What I have a hard time with in the canon...

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 96268

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "daled7350" <daled73 at e...>
wrote:
> As a newbie to this Group I may be bringing up an old gripe which
> has been hashed to death before

Yes, but what hasn't been?

> What continually niggles at me when I try to relax and enjoy the 
> Potterverse is the belief that any child who had endured the 
> loveless world of psychological abuse that Harry lived in from age
> 2 till 11, wuld be undamaged enough to be able to make friends with
> Ron and Hermoine the way he does. 

I agree with you. Here is my old answer from years ago:

If Dumbledore knew just how badly the Dursleys would treat Harry, it
was foolish or desperate of him to leave Harry there, or wizards'
psychology is different from that of Muggles, dogs, and cats. The
kinds of beings that I know about, bring them up in constant abuse and
no example of goodness, and they grow up either broken terrified
cowards who'll do anything to (something like Pettigrew in GoF) or
cynical tough guys who'll do anything to triumph (something like Tom
Riddle). Neither is good preparation for being a hero to rescue the
wizarding world.

I think Lily was able, with her magic, to put an image of herself in
her baby's mind, that would be like an 'imaginary mum' (by analogy
with 'imaginary friend') who would cuddle Harry and tell him that 
he's a good kid who doesn't deserve Dursley abuse and tell him about
how decent people behave, thus being that one caring adult ("example
of goodness" in previous paragraph) said to be necessary to even a
'resilient' child's survival of serious abuse... I kind of think Lily
used her last magic to put this image in his head intentionally,
instead of using her last magic in one last attempt to escape
Voldemort. That is the heroic self-sacrifce that canon credits her,
accepting her own death because it was more important to her to give
this protection (from abusive Dursleys) of her love. I don't know why
she would do that if she really believed that he would be dead 
seconds after she was, so I am left sympathetic to the theories that
Harry survived AK because of some magic that had been done on him
(presumably by Lily) or that he had been born with. 

When Harry resisted the Imperius Curse, the Curse's Moody-voice in 
his head told him to jump up on the desk, and "another voice had
awoken in the back of his brain. Stupid to do, really, said the
voice." I believe that that other voice is what's left of the
image-Lily after all these years; she doesn't appear often, she
appears as Harry's voice instead of her own, but she still is caring
for Harry -- and still has free will.

In addition, so far we've always seen Harry wondering and trying to
find out about his father, and not about his mother. Some say that's 
a plot device because JKR is saving some big surprise about Lily, and
some say it's normal because Harry is 11 to 14 so far, puberty and
adolescence, and much more concerned about a male image to identify
with. But *I* say that he doesn't search so much for Lily because,
unknown to himself, he already has her with him.