Harry's scar , vulnerability, and Occlumency (Long)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 121741


Note to Alla: I'm responding to your questions as well as to Finwitch
in this post. C.

Finwitch wrote:
><snip>
> You know, I think that, with both Snape (via eye-contact and a
spell) and Voldemort (via the scar) attacking Harry's mind, well...
It's like well, a door or a wall or fence between Harry&Tom. The scar
is a hole in it, and Snape's attacks were tearing it apart, seeking 
> Harry's secrets/bad moments/whatever... Occasionally, Snape's 
> Legilimency got Tom instead of Harry trough the hole (seeing the 
> corridor), and his awareness made Harry aware of Tom's thoughts... 
> (honest, *HARRY* didn't think of the corridor until Snape began 
> Occlumency, did he?) <snip>

Carol responds:
Thanks for your thoughts on the frontal lobe, which I snipped but hope
someone else will find interesting. I just want to mention here that
Harry has been dreaming of the corridor long before he begins
Occlumency lessons. After he sees the memory of Uncle Vernon hammering
the letter box shut and the Dementors and himslef running along the
windowless corridor with Mr. Weasley--a real event related to the
underage magic hearing--he has "moment of blinding realization":

"He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked
door *for months* without once realizing taht it was a real place.
Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he had been
dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with mr. Weasley on
the twelfth of August. . . . It was the corridor leading to the
Department of Mysteries, and Mr. Weasley had been there the night that
he had been attacked by Voldemort's snake."

Harry asks Snape, "What's in the Department of Mysteries?" and Snape
quietly asks, "What did you say?" Harry notes with satisfaction that
Snape is "unnerved." Harry repeats his question with a snide "sir"
which Snape ignores. Snape replies "slowly," indicating that he's
exercising great self-control, "And why would you ask such a thing?"
Harry responds, "Because that corridor that I've just seen--I've been
dreaming about it *for months*--I've just recognized it--It leads to
the Department of Mysteries. . . . and I think Voldemort wants
something from--" (Harry's scar "sears" at this point and Snape is
sidetracked on avoiding Voldemort's name. Snape calms himself,
"sound[ing] as if he was trying to appear cool and unconcerned," and
tells Harry, "There are many things, in the Department of Mysteries,
Potter, few of which you would understand and none of which concern
you." The second half of the statement is not true, of course, but
it's clear that Snape *does not want* Harry to have these dreams, of
which he has known nothing to this point. And it was not his
Legilimency spell that caused the corridor *dream* to be revealed. It
showed only the *real* memory of Harry running down the corridor with
Mr. Weasley.

Alla in an other post (which I can't go back to and copy without
losing this one--Yahoomort will eat it, you know) argued that the
Occlumency lessons were *causing* Harry to be more vulnerable to
Voldemort, but I think he was already vulnerable. The dreams predate
the Occlumency lessons by several months, Harry feels the urge to bite
Dumbledore almost immediately after the *real* incident with Mr.
Weasley just before Christmas time, which predates the Occlumency
lessons and may be the reason Dumbledore arranges them.

Granted, he feels a pain in his head soon after the Occlumency
lessons, but this results from something Voldemort is feeling and not
from the lesson itself, which has not *directly* revealed anything
related to Voldemort. It has only led Harry to figure out what his
dreams are about, putting two and two together as Snape would do. His
scar still hurts from that moment of realization and it's true that
he's white and shaky, but this could be as much from the *realization*
that he's been dreaming about something Voldemort wants as from the
lessons themselves. I don't remember a similar reaction after other
lessons, but I could be wrong. (Alla, Hermione's remark that "I expect
anyone would feel that way after they'd had their mind attacked over
and over again" is just a friend's sympathy--note "I expect." She
doesn't *know.* She hasn't looked up the effects of Occlumency in a
book. And even if it does result from the lesson, as I pointed out in
another post, we can't assume that Harry's reaction is normal, since
he's the first and only person with a mind-link to Voldemort. And
Snape didn't see his reaction, which occurs after Harry has gone with
Ron and Hermione to the library.)

He does not actually feel sick (as he did before the vision of the
snake) and feel excruciating pain in his scar (as he always does when
Voldemort is feeling strong emotions) until he goes upstairs, and the
cause of this pain is not the Occlumency lessons but Voldemort feeling
"jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant" (OoP am. ed. 541). Ron and Hermione
*assume* that Harry's defenses will be low "after Snape's been
fiddling around with your mind" (542), but in fact this reaction is no
different from previous scar attacks except that it's the first time
that Voldemort has been happy. And the cause of that happiness is
almost certainly the escape of the Death Eaters from Azkaban in the
next chapter.

Conclusion: Snape is *not* trying to open up Harry's mind to
Voldemort. He does *not* want him to know about the Prophecy orb in
the Department of Ministries, he did *not* cause the dreams of the
corridor, and he did *not* cause the sickness and pain Harry felt the
night after the lessons. Voldemort's joy has nothing to do with Harry
or Occlumency, which there is no reason to assume that he knows about.
It has to do with his own life and goals. And Harry's pains and
illness after that first Occlumency lesson are no different than
they've been throughout OoP. As far as I can determine from the
available evidence, Harry's increased vulnerability *throughout* OoP
relates to Voldemort's increased power after regaining his body, not
to any action or intention of Snape's.

Carol, apologizing for answering Alla's post from memory and combining
it with this one to make the List Elves happy