OoP - Occlumency - A case for Evil!Snape?

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 66684

First, full disclosure, I am very skeptical of Snape and his true 
motives. I think it is entirely possible he is still a bad guy.

Just letting you know what kinds of grains of salt you might want 
here.

But to plunge ahead, I wonder if Snape was truly teaching Harry 
Occlumency the correct way.

The choices to teach Occlumency were apparently Snape and Dumbledore. 
Dumbledore, for obvious reasons -- wanting to keep Harry away for 
security reasons -- couldn't be the teacher. That left Snape.

We know that Harry felt weaker after each lesson. We know that, with 
the exception of Harry turning it around on Snape, the lessons were a 
failure.

And even that peek into Snape's memories was not as rousing a success 
as you might think. Snape got into his head. Harry just managed to 
get him out of there. True Occlumency, as Snape describes it, is not 
letting the person in in the first place.

But as I re-read the chapter on the OWLS, some startling things jump 
out at me.

Pg 629, UK. Harry went to bed with his head buzzing with complex 
spell models and theories.

No bad dreams. No incursions by V-Mort. His head was full of facts 
and figures and nothing happened.

OK, but facts and figures are not emotional, you say? And you're 
right.

But then, pg 638, after McGonagall is attacked and Umbridge has run 
Hagrid out. "He (Harry) fell asleep contemplating hideous revenges 
and arose from bed three hours later feeling distinctly unrested."

It is possible he never really slipped into full sleep, and I grant 
that, but he went to bed full of hate, and nothing happened.

In the other times where he had bad dreams, he actually tried to 
empty his mind before sleeping, and he THOUGHT he failed, but what if 
he had succeeded? Who truly knows whether one's mind is empty at the 
moment you drop off to sleep? Maybe his subconscious DID do what it 
was asked and emptied his mind?

And what if an empty mind, not a mind full of emotion, was really the 
very thing V-Mort needed?

Now, pg 640, when the vision of Sirius being tortured hits Harry. He 
is in the History of Magic OWL and he is trying to think of the 
answer, but cannot. He is literally DRAWING A BLANK.

Bang! He gets the vision of Sirius.

Now, it is possible, to throw out a counter-argument, V-Mort held off 
on visions to give Harry to illusion that he had spent time breaking 
into Grimmauld Place, capturing Sirius and dragging him off to some 
lair. 

Snape was alone with Harry in that office. 

And Harry had no access to Dumbledore and very limited access to 
Sirius and Lupin. Snape could have taught anything he wanted in that 
room and Harry had no way of knowing whether it was helping or 
hurting him. If I recall correctly, he never told Sirius, Lupin, 
McGonagall, or even Hermione, exactly what was going on in there, 
just that he was "practicing" and "working hard."

Now, on to Snape himself.

He has every single right to be furious with Harry for sneaking into 
the Penseive. Absolutely, he does. (That is, if he didn't mean Harry 
to do it in the first place, which I tend not to believe, but still 
throw out as a counter-argument.)

But teaching Harry Occlumency is a direct order from D-Dore. Lupin 
and Sirius both say they will go to D-Dore and demand Snape resume 
teaching it.

Yet, Snape does not resume teaching it. Yes, it is possible he was 
waiting for Harry to apologize, but this is not some tutoring session 
where Snape is volunteering his time to better a student's grades.

This is what is best for the Order. Keep V-Mort out of Harry's head 
is crucial, according to D-Dore.

Put simply, it's war and Snape, if he is truly on the side of the 
Order, doesn't have time to continue to hate the son a man who has 
been dead for 15 years. It a luxury reserved for peace. That son is 
the best hope, according to the prophecy, the only hope, to get rid 
of V-Mort. 

But D-Dore trusts Snape. We've been told that in nearly every single 
book now. Hermione ignores or mocks Ron's conspiracy theories about 
Snape.

I have to wonder if that isn't the most obvious "hide-in-plain-sight" 
foreshadowing you've ever seen.

Darrin
-- I love the 80s moment: "The best thing about the A-Team? They 
couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."