Neville and stuff (Was: In Defense of Snape)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 122504


Dungrollin wrote:
> > Why does 
> > someone with the courage to shout stupefy through a broken nose 
> > and point a wand that isn't going to work at a group of adult 
> > DEs (including one or more that tortured his parents mad) have a 
> > boggart in the shape of the potions master?  
> 
> Gerry replied:
> Actually I thought that quite easy to understand. Neville's parents
> were tortured to insanity when he was a child, too young to 
> understand insanity, too young to understand torture. And then, 
> what happens to him. From a (presumably) warm and loving 
> environment he comes to live with his grandmother, who constantly 
> belittles him and tells him he is not as good as his father was in 
> a rather acid way. Even worse, the whole family apparently joins 
> in this kind of treatment, with his uncle forgetting that he is 
> holding him upside down outside of the window because he is 
> offered something to eat. So Neville comes from an environment 
> where he is constantly verbally abused, and even physically by 
> accident (but then, it was in a good cause, wasn't it? )
> And then, when he is safely away  from this kind of "nurturing"
> environment there is somebody even worse than his grandmother!
> Somebody even more sarcastic, who has it in for him big time. 
> Somebody with even a lower opinion of him than his grandmother, 
> who though he is a disappointment, at least cares for him. Meet 
> professor Snape, the potions master. No wonder he fears this man 
> worse than anything else. 

Dungrollin:
Now that story sounds oddly familiar...  Substitute "tortured to 
insanity" with "murdered by Voldemort" and "grandmother" with "aunt 
and uncle"... So why doesn't Harry fear Snape more than anything 
else?