel sure that he had a misguided opinion of what the house stood for by the time he got to Hogwarts. After all, he believed muggle-born Lily could sort into it.
And IF Slytherin's reputation as a house had only turned 'dark' during the 60s, then it's quite possible that Eileen would not have known (since she was living in the muggle world). Remember that Phineas Nigelus Black had died less than 20 years before her time at Hogwarts. Slytherin House must have been relatively respected back then for him to become Headmaster.
In regards to the Prince family - we do not have any indication that they were 'purists'. After all, Eileen's marriage to a muggle was published in the main wizarding newspaper. Compare that to the Black family, who burned Andromeda off the tree for marrying a muggle-BORN.
Alternatively, IF they didn't place the notice, then Eileen did, which would mean that 'at the time of her marriage' she didn't have any problem with letting the wizarding world know she had married a muggle. Young Sev's attitude about them comes from the way he and his mother have been treated by muggles (specifically his father and probably local bullies), not from family-held purist beliefs.
Yes, it is possible that the Prince's may have had 'dark' books even if they did accept their daughter's marriage to a muggle. But it seems less likely. Which doesn't hold well for the idea that Snape learned all those curses out of his mother's library. -- Hwyla