Chapter 24: Occlumency

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 108810

Huntergreen previously:
> Personally, I don't think another teacher would have had much more
> luck than Snape unless they were able to convince Harry that he
> *needed* the skill (which, after the Arthur/snake incident, I don't
> blame Harry for having misgivings about blocking his mind).

SSSusan replied:
>> While I agree with you that Harry would have be greatly helped by
having someone *fully* explain why he needed to block the visions he
was having, I disagree with you somewhat about how it might have gone
with another teacher.
[snip]
As far as we know, there's no one else on staff capable of teaching
Harry, so it came to Snape. *If* Flitwick or McGonagall, for
instance, had been able, though, I also think Harry would have been
more successful simply because the build-up of angry emotion wouldn't
have been there. <<

HunterGreen:
I definitely agree that teaching such a sensitive skill would have 
been better handled by a teacher who Harry didn't detest (and who 
didn't detest him better), but I don't think it would have made too 
much of a difference. Most of Harry's failure with Occulmency had to 
do with him not taking it seriously. We don't know if practicing 
outside of the lessons would have made a difference, but it could 
have for all we know since Harry never bothered. 
The emotional aspect of learning from Snape made Harry afraid for him 
to find out he wasn't practicing outside of class, but apparently 
that wasn't enough for him to actually work at it. Another teacher 
wouldn't even have that (although there's some evidence that guilt 
works better on Harry than fear).

Snape doesn't really tell Harry what to do, and you're right in 
saying that Harry doesn't ask questions simply because its Snape and 
he was not really open to questions. However, that might have been 
because there wasn't anything more Snape could tell him. He does 
compare occulmency to throwing off the imperious curse. If you were 
trying to "teach" someone that, what could you tell them? Not much. 
Its really more of practice: having the curse put on over and over 
again until its possible to recoginize and ignore it. That's sort of 
what Snape was doing, he was using obvious legimency on Harry over 
and over until Harry learned how to block it.

As for the build-up of angry emotion, I think that was necessary in 
*actually* teaching it to Harry. Otherwise there'd be no assurance 
he'd be able to do it outside of controlled conditions. The 
comparison I think of is Hermione and Cho learning how to do the 
patronus charm without learning how to do it when a dementor is 
around. Harry learned it against the boggart!dementor, which is much 
harder.

IMO occulmency was doomed to fail. Harry is at an age where 
biologically he is prone to having far more emotions running through 
him than an adult. Not only that, in order for occulmency to be any 
good to him he needs to know how to block his mind at night when he's 
asleep (which would be a rather thorough mastery of the skill), which 
is quite different than doing it consciously. The better solution 
would have been for Dumbledore to have just told him the truth then. 
Then Harry could just ignore any dreams he might have that are 
calling him to the DoM.
Asking a fifteen-year-old boy to master such a precise and difficult 
skill in a matter of months is just too much. Even if Harry had been 
mildly successful, I doubt he would have learned it well enough by 
the end of the term (which was only six after he started lessons in 
it) to block his mind while sleeping. He still would have had the 
dream calling him to the DoM in June.