More About Snape and Occlumency (long)

[inkling108]

No: HPFGUIDX 121757


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> Not so. It does not take any incantation to resist Imperius. We 
> don't know what the orthodox techniques are, but Harry is 
> supposed to, because Moody assigned it as reading- ch 15 GoF. 
> He did this *after* Harry had already resisted the curse 
> successfully in class, so what do you want to bet Harry never did 
> the reading at all? 
> 
> And he didn't take the exams that year, so he wasn't tested on it 
> either. Thus,  JKR has made sure she alone knows whether 
> Harry's method of resisting Imperius is orthodox. But it does 
> seem that the orthodox method doesn't require an incantation, or 
> Hermione would have remarked on it. Comparing this to the 
> technique for conjuring a patronus is apples and oranges.

My point was a general one -- that branches of magic that employ the 
mind to change things or to resist attack usually use incantations.  
Resisting the Imperius curse is not really a branch of magic.  It's 
a subset of DADA, as is the Patronus Charm.

In those magical arts that don't use incantations, such as potions 
or herbology, method is all important.  It just seems strange that 
there would be a whole "branch of magic" (to use Snape's words) that 
uses neither.  Not impossible, but strange.

  
> 
> It's a bit of  a stretch to assign Snape's white and shaky 
> demeanor to his surprise that Harry used 'Protego' when Snape 
> had just had some traumatic childhood memories unearthed. 
> We've seen he doesn't take well to that.

Yes that's definitely part of what's causing his reaction, and I 
shouldn't have implied otherwise.  Only there's a tendency to assume 
here, as with the pensieve scene, that emotions are the whole story, 
whereas they may be only part of the story, and not even the most 
important part.

 
> I agree that Harry's "You're not telling me how!" is a legitimate 
> complaint, but I've had teachers who refuse to go over material 
> the student is supposed to know already and I highly doubt they 
> were servants of Voldemort.  If the  usual technique for resisting 
> Imperius involves clearing your mind, then Snape has to 
> assume that Harry knows how, in detail,since Harry has 
> successfully resisted Imperius.

But I don't know why Snape would assume that resisting the Imperius 
requires clearing the mind.  Here's a question:  has Snape himself 
ever experienced the Imperius curse?  Was he able to resist it?  As 
a death eater, did he ever perform it on someone (probably, it's one 
of their favorite curses).  When he says that occlumency requires 
similar skills, what exactly does he mean?

If he was present at the graveyard resurrection (under a mask 
obviously), he may have seen Harry resisting the Imperius curse.  
Maybe the reason he is being so vaugue is that what he really wants 
to say, but cannot, is "Do whatever it was you did then, it really 
worked."
> 
> We mustn't discount Draco's intrusion as a reason the lessons 
> weren't resumed. Once Draco had reported that Potter was 
> getting Remedial Potions, and Umbridge had had her spat with 
> McGonagall over Harry's future, ( only a week or two after the 
> lessons were discontinued) Umbridge would have found a way 
> to interfere.

Maybe, but she was a bit overextended what with swamps in the 
corridor and such!

Yes, Draco's intrusion does not seem staged.  This is the flaw in 
the theory that Snape set up the pensieve scene to rid himself of 
Harry.  What I think is that Snape was determined to find some 
pretext or other to stop lessons.  Harry, ironically, helped him out 
by looking in the pensieve.  He gave him an pretext (emotion) 
acceptable to the compassionate and understanding Dumbledore.

Inkling