The Key to Snape

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 113366

I was re-reading Dudley Demented yesterday, and I realized it 
contains the Snape fan's holy grail--a possible insight into what 
is going on in our potion master's greasy little head when he 
torments Harry.

Consider the similarities in their  situations. Harry is confined at 
Privet Drive, a place full of bad memories where everybody 
except Hedwig is afraid of him. He has a deadly enemy, and he 
has no idea what that enemy is doing.  

He's seething with rage at his own helplessness and ignorance 
while everybody else seems to be doing something useful and 
important. He's cut off from his friends, and Dumbledore is 
giving him the mushroom treatment*.  He's haunted  over the 
murder of his  old rival, the fellow who beat him out of  everything, 
including the girl he fancied, though he  knows intellectually that 
the death wasn't his fault. He neglects his appearance and his 
duty to  Hedwig, and spends his time prowling around at night. 


Then Dudley crosses his path. Harry doesn't really have much 
insight into what Dudley's life has been like recently. He knows 
that Dudders  has been suffering on that diet, but that's all over 
now.  Harry observes that Dudders , now a championship boxer, 
is very pleased with his new talent. Harry's not at all sure that 
Dudley's new talent is a good thing. Harry has  heard that Dudley 
has been doing some things he shouldn't do, and he, Harry, 
thinks it would be a very good thing, his duty as a concerned 
citizen, you understand, to put a stop to it. 

So Harry starts riding Dudley and is amazed at how good it feels, 
as if all his rage and frustration is being siphoned off. Of course 
most of the rage and frustration Harry is conscious of has to do 
with his anxiety over Voldemort, but psychologically,  the 
pleasure has to come from all those suppressed memories of 
how Dudley treated him. He does remember that Dudley was 
miserable to him, of course, but most of it is buried in his 
subconscious and he doesn't dwell on it, any more than he 
dwells on the times he and his friends managed to get even: the 
boa constrictor, the pig's tale or the ton-tongue toffee. Harry 
doesn' t have the insight into himself to realize this, he just 
knows it feels good to make Dudley feel bad.

Dudley is amazed, bewildered and very frightened; he's not sure 
what Harry means to do to him, and Harry finds he enjoys 
knowing that very much. Harry adds some unfair taunting to his 
justified complaints against Dudley, just because it feels so 
good. Anybody who didn't know better might think Harry was 
actually jealous of Dudley's success as a boxer.  

Harry has no intention of using any magic, much less dark 
magic, but he doesn't mind letting Dudley think that he would. 
Harry does think of how good it would feel to send Dudley 
crawling home as something with feelers, but to give Harry 
credit, he is trying with all his might not to act on those feelings, 
though it is more from fear of punishment than a sense that it 
would be morally wrong.

And then the dementors arrive. Harry goes instantly, without a 
second thought, into full heroic defense mode. Dudley doesn't 
get it.  As far as he's concerned this invisible menace and Harry 
must be on the same side, and he not only doesn't listen to 
Harry, he socks him one. Harry saves him any way.

If you substitute Snape for Harry, and Harry for Dudley, it sounds 
like it could fit, though of course Snape's old memories are of 
James, not Harry. But as it's all in the subconscious anyway, and 
Snape wouldn't *know* that's why it feels so good to taunt Harry, 
it wouldn't signify.

Thoughts?

Pippin
* the mushroom treatment, ie to keep someone in the dark and 
feed them bovine waste product