FF: Snape, Harry, Dumbledore, and flaws in the books

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 106380

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dzeytoun" Valky:
> Harry is important also, 
> > but Snape is and has always been a least of his worries. 
Like a niggling itch that you can scratch occassionally but really 
it's just an annoyance. A nothing really. <<

Dzeytoun:
> That certainly does not seem to be the situation at the end of 
OOTP.  JKR went to a great deal of trouble to set up that "I hate 
Snape and  will never forgive him," scene.  I wouldn't say that 
means Snape will  be a nothing to Harry in the ensuing books.<

I thought it meant that JKR had put the shoe on the other foot. It 
is now Harry who has an unjust grudge against Snape, not for 
bullying him or the failure of Occlumency, but for supposedly 
goading Sirius to leave Grimmauld Place. 

Dzeytoun:
> How so?  If an older child is abusing a younger one, it is a very 
 poor parent indeed who does not punish the older child?  I have 
to  admit I am totally confused by your comment. <

Pippin:
Well, that's just it. Snape, though he behaves very childishly, is 
not a child, and would only resent being treated like one. He 
would not accept restrictions being placed on him that are not 
placed on the other teachers, who are free to upbraid their 
students and favor their own houses if they feel like it. 

If another adult is abusing your child, you haven't got the right to 
punish that adult yourself. You either take it to the authorities, or 
remove your child from the situation. In this situation, 
Dumbledore is the authority, but by  the standards of the WW 
what Snape is doing is not abusive.   IMO, Dumbledore has no 
right to use his authority against Snape simply because he 
personally finds Snape's methods distasteful. I think 
Dumbledore would consider it self-righteous in the extreme--as 
he says, he has no power to make other men see the truth. 
Meaning, as McGonagall would put it, that he does have that 
power, he's just too noble to use it.


Dumbledore could, as you suggest, remove Harry and Neville 
from Snape's classes, but that would also make Harry feel more 
like a failure and Neville more like a weakling. Besides, Snape 
isn't just being mean when he threatens Trevor or says he's 
going to test their antidotes--if Harry and Neville  become Aurors 
or Healers, lives are going to depend on their skills and they will 
have to be able to function under that kind of pressure. If not, it 
would be a very good thing if they never went near a cauldron 
again.

I think, too, that if Snape ever understood Harry well enough to 
offer him a sincere apology, Harry wouldn't need to hear it.

Pippin