More insight into Snape/Snape's challenge

[evangelina839]

No: HPFGUIDX 68691

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IAmLordCassandra at a... wrote:
> 
> I was re-reading the 'Occlumency' chapter when I certain scene
caught my eye. 
> One that I think gives us deeper insight into Snape than anything
else in the 
> book. <snip> "Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves,
who cannot 
control 
> their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to
be provoked 
> this easily-weak people, in other words-they stand no chance
against his 
> powers!..."  <snip>

> Did anyone else get the feeling Snape was speaking for experience
here?  That 
> it was once he who had been weak and had to Master himself?

Oh yes, I most surely did. :) Snape could most possibly refer to
something having to 
do with him joining the DEs out of weakness - but the first thing I
connected his 
disdainful dismissal of emotional, "weak" people to was what Harry
saw in the 
Pensieve - remember Snape being called "Snivellus"? I couldn't help
feeling that James 
& Sirius were probably mocking Snape for something similar to what
Dudley was 
making fun of Harry for at the beginning of the book. Dudley
overheard Harry 
moaning in his sleep, and maybe Snape was caught "snivelling",
sometime prior to 
the event Harry witnessed, maybe in his sleep or maybe awake in a
moment of 
solitude... okay, a little mushy maybe, but I am after all a firm
believer that unless 
Snape and Harry develop at least a slight understanding of and
closeness to each 
other by the end of the series, I will be deeply disappointed.

Anyway, I would also like to quote another thing, this is what it
says shortly after 
Harry, and presumably Snape as well, has had a flashback of dead
Cedric: "Snape 
looked paler than usual, and angrier"... why was that? Because Snape
just found 
repeated access to Harry's mind, or because he, too, was unpleasantly
affected by the 
sight of Cedric's dead, "blank eyes staring at him"? I believe it was
the later, and that 
Snape reacted with anger to cover up that he was touched. Which
brings us to the 
next part of Cassie's post:

> Then there is Snape's challenge.  "Prove it! Master yourself!"  I
don't think 
> he meant simply in Occlumency. <snip>

Nope, I don't either. I'm sure Snape wants to see Voldemort defeated,
and that he 
believes that Harry won't be able to defeat V without disciplining
his mind. Maybe 
because Snape feels that not covering up his own emotions has never
brought him 
any good... or maybe because he doesn't think it's very good for
Harry's mission to be 
so terrified of a dead body (hm - myself I would find anyone strange
who didn't flinch 
at the sight of death)... or some other reason.

I have probably been babbling a bit, sorry about that... I hope you
can follow my 
point, anyway. :)

sincerely // evangelina