Draco's anger (was Snape and Occlumency)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 121816


Alla wrote:

> And yes, I am pretty sure that Snape did a victory dance when Sirius 
> died, I still think that he should ahve let this one go. You know, 
> just IGNORE Harry for once, not comfort him or anything, I would not 
> expect him to go THAT far.

Carol responds:
Unfortunately, grief is no excuse for bad behavior, whether for Draco
or for Harry. And Harry admits, quite calmly, that he was considering
what hex to hit Draco with. Snape as a teacher can't let this go. He
has to follow standard procedure and deduct house points.

We then get the nice little scene in which McGonagall returns, Snape
welcomes her back with what seems like genuine good feeling, she add
house points (including, with some reluctance, fifty for Ravenclaw),
and then *herself* deducts the ten points for Harry's misbehavior even
though she, like Snape, is almost certainly aware of Harry's loss. And
Snape quietly accepts the 250 points she has added for Gryffindor. His
behavior on his occasion either exhibits remarkable self-control or a
genuine recognition that the Gryffindors (and Luna) deserve those
points. None of which takes away from the fact that Harry, having
broken the rules, deserves the standard punishment. Moreover, Snape
would have had to explain to Draco and the Slytherins why Harry wasn't
punished for an overt infraction of the rules.

As someone else said, this is the WW, and the rules don't change if
you've lost a godparent. (I once had a student who pleaded the loss of
her grandmother as a reason for plagiarizing a paper. I failed the
paper--but chose not to have her expelled, as I could have done.)

A teacher who bends the rules out of sympathy for a student,
especially uncharacteristically as would have been the case with
Snape, is likely to lose the respect of students who expect the rules
to be enforced. Snape would have his hands ful with unruly Slytherins
had he allowed Harry to go unpunished. And it wouldn't have increased
Harry's respect for him to do so, either.

Carol, who thinks that Snape is a product of his upbringing and that
we can't reasonably pass judgment on him for not being a modern Muggle
teacher brimming with concern for students' self-esteem