Adults "failing" Harry (was: Themes in OotP)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 119912


SSSusan:
<snip>
Sirius is the only "parent" Harry now has. Molly in her own words
says she's as good as a parent to Harry. Their good reasons for
keeping quiet were: 1) DD's orders and 2) their own fears and
discomforts. I'm questioning these very things.

<snip>
I just don't get why he could be told *nothing* without too much info
getting back to Voldy. I just spent some time in the post that was
snipped giving an example of exactly what I thought DD could have
done to have helped Harry see why he needed to take Occlumency
seriously, without having to give him any dangerous specifics that
Voldy might've been able to access.

For instance. DD knows, after the Arthur attack, that Voldy's now
aware of the connection between him & Harry. DD suspects Voldy will
try to USE this to *lure* Harry. Thus DD thinks it's *essential*
that Harry learn to block the visions & dreams. He tells Snape to
teach Harry and lets Snape explain what's up & why. DD himself makes
no contact w/ Harry. I'm arguing that EVEN JUST having had DD
contact Harry with the news about Occlumency & the what's up & why
might've made Harry believe in Occlumency's importance and that he
must work at it & trust Snape. DD doesn't have to say, "We know
Voldy is going to lure you to the DoM." DD could have said, "We
believe Voldy might be able to use this connection to *feed* you
*false* images, Harry, and since you wouldn't know what's real and
what's false, this could be REALLY dangerous to you & others."

How would that be giving Voldy too much information? In fact, if
Harry believed this from DD -- much more likely than when it comes
from Snape -- he'd possibly have been able to master Occlumency,
shutting out Voldy, which would've meant Voldy wouldn't get any info
anyway!
<snip>

Dungrollin:

But there was another reason for DD being so distant.  He thought 
that if Voldy ever realised that DD and Harry were closer than a 
headmaster and a student, Voldy would try to use Harry to attack 
DD.  And even at the end of OotP, when DD is apologising for being 
an old fool, he maintains, *specifically*, that he was right about 
this, whatever else he was wrong about.  Presumably Voldy would have 
been trying to get DD to hurt or kill Harry in self-defense.

It's surely significant that throughout OotP, the only two times DD 
and Harry make eye-contact, Harry feels the Voldy urge to attack 
him.  In only two instances of a few seconds each, in the *whole* 
school year, Voldy is behind Harry's eyes, ready and waiting for his 
chance.  Most would agree that DD knows more than he's letting on; 
if he suspected the connection between Voldy and Harry right after 
GH, I reckon he's got a much better understanding of it by now.  
What does he know?  More than we do, certainly.

Is there some Harry pre-programming going on?  Perhaps the something 
of Voldy that resides in Harry's head is obeying other instincts, 
now that Voldy's got his body back.  Though it's interesting that 
what Harry feels is a snake-like urge to bite DD, rather than the 
urge to reach for his wand, and that the only other bit of Voldy 
that we know is in Harry is the ability to speak Parseltongue.  – 
There's some connection there, Slytherin, Voldemort, Harry, snakes 
and parselmouths.  Why is part of Voldy's *mind* snake-like?  (When 
he possessed Harry, he was "
locked in the coils of a creature
with red eyes" – again, sounds like a serpentoid.  Voldy doesn't
seem to have left anything *human* in Harry's head.) What did Voldy 
do to ensure he didn't die at GH?  How much does DD know, and how 
much does it affect his decisions with respect to Harry?  A lot, I 
think.

Anyhow, my point is that DD is the one who knows about the 
connection through the scar (and more than he's told Harry and the 
others), DD is the one whom everybody trusts, and DD is the one 
giving orders *which get followed*.  I agree, to a certain extent, 
SSSusan, the reasons for not telling Harry *anything at all* do seem 
odd, and DD does admit that he was wrong, but I'm fairly confident 
that he had better reasons for being wrong than we know about.  I 
hope so, anyway, otherwise, like you, I'll be a bit miffed.  All in 
all, I'm trying to say that I'm waiting for book 7 before I say that 
OotP was crap, though I am tempted to agree with you now.

Dungrollin