What's annoying about Harry

[Scott <snorth@ucla.edu>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51403


Tom:
> What's wrong is that they, having no evidence of any sort, accused 
an 
> innocent man of committing two very heinous crimes. And it sets the 
> backdrop for the whole story through GoF. HHR continue to accuse 
> Snape of all sorts of vile things, and he's never guilty. What's 
> annoying about it is that they continue doing it - in other words, 
> they don't learn from the previous mistakes, they just keep making 
> the same ones.

Ha-Ha. Scott replies!

No evidence?  NO EVIDENCE?!  They had evidence, it was just 
circumstantial.  You even say "no evidence of any sort," so I think I 
get to throw a yellow flag.  So anyway, if you presented said 
evidence to any person with normally functioning mental capacities, 
they would have thought Snape was the culprit too.  

I'll throw down a challenge right now.  Anyone who thought Quirrel 
was the real villain as they were reading PS/SS, please let us know.

Snape is written as a villain in JKR books (I'm pretty sure I've 
already gone over this).  However, PS/SS starts the "not everything 
is as it seems" trend throughout the series.  However, the evidence 
against Snape is compelling.

The evidence, in no particular order:
- Harry's scar burns when he first sees Snape
- Snape treats Harry like dirt (the boy-who-lived; you think a 
follower of Voldemort would be happy to see Harry?)
- Snape is casting some sort of spell on Harry in the Quidditch match.
- Snape volunteers to referee Harry's Quidditch match
- Snape went after the stone during the Troll attacks (next point 
ties in with that)
- Snape is wounded by Fluffy, from his own mouth
- Snape threatens Quirrel, re: protections around the stone
- Voldemort is hiding out in the forest
- He was played by Alan Rickman in the movie!  (Okay, that's not 
really evidence, but I think it was great that they got a guy who 
ALWAYS plays villains to play Snape- note how they're doing the same 
thing with the PoA movie)

So anyway... We know that every single one of the points above has a 
reasonable explanation, but only after hearing it from the mouth of 
the real villain, Quirrel.  However, if Hagrid or McGonagall had 
known all of this... well, they might have thought Snape was going 
after the stone as well.

Of course, what I really want to know is this: If Snape had known 
that Quirrel was after the stone, or even suspected it, why didn't he 
tell Dumbledore?  

Don't try to throw that back at me with "Why didn't the Trio tell 
Dumbledore?" arguments.  Dumbledore is an elusive man in PS/SS- when 
they do try to tell him, he's not there.

-Scott
(who also doesn't think that Harry is throwing anything back at Snape 
in the shack.  Note that Snape just parades in after hearing Lupin's 
side of the prank, and starts waving his wand around, threatening to 
blast people, or give them to the dementors; he never gives anyone a 
chance to explain; it's not really the same thing.  Also, the so 
called 'attack' is something like the Train stomp in GoF:  all three 
acted independently, and the combined result was stronger than any 
single hex; they all tried to disarm Snape, which if only ONE of them 
had tried it, it really wouldn't have been a big deal.  Harry might 
have just had Snape's wand, then Snape could have sat down and 
listened to story time with Sirius, Lupin, and special guest speaker, 
Peter Pettigrew.)