Snape-Harry Detente & Dumbledore (was: Worst is yet to come, etc.)

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 80938

---  Sandy wrote, in support of a theory that
Snape was chastened by Dumbledore's reaction to
his stopping the Occlumency lessions:

> It would fit, later, too, with Snape's newly 
> subdued reaction to Harry over his, "I'm 
> trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, 
> sir."

I had the same impression about Snape's reaction 
in that scene, but I chalked it up to something
else.  Two things about the sentence you quote
from Harry struck me when I read it, and might 
have struck Snape when he heard it, as rather 
unlike the old Harry.  First, Harry almost always 
forgets to address his teachers with honorifics 
when he is interrupted in the heat of the moment.
Especially Snape.  Here, however, Harry remembers 
to say "sir."  

Thinking about why that might be led me to this second observation:
both Harry's tone and his words indicate a degree of perspective, of
deliberation, that is in contrast to his past approach to conflicts. 
When asked what he's doing, Harry doesn't snap "I'm hexing Malfoy,
just like he deserves"; he says "I'm *trying to decide* what curse to
use on Malfoy, *sir*."  Those words could almost have come out of
Snape's mouth in a similar circumstance: Harry has enough distance
from his emotions that he is not only able to remember to address
Snape respectfully, but also to come up with a *subtle* put down of
Malfoy.  "Malfoy is so slow on the draw that I have time to toy with
him as I dredge my mind for the perfect curse to deploy in this
situation."   The whole idea of "trying to decide" what curse to
deploy in such a situation is, if I may essentialize for a moment, not
very Gryffindor.  Gryffindors react; Slytherins plan.  

So, why is Snape's reaction subdued?  Well, I'm not going to try to
convince anyone that he consciously processed all of this, but I don't
think it's too much of a stretch to think that hearing this kind of a
response from Harry was a good bit less infuriating than watching Harry
rush into trouble like an impetuous fool, as he usually does (at least
from Snape's POV).  Perhaps, in hearing this, Snape has an inkling,
conscious or subconscious, of the idea that Harry *has* learned
something from him.  (Although I'm of the opinion that Harry's ability
to distance himself is a product more of processing his grief than of
anything he experienced with Snape, Snape the teacher could perceive
it the other way.)  

I think that this scene is the first, hopeful little hint that Harry
and Snape are beginning, despite their mutual animosity, to understand
one another, or at least to think that they do.  Not a reconciliation,
but perhaps detente.

> If Dumbledore expected Harry would investigate Snape's 
> Pensieved thoughts, and Snape's apprehension of Harry 
> doing just that brought about the end of those lessons, 
> Dumbledore could very well be feeling extremely hoisted 
> on that particular petard.

Since I'm responding to this post, the nitpicker in me cannot resist
pointing out that one is not hoisted (or, in Shakespeare's now archaic
usage, "hoist") "on" a petard, but rather "with" it.  The "petard" was
the military engineer's charge (i.e., explosive) used for breaching
walls, and the expression colorfully refers to what happened if the
engineer employed too short a fuse, and was unable to get out of range
before the charge exploded.  

> I ... think Dumbledore ... knows that Harry went into 
> the Pensieve and he knows what Harry saw there. How 
> else would he chalk up the end of Occlumency lessons to 
> Snape's feelings about James ... ?

Not an impossible reading, but isn't it just as likely that Dumbledore
already attributes most of Snape's nastiness toward Harry to Snape's
feelings about James?  It seems to me that if Snape had told DD about
the Pensieve incident DD would be *more* likely to blame Harry than
Snape.  I also sort of think, given what we know about the
Snape-Harry-Dumbledore dynamic, that Snape would be embarrassed to
tell DD exactly what happened.  DD does not even necessarily know
about the particular incident with James/Sirius, so broaching that
would be one embarrassment.  Then, the fact that Snape chose this
particular memory to conceal might be a bit personal.  And since Snape
already feels as though DD unreasonably takes Harry's side of things,
particularly where MWPP are involved (as at the end of PA), it seems
more likely to me that he would have just told DD that Harry didn't
apply himself and was impossible to work with -- close enough to the
truth, from Snape's perspective.