« Previous Post | Index | Next Post »
Amanda wrote (of Snape's dialogue in Lupin's office, while waiting for Lupin to swill down his Wolfsbane potion in PoA):
I always sort of had the idea that Snape was continuing to speak when not necessary--it is sort of awkward, isn't it? I thought he was trying to do a foot-stomper for Harry ("Hell-LO! Are you listening? This guy, he has to take a potion, he gets sick every month, clue IN"), by calling attention to the potion indirectly.
I like that, Amanda. I'd never thought of it that way before.
I'd always read it as a foot-stomper as well, but one far more for Lupin's benefit than for Harry's. I gloss most of Snape's lines there to read: "Damn it, Lupin, would you drink that stuff already? Are you a grown man or aren't you? Do you think I don't have better things to do than to stand over you all day waiting for you to take your medicine?"
There's a strange sort of irritable parent/recalcitrant child dynamic going on in that scene, to be sure. Lupin really does strike me as pulling the "All right! I'll drink it! But not while you're standing over me, okay? Just leave me alone, and I promise that I'll do it. Geez, don't you trust me?" behavior that I'm afraid that I do tend to associate with adolescents who are being Difficult.
Poor Snape, meanwhile, is trapped in the parental role, a role in which he often finds himself trapped in canon, even though he is profoundly temperamentally unsuited for it.
The flavor of the dynamic always left me with the impression that Dumbledore had given Snape express instructions to make certain that Lupin was really drinking his potions. I tend to agree with Pip that Lupin has a bit of a non-compliance problem, and I think that Dumbledore realized that—or at the very least suspected it—and so appointed poor Severus as the task-master when it came to Lupin's medication. This would also explain why Snape was bringing Lupin his potion in person on the night of Shrieking Shack.
Snape does act to protect Harry; he can't be happy to find Harry there in the office of a werewolf. I sort of saw this as being reluctant to leave, making forced conversation in an attempt to keep an eye on things.
I'm certain that he was not happy to find Harry sitting around chatting with Lupin in his office, especially at that time of the month, and especially since Lupin has the power to humiliate Snape by telling Harry embarrassing stories about his schooldays.
This was also my take on his backing out.
I read his backing out to read: "I'm watching you, Lupin. Drink. Your. Potion."
—Elkins
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on June 17, 2002 10:55 AM
1 comment (link leads to main site)
« Previous Post | Index | Next Post »