PoA: Dementors and Aunt Marge

[linman6868 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 14685

Amanda wrote:
> 
> But the Muggle/wizard dichotomy that was proposed doesn't bear out,
> because it is with a dig about his father that Snape gets a major 
rise
> out of Harry (also in PoA). I think it's not really a parallel, so 
much
> as clearly a major Button, that Harry will have to learn to control 
his
> response to (or else he'll be fairly easily manipulable by someone
> knowing to "diss" his parents at the right time).

That's a good point.  But I suppose what I was thinking of mostly was 
Harry's attempted response to Aunt Marge--thinking of something happy 
and projecting it forward in his mind to shield him from Aunt Marge's 
verbal abuse.  Marge, however, knows how to push that Button.  Harry 
doesn't have a strong enough mental Patronus for that one.  

As you say, this parallel probably can't be pressed very far, 
certainly not far enough that we can predict Harry's conflict in each 
book by each Dursley episode.  Perhaps it is merely that Harry's 
feelings and conflicts are all of a piece whether he is at Privet 
Drive or Hogwarts, and the Patronus parallel in PoA just gives the 
ongoing conflict a further shadow to cast.  

Lisa