Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 143843

Leslie:
> > A child who is presented with an evil Snape at the end of Book VII 
> > gets the message that it's okay to judge a book by its cover, and I 
> > don't think that's the message Rowling wants to send.  

Nora:
> What if Snape's bitter and resentful actions aren't cover?  What if 
> they're the core, and not a mask?  This is definitely not where I 
> expected things to go post-GoF, but the more I think, it may be that 
> we were deeply signaled from the beginning that something just ain't 
> right with a man immediately gunning for an 11-year old orphan based 
> on past factors. 

Pippin:
It's laid out in canon that Snape wasn't gunning for Harry from the 
beginning. He doesn't even try to convince Bella of that. He claims that 
wanted Harry expelled, but there isn't  much evidence even for
that in the first book. 

 Snape dislikes Harry at first sight, based on
past factors, but is that so unusual? Even Sirius, trying to explain
why Snape and James didn't get along, falls back on "James and Snape
hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other,
it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't
you?"

Snape looks at Harry and doesn't see "eleven year old orphan",  he
sees "the One" who looks, and appears to be acting, in Snape's
prejudiced opinion,  just like the arrogant, rules-are-for-other-
people James.   Meanwhile Harry doesn't look at Snape and see the 
man who, "at great personal risk" defied the Dark Lord and is trying 
to expose his servants -- he sees the greasy-haired, hook-nosed 
Head of Slytherin, which he thinks of as 
the House of Voldemort and of Draco Malfoy. They judge each other
by their looks and their labels and they get it wrong. At least I 
hope so, because I don't think looks and labels are very smart.

Even in an essentiallist universe, they don't tell you what a person is.
And if the Hat is never wrong, is that not because everyone has something
of each House within them?

Pippin