Lupin's resentment : An inside to Snape's resentment

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 94219

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" 
<nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
> > Pippin Wrote: 
> > > As unprofessional as encouraging one of your students to 
 conjure a fellow teacher in drag? Don't tell me there wasn't any 
 other way to handle the situation. I'm sure if Neville's worst 
 fear had been Harry or McGonagall, Lupin would have thought of 
 something. 
> > 
> > Potioncat:  I can't think of anything else myself, but I agree 
with you.  This is too similar to the taunting from 5th year!  
> > 
> > Now, Snape had embarrassed Neville at he beginning of the 
class.   So  the drag image may have been Lupin's way of getting 
back.  <snip>
> 
> 
> Neri:
> I have been carefully maintaining neutral silence during this 
surge  of Snape posts  <snip> but this one had got to me. I just 
can't avoid  replying. Did you thought for a minute, how is it that 
Neville's  greatest fear is Snape? We are talking here about a 
boy whom both his  parents were tortured to insanity. A boy 
whom his own uncle was  throwing him out of third floor 
windows and piers. And what is he  most terrified of? His 
teacher.<<

Neville went to pieces in his very first potions class, before 
Snape had done anything to him. I think his great fear of Snape 
may have something to do with his mysterious past. That doesn't 
mean Snape is guilty. I keep thinking about children who have to 
be taught not to be afraid of firefighters in their turnout gear, so 
that they won't run away from their potential rescuers.  Snape 
bursting in, wand raised, to rescue baby Neville from the DE's 
who had tortured his parents would be a terrifying sight to a 
toddler. 

I am not going to defend Snape's teaching methods. I've had my 
share of Snapes and so have my children. If we didn't know that 
wizarding children don't come down with Muggle afflictions, I'd 
wonder if Neville had attention deficit disorder. I have seen a
brilliant, award-winning teacher whom I would love to study with 
turn into a complete monster trying to deal with undiagnosed 
ADD. This isn't the place to rehash MemoryCharm!Neville, but it 
wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Neville has the magical 
equivalent of a learning disorder. 

But we were talking about Lupin. You understand that it's wrong 
for Snape to humiliate Neville in front of the whole class. But you 
don't see anything wrong or discourteous about Lupin doing the 
same thing to Snape? 

If the point of the exercise was to help Neville deal with his fear
of Snape, or to discourage Snape's bullying, then it  didn't work. 

"Snape didn't seem to find it funny. His eyes flashed menacingly 
at the very mention of Professor Lupin's name, and he was 
bullying Neville worse than ever." --PoA ch. 8

Lupin is too shrewd a judge of humanity, and Snape, not to have 
anticipated such an outcome. IMO,  Neville was  heartlessly 
manipulated into a situation that only made things worse for him. 


Pippin