[HPforGrownups] Re: OoP: What Snape is really doing out there...

[pjuel13 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 66206

Darrin says:
>> He was Harry's godfather and therefore the man Lily and James wanted 
>> taking care of Harry.  Furthermore, it was his house.

and Irene replies:
>And if it was McGonagall with message from Dumbledore, would Sirius take
>his godfather duties as far?
>Would he tell her "It's my house" if she offered Harry to sit down?
>Sirius was looking for confrontation in this episode.

Would McGonnagall have questioned Sirius' presence in the first place? It was 
Sirius' right and duty to be there as Harry's guardian. He had every reason 
to believe that Harry's interests needed looking after from the moment he knew 
Snape was going to be teaching the occlumency.  
Did Snape "offer" Harry to sit down or did he order him to?
It may be possible to constuct a senario where Snape's public attitude 
towards Harry, his friends, and non-Slytherins in general is explained away by a 
need to keep his unreformed death eater cover identity in place. But there's no 
one in the kitchen but Harry, Sirius, and himself. What excuse is there for him 
then? 
Black calls him on it and on Snape's propensity to go after Harry whenever 
the opportunity presents itself and he's right to. Regardless of his actions in 
the big picture battle against Voldemort, on a day to day level Snape has been 
relentlessly harrying and hounding Harry for no appreciable reason other than 
that he's James Potter's son. Why wouldn't Black be concerned about Snape 
having even more access to Harry, more opportunity to keep doing what he's been 
doing for 4 and a half years? Snape can't even keep himself from ordering Harry 
around and sneering at him in the kitchen of the order's safehouse. A 
guardian has the right and the duty to protect their charge from what they percieve 
to be a danger. Black believed that Snape should be warned not to abuse his new 
position as Harry's occulmency mentor. All the information he had, including 
Snape's behaviour there in the kitchen told him that particular danger was 
more than possible, that it was probable. And in the end Dumbledore conceeds that 
Snape was unable to keep his feelings about James from coloring his treatment 
of Harry during the lessons"
"I thought Professor Snape could overcome his feelings about your father - I 
was wrong." (US ed. pg 833)

Snape was cool? I suppose that, depending on your personal feelings regarding 
the two adults in the room, you could see Snape as the "cool" one (though 
it's noteable that Snape is the one who indulges in insult after insult while 
Black does nothing til Snape takes a shot at both Harry and James), but how cool 
is sneering at and repeatedly belittling Harry? Is that cool too? 

-Stripedog











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