During the First Blood War

As we explore the backstory behind the adults in the series, we find that many of them attended Hogwarts in a poorly defined overlapping time period that can, even if you accept the Black Family Tree as canonical, only be partly, poorly, determined. Suffice it to say that the 1970s, as Riddle rose to power, the school had a number of key figures in it.

• Bellatrix was born in 1951
• Narcissa was born in 1955
• Lucius was a 5th, 6th, or 7th year prefect when James started, so he was born at most 7 school years before James.
• Sirius was born in 1959 or 1960
• Lupin was born in 1959 or 1960
• Pettigrew was born in 1959 or 1960
• James was born in 1960
• Lily was born in 1960
• Snape was born in 1960
• Regulus was born in 1961
• Mulciber was a student during James’s fifth year.
• One of the members of the Avery family was a student that year as well.

All of these students would go immediately upon graduation to full time fighting in the Blood War. It is impossible to imagine that they did so having come from being successfully sheltered from it during their time in Hogwarts. Instead, it is likely that their time there was minimally very like Harry’s sixth year, with high tensions, students already staking out the positions they planed to take, and insulting those on the other side. Indeed, since the fighting was so much more open at that point, with Riddle at the height of his power and influence, it is quite likely that things were worse.

It is with this backdrop that James is boarding the Express in his first year and comes face to face, probably for the first time, with a student suggesting a preference. On the face of it, a preference for one of the four houses should be meaningless, Lily, who at that point has been sheltered from all knowledge of the Blood War, would certainly have thought so. But the prejudice against all things Slytherin that both Ron and Hagrid so readily demonstrate years later was probably already starting to form as Riddle pushed his status as Slytherin’s heir to justify his attempt at destabilising the society James grew up in. The easy, casual remark that James makes, expressing surprise that Sirius might be destined for Slytherin and yet seem “normal” came from somewhere. Since, at this point, that same Black Family Tree tells us that members of the Black Family were already married into all segments of society, the Weasleys, the Longbottoms, the Crouches, and even his own family, the Potters, it seems more likely the prejudice is new, newly revived, or newly strengthened, rather than truly long lived and long lasting. James would have known at least some of these former Slytherins, and should have known at least some of them were Slytherin alumni. Something overrode his experience of relatives and family friends (some of these might not have been, but at least some must have been within his parent’s circle, the community is too small).

Snape, having grown up with a mother isolated from her family, may not have fully appreciated the impact of the Blood War that first day in the train. Yet he clearly did know at least something of the strong prejudice against the newly magical, else he’d not have hesitated to answer some of Lily’s questions (that we’ll see during the memory sequence in book seven). This means that the whole exchange between the two boys has an under text that not only isn’t apparent when we first heard that they’d never gotten along, but is still hidden from view when we finally do see these early exchanges via pensieve. Snape, in picking Slytherin over Gryffindor, was not simply rejecting the house of the jocks, despite his words, Ravenclaw, not Slytherin is where one goes to pick brains over brawn. Because of the redemption theme Mrs. Rowling intends for Snape, we as the reader, are intended to overlook that fact; because of the emotional trauma of the overall sequence, Harry does overlook the fact. We should however recall that, as Harry starts his first year, that Slytherin has held the Quidditch cup for seven straight years.¹ The Slytherin house counts ‘cunning’, not ‘wit’, as its defining trait.²

This is not meant to excuse or absolve James and Sirius. Bullying is always wrong, and that worst memory sequence, if real, was disturbing.

The idea that Lily was fooled, deluded, drugged, or otherwise compelled to marry James is however, frankly unbelievable. Not because I do not think Dumbledore incapable of sacrificing someone ‘for the greater good’, but because I think it more likely that if he were going to potion or compel obedience, that he would have done so on a much broader scale. A Dumbledore willing to compel that way is a Dumbledore willing to exert control much more overtly than anything we actually see him do. He would be equally likely to do the same with those who disagree with him across the books. Why is this willingness not evident when Umbridge disagrees with him? She ate in the castle for months, with her food under his control. Similarly, surely the wandless magic master that some fan fiction authors portray him as would be equally capable of be-spelling the weak willed Fudge. No, we know that there’s something missing from the picture of James that memory presents because Lily came to love him, – Snape simply cannot bring himself to face that reality. What we don’t know is how much is missing, or rather, when what is missing is missing. Is that memory essentially accurate, but James radically grew and matured, however unlikely that is? We know that true redemption, true life-altering change, is, must be, possible, or the life of Saint Paul makes no sense. Is that memory distorted by the some mastery over memory that Snape posesses that Slughorn lacked? We know that Dumbledore says that the altered memory Slughorn provided was “clumsy” not that it was impossible to do so successfully. We simply do not know what is missing, simply that something is.

So we cannot say if James was truly as big a jerk as he is presented in that memory (because in that scenario its a true memory), but that the scorn from Lily caused a metanoia. Or perhaps there was something else that happened during that time period, we know, for example that his parents had to have died at most not long after their graduation, perhaps that summer was when he learned they were ill and that explains the change – we simply do not know, if that is in fact what happened. We equally cannot say if Snape is simply that dastardly a villain that even in the recap we see in book seven he cannot help but reinforce the false impression he’s created of the nemesis that he [Snape] perhaps deserved (in this scenario the memory is in some way exaggerated, twisted, or distorted such that while Lupin and Sirius hear things they recognize, the scene they remember is fundamentally not the one Harry saw).

What we can do is explore the situation that might have let the whole sequence come to pass. And so, for a moment, I invite you to step back from these better documented events, and to consider what is almost a side comment.

A Student named Mulciber does something to a Mary MacDonald. This student may or may not have been punished, we do not know, but is not expelled. The deed is one that Lily describes as inarguably “evil.” Not simply wrong, but she emphasizes evil.

This is the backdrop the students are growing up in. With students like Bellatrix having (probably) recently graduated, it is also (probably), not the first such incident, but rather either (worst case) simply the most recent, or (best case), the first that has come to Lily’s attention as a fifth year prefect. If the latter, given it is her fifth year, and the end of that year, then the situation is better than I fear. If the latter case, then while I still do not condone the behavior, James may have been desensitized to the gravity of his behavior as he torments Snape effectively minutes latter. James' actions were undeniably cruel but not immediately life threatening, and certainly not permanently scarring. Too little is said to be sure, but the text hints that the situation with Mary may have been either or both life threatening and scarring. James may have (wrongly) considered his actions acceptable since he crossed neither line, again we see indications that he’s attempting to justify himself precisely thus.

If the students are aware that these situations are happening, then I do think that the staff we see in the seven books would be entirely ineffective at curbing the behavior. I believe that the students would know that the staff is ineffective at curbing this behavior. From these two premises, I believe it in line with Gryffindor house values to decide that someone should make the rival house pay for their crimes. The whole series is replete with examples of “unreliable narrator”; despite this we can still achieve sufficient clarity to realize that while death eaters come from all houses, the notorious ones, the ones who were effectively public (if not officially so), were all from Slytherin. More, it is equally believable that Lily, clinging to her friendship with Snape, is for a very long time wilfully bind to events that she would later realize her friends have been calling attention to for years.