Occlumency lessons

[theadimail]

No: HPFGUIDX 91621

deb wrote:
> But what I REALLY wonder at is that Hermione--the bookworm,
> researcher extraordinaire that she is--didn't immediately start
> digging out references to force on Harry when he started the
lessons
> in the first place. Or at least when he was making no progress with
> Snape (sir!)--it's not like she doesn't know how Snape treats Harry
> anyway, I'm sure she could well imagine that the lessons weren't
> exactly smooth and easy like his Patronus lessons with Lupin had
> been. If she can pick up all these other skills (like the hex she
put
> on the DA signup sheet, or on the gold galleons to announce each
> meeting) from books, why not occlumency so that she could help
Harry??
Aditya:
  The reason seems to be that each one of them has a special ability 
of his own. Harry is good at DADA. And Hermione is good at charms. 
Even if she could she wouldn't be able to learn occlumency in short 
time when Harry himself found it difficult. {Curiously enough, she 
seems to be focusing on jinxes in OOTP, which shows that she wants to 
fight it out. Jinxes are the most offensive work in charms. SHows 
that she is schooling herself in facing dangers.) And she got Harry 
to teach her DADA anyway which again means Harry is way ahead of 
Hermione in DADA. So Hermione can't teach him even if she had wanted 
it.
  And speaking of occlumency. It's not this incantation kind of 
thing. It seems to be a purely mental ability to focus or focus out 
something. As Snape said it is similar to learning to ward off 
Imperius curse. There also, Harry didn't have to do much except  some 
mental kind of feat. So Harry could have learnt occlumency fastly 
enough if he had tried it a bit more sincerely and not get swayed in 
the grip of so many emotions as he was throughout the book.  Harry 
seems to have a difficulty learning these kind of mind related things 
when he becomes emotional. He had difficulties with learning Patronus 
charm too. I think he could learn thwarting Imperius curse so easily 
because he wasn't emotionally involved in that lesson.
 As for Snape's instructions, I am sure he couldn't have done 
anything more than what he did in the first lesson. The rest were 
just practice sessions. You can compare this with Lupin's lessons. 
After the first lesson, in which Lupin explains what Patronus charm 
is, he had nothing much to do but stand back and see Harry fight it 
out. Same as Snape.

Bye
Aditya