Who Will Teach Harry Occlumency

[Wendy St. John]

No: HPFGUIDX 73310

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Buttercup <cathio2002 at y...> 
wrote:
> I'm wondering if Dumbledore will now teach Harry
> Occlumency. If he does, this'll create a stronger bond
> between the two. They'll be spending a lot more time
> together. If he doesn't choose to teach Harry who will
> he assign the task? Certainly not Snape again.

Now me (Wendy):

I hope very much that it *will* be Snape again. I agree that a side 
effect of the occlumency lessons could be a stronger bond between 
student and teacher - and that's *exactly* what I think Harry and 
Snape need to have if they want to be successful in this battle 
against Voldemort. 

In OoP, we saw the results when Snape and Harry were both unable to 
see past their own "baggage" and work together. Sirius is dead 
because of it. Yes, there were other factors, but I think that Snape 
and Harry's relationship had a great deal to do with it. Harry 
didn't seem to be really trying to learn occlumency, partly because 
he *wanted* the dreams, but also because his relationship with Snape 
wasn't such that he wanted to excel at the subject to please Snape. 
(As he might have wanted to do with a different teacher, Dumbledore 
or Lupin, for example). Quite the opposite, in fact. I wouldn't be 
surprised to find that Harry was subconsiously sabotaging his own 
efforts to learn occlumency, just to spite Snape. In any case, Harry 
didn't seem to place very much importance on the lessons, even 
though many people told him they were important. Harry's feelings 
about Snape also caused him to forget that Snape is a member of the 
Order. If Harry had gone to Snape earlier, things might have been 
very different.

I realise that I seem to be putting the blame onto Harry here, but 
that's only because, IMO, *in OoP*, Harry's actions created most of 
the problems. Of course, Snape's actions throughout the series have 
alienated Harry and helped create a situation where the two don't 
trust one another, and can barely even be civil to one another, so 
he is equally to blame for the horrid relationship. However Harry 
was the one in OoP who made most of the actual choices which led to 
Sirius' death (not practicing occlumency, not going to Snape about 
his vision of Sirius, going into the pensieve, etc). Snape's big 
mistake in OoP was not continuing the occlumency lessons after the 
pensieve incident. Although, frankly, by that time I'm not sure it 
would have done any good for the lessons to continue. It seemed 
obvious to me that Harry just didn't have any incentive to block 
Voldemort from his mind.

I had hopes that the occlumency lessons were starting to change the 
relationship between Snape and Harry. Snape was seeing that Harry 
wasn't the golden boy that James was, and Harry had some glimpses of 
Snape which showed that Snape hadn't always had it "easy" either. 
Then Harry went into the pensieve and shattered the tentative 
respect which was growing between the two of them. And, while that 
breach of Snape's privacy shattered their ablity to work together 
for the time being, it did give Harry an important insight into 
Snape's character, which I think will be important in Harry being 
able to work with Snape in the future. I do think that Snape and 
Harry will learn to respect one another, and work together at some 
point. In fact, not only do I think they can, but I think they 
*must* do this in order to succeed. They are both too important to 
the Order, and the fight against Voldemort, to be at odds like this. 
If the "good guys" can't stop fighting amongst themselves, how can 
they hope to stop Voldemort? 

So, I hope very much that, if Harry is to continue studying 
oclumency, Snape will be the one to teach him. It would give the two 
of them a forum for working out their differences, letting go of all 
the baggage that keeps them from working together, and learning to 
respect one another as I believe they should. They are both worthy 
of respect - and I can't wait to see them figure that out, too. (Of 
course, that moment also probably signs Snape's death warrant, but I 
won't think of that just now <g>). 

Cheers!
Wendy