Snape's Worst Memory

[Mimi Barker]

No: HPFGUIDX 99407

This chapter works better for me if I add a mental parentheses after
the title, i.e. "Snape's Worst Memory (For Harry To See)".

I think that if Harry had seen Snape beeing humiliated by any other
students, it would have had little or no effect on him. He may have
snickered, he may have had a moment of sympathy, but it would not
have changed him much. It was the fact that the tormentors were his
father and godfather that makes this scene so powerful. He has
idolized and idealised his parents his whole life. The times he gets
really angry and loses his temper are when people insult his parents.
Think Aunt Marge and when Snape suspects he's been to Hogsmeade in
POA. Snape says that James strutted around, and Harry loses his
temper where he had been keeping it under control until that point.

Now, on viewing this memory, Harry finds out that Snape was right.
James did strut around. Not only that, but when I read that scene I
thought James and Sirius were behaving very much like Draco Malfoy
does. What a horrible thing for Harry to discover. Not only is James
(at 15) not the great guy everyone has told Harry he is (and
undoubtedly became as he matured), but he is as nasty as the person
Harry most dislikes among his own peers, and Harry himself has been
wrong in his adamant defense of his dad. Even Lily doesn't come off
so well, and James and Lily aren't the loving couple Harry imagines.

I think the thing that makes this the worst memory is not how awful
Snape was treated, but that Harry's idealization of his parents
(which is really all he has of them) is shattered.