[HPforGrownups] Re: Please pass the tissues - Mr. Weasley

[Wendy St John]

No: HPFGUIDX 69779


Marianne wrote:
"Harry and his role in the battle against Voldemort is of utmost 
importance to all of these adults, and not one of them takes Harry 
aside to say, "I'm really sorry for what happened. If there's 
anything I can do, call me."  Harry is left adrift again by the 
adults in his life. It leaves me cold."

Now me (Wendy):

Me too! I am in total agreement with you about this - I was left very cold
by the way adults treat Harry in this book, pretty much from start to
finish. Someone ages and ages ago posted dismay about why Harry didn't go
straight to Dumbledore about his dreams in OoP. My reaction to that
question is, "why the heck would he?" Dumbledore dropped out on Harry
completely, and I didn't even find his exposition at the end of the year to
be particularly satisfying. I am just now re-reading OoP, and was struck
again by how *alone* Harry feels at Privet drive. He thinks (more than
once) that he's being treated like a child who misbehaved after having
fought off the Dementors. None of the adults congratulates him, and even
Sirius' "empathy" seems pretty hollow, to me. 

I thought a lot while reading this book about just what the role of the
adults *is* in Harry's life. And I didn't really like what I saw, for the
most part. The single most emotional moment in this book (for me) deals
with this issue. It's the scene at the end of Chapter 22, when Harry uses
the extendable ears to eavesdrop on the conversation at Arthur Weasley's
bedside:

(Page 491. US edition)

(Moody speaking about Voldemort sendingthe snake): "No, I reckon he's
trying to get a clearer picture of what he's facing and iff Arthur hadn't
been there the beast would have had much more time to look around. So
Potter says he saw it all happen?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. "You know, Dumbledore
seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this . .
. . "

"Yeah, well," said Moody, "there's something funny about the Potter kid, we
all know that."

"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning,"
whispered Mrs. Weasley.

"Course he's worried," growled Moody. "The boy's seeing things from inside
You-Know-Who's snake . . . Obviously, Potter doesn't realize what that
means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him -"

<end citation>

The thing that strikes me about this scene is the way they talk about Harry
as a stranger. When Moody calls him "the Potter kid," that just seems so
cold to me. Granted, Moody doesn't know Harry very well - they've only
really spent a very limited time together, even though Harry still has
memories of his relationship with Fake!Moody which may confuse the issue a
bit for him. But, even given this lack of depth in their relationship, it
still seems to me that Moody speaks about Harry as an aspect of Moody's job
as an auror - that Moody sees Harry as something to be "dealt" with, rather
than seeing him as an person. And it seemed very clear that even if Moody
does see Harry as a "person," there's no affection there for Harry. Even
Molly's responses seemed rather cold, to me, especially since she has set
herself up as Harry's surrogate mum. She doesn't come to his defense when
Moody says they *all* know there's something funny about Harry. In fact,
her response almost makes me think that she agrees, but that since
Dumbledore was worried about Harry, then perhaps *that* mitigates Harry's
"funny-ness" somehow. I'm not trying to say that I don't believe Molly
genuinely cares about Harry - I'm sure she does. It's just that this scene
really disturbed me. I was uncomfortable with the tone of their discussion
about Harry, and I also had a lot of anger and sadness that Harry had to
hear them talking about him in this way. Sure, they didn't know he was
listening, but that doesn't make me feel any better about what they said. 

I don't know if anyone else had a similar response to this scene. I
actually had to put down the book after reading it, as I was so upset and
in tears. Now, in re-reading OoP, I am noticing even more examples of how
the adults don't really give Harry the sort of emotional support I'd like
to see him get. Sirius seems a bit too self-involved to really be there for
Harry (for example, with his comments about how Harry wasn't living up to
James' sense of adventure), Lupin is distant (not out of character for him,
but I'd have liked him to get more involved), Molly treats him like a young
child, and I don't remember much interaction with Arthur at all. Snape is
really the only one who gives Harry much in the way of meaningful
interaction, and then that gets cut short by the whole Pensieve incident.
Not to mention that if we've come to the point where *Snape* is Harry's
primary adult source of support, something is VERY VERY wrong with this
picture! <G> Ah - I have just remembered that McGonagall (and some of the
other Hogwarts teachers) was also very supportive of Harry, so at least
Snape wasn't the *only* one. I particularly liked her promise to help him
become an auror, although I fear it may actually prove to be the "last
thing" she ever does. 

In closing, I'll add that these are my impressions based on my initial
reading (I'm only to about chapter 4 the second time around), so I may not
be remembering some instances where the adults in Harry's life showed
themselves to be there for him, but since others here have noticed a lack
of supportive adults in Harry's life, I thought I'd add my observations to
the discussion.

Cheers!
Wendy

Wendy St John
hebrideanblack at earthlink.net