Real child abuse/ Snape again

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 145671

Alla:
> 
> Those kids are in boarding school, they don't see their parents for 
> many months, in fact Harry and Neville have NO parents to see and 
> teachers stay in loco parentis for all of them anyway.
> 
> I would argue that teachers have HUGE emotional power over those 
> kids and gross misuse of such power is in fact emotional abuse.
> 

Pippin:
Binns has HUGE emotional power? Trelawney? Sinistra? I don't think
so. *Hogwarts* has huge emotional power over Harry. But Hogwarts
overall was not an abusive situation for Harry or Neville, IMO,except when
Umbridge was in charge. It's a challenging environment, comparable
to a school for fine arts or the kind of intensive training Olympic
athletes get,  and Snape was one of the challenges. Emotional
manipulation is one of the techniques Dark Wizards use, and Harry
has to learn how to deal with it. Neville doesn't *have* to learn to
deal with it, but he's a Gryffindor. He wants to be strong enough to
prevail, IMO.

It's significant that even though Harry receives unconditional love 
and acceptance at the Burrow, it's still only his second favorite 
building. Like Bill, Harry wants to be  tested.

He has, as the Sorting Hat told him, a nice thirst to prove himself.
But though Harry realizes that he mustn't let his ambition run away with  
him, his need for approval is another story. He can resist the more obvious
attempts to manipulate him but subtler ones have so far been very 
effective.

Harry and Neville have been so starved of approval that they can
be manipulated by anyone who dangles it in front of them, whether
it's done by withholding it  as Snape does, or giving it as Fake!Moody 
does. Harry knows that Snape tries to manipulate him  but he hasn't 
realized yet that it's his own thirst for approval that makes it possible 
for Snape to do it. 

It's like the Twins and the TTT. The Twins took advantage of him, 
but Dudley's craving for sweets is *his* problem. Snape took advantage
of Harry, but Harry's and Neville's desperate need for approval makes 
them vulnerable to people who are far more dangerous to them than 
DDM!Snape  -- Fake!Moody, for example. 

Pippin