Snape, Neville and Herbology

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 44294

I agree entirely that in real life there is absolutely *no* way I'd 
want anyone like Snape teaching anyone like Neville.

But...
Neville must be an incredibly frustrating student. His ability to 
destroy cauldrons (which no-one else in the class can) suggests that 
the raw power is there, but he doesn't want to use it.

And, of course, Neville is good at Herbology.

I don't know how far the comparison with Herbology/Biology and 
Potions/Chemistry can be stretched, but in the UK, if you planned to 
take up Biology as a career, then you would have to study Chemistry 
all the way up to the end of your school career. Quite simply - you 
need it to even *understand* higher level biology.

The way Professor Sprout seems to display a detailed knowledge of 
which herbs are used in which potions, and at which point they have 
to be picked for the best results suggests that she does have at 
least a good theoretical knowledge of potions . Quite possibly in the 
WW, the potions expert and the herbology expert often work very 
closely with each other.

So Snape has a student who hates his subject, but who *must* learn 
it. Snape can't *let* Neville hide in a corner and quietly ignore 
potions, because if he does he's going to ruin Neville's chance at a 
WW career he'd be good at. And this is a situation I don't think 
Snape is very good at dealing with (to put it mildly).

But if this is the case, then I hate to think of Neville's face at 
the end of OoP when he discovers that he's got to study for a Potions 
NEWT with Snape [big, evil, grin].

Pip!Squeak
(wanders off muttering must revise, must revise, must revise)