Snapedom

My point is actually that the reading you propose, although not entirely ruled out, is not in fact *equally* likely. It is less likely because there is far less evidence to support it within the text than there is to support the reading that James was still somewhat immature. Neither is conclusively proven, but one is more likely than the other given what we *do* see in the text of James. It's interpretation both ways, but one requires less speculation regarding certain events having taken place entirely offscreen, is thus simpler and so more likely. It is simpler and more likely to suppose that, given no direct evidence of a change, a person acted in a way consistent with their behavior at other recent times than that they did change though we never see other evidence of it, based upon one piece of hearsay that could be read either way. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but one interpretation has somewhat more canon evidence behind it than another. That's all.

I wouldn't have a problem with the tone if using humor to lighten a situation was all she did. But to me and to others that I know the tone shifts are too great and simply do not work. It is as if she was trying to write in two different genres at the same time. Laughing at someone unpleasant who had been traumatized by a wild animal, for example, would work in a cartoonish genre (we do it all the time with Looney Tunes and the like); it's part of the genre and isn't meant to be read in terms of real-world morality. In a realistic genre, that same laughter would indicate a severely-empathy deprived or morally callous character. Thus a lot of the argument that goes on about Snape and the 'Prank' or the Trio laughing at Umbridge; one group is reading it more cartoonishly than another group, and both are right/wrong because the text itself can't seem to decide if the violence is in fact cartoonish or realistic.