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Yeah, the peer pressure is speculation, as are many other things that get thrown around here. ;) Some find it more plausible than others (it seems plausible to me, given what we see of Hogwarts and the WW in general in the text).
RE what Mulciber did: from Lily's comment we cannot surmise that it was in fact supposed to be dark magic, evil, vindictive, or anything else. Just as from Severus' comment we cannot surmise that it was not any of those things. (And note Mulciber did not in fact do anything, he merely tried to do something - making it even more speculative as to what went down.)
All those comments tell us are what Severus and Lily each personally BELIEVE it to have been. It is all hearsay. And neither of them was present when it happened, so it is all belief, nothing grounded in direct witnessing. Since we do not see the incident itself or have a report of it from someone we have evidence to believe is telling only the facts, with no personal interest in the matter, we have no way of judging whether Severus or Lily is correct or not about it. We know absolutely nothing about what happened, except that Mulciber TRIED to do SOMETHING to Mary the other day and Mary did not find it nice.
This isn't about the relative morality of whatever Mulciber tried to do, I mean, it's about the fact that we can't make assumptions about what happened and treat them as fact based only on the testimony of characters not present at the time and who have clear emotional stakes in seeing it read one way or another. Lily thinks it was evil dark magic (and seems to think all dark magic is evil; whether all dark magic actually is evil is never directly answered in the text). Severus thinks it wasn't evil, whatever kind of magic it was (and doesn't seem to think all dark magic is evil), and wants to know why Lily finds it worse than what her own housemates do. Yes, he deflects, but so does Lily; they both have emotional stakes in this. Is Severus right? Is Lily? Are both? Is neither right? The text doesn't say, so it's all speculation and interpretation.
RE what Mulciber did: from Lily's comment we cannot surmise that it was in fact supposed to be dark magic, evil, vindictive, or anything else. Just as from Severus' comment we cannot surmise that it was not any of those things. (And note Mulciber did not in fact do anything, he merely tried to do something - making it even more speculative as to what went down.)
All those comments tell us are what Severus and Lily each personally BELIEVE it to have been. It is all hearsay. And neither of them was present when it happened, so it is all belief, nothing grounded in direct witnessing. Since we do not see the incident itself or have a report of it from someone we have evidence to believe is telling only the facts, with no personal interest in the matter, we have no way of judging whether Severus or Lily is correct or not about it. We know absolutely nothing about what happened, except that Mulciber TRIED to do SOMETHING to Mary the other day and Mary did not find it nice.
This isn't about the relative morality of whatever Mulciber tried to do, I mean, it's about the fact that we can't make assumptions about what happened and treat them as fact based only on the testimony of characters not present at the time and who have clear emotional stakes in seeing it read one way or another. Lily thinks it was evil dark magic (and seems to think all dark magic is evil; whether all dark magic actually is evil is never directly answered in the text). Severus thinks it wasn't evil, whatever kind of magic it was (and doesn't seem to think all dark magic is evil), and wants to know why Lily finds it worse than what her own housemates do. Yes, he deflects, but so does Lily; they both have emotional stakes in this. Is Severus right? Is Lily? Are both? Is neither right? The text doesn't say, so it's all speculation and interpretation.