Explaining the danger to Harry (LONG)

[heather the buzzard]

No: HPFGUIDX 130111

Magda Grantwich wrote:

>..."The important thing is that THE DARK LORD IS NOW AWARE THAT 
>YOU ARE GAINING ACCESS TO HIS THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS.  HE HAS ALSO
>DEDUCED THAT THE PROCESS IS LIKELY TO WORK IN REVERSE; THAT IS TO 
>SAY, HE HAS REALIZED THAT HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ACCESS YOUR THOUGHTS 
>AND FEELINGS IN RETURN -"
>
>"AND HE MIGHT TRY AND MAKE ME DO THINGS?" asked Harry....
>
>So there, that explains clearly to Harry what changed between his
>having the snake-Arthur vision and the decision to teach him
>occlumency.  I don't care how rude or obnoxious Snape was - this 
>is vital information and it's clear that Harry knows (at the time) 
>that it's important.
>
>What no one realizes - and what Dumbledore et al didn't apparently
>think to check - is how strong these "feelings" of Voldemort's are
>inside Harry.  I'm assuming that it's the churned up anger of
>Voldemort that leads Harry to take up residence in Stupidville for 
>a large part of the book.
>
>To summarize: Harry asked, he was told, he knew what had changed.
>
>And in the press of circumstances - he apparently forgot.


heather the buzzard:

Here's my take on it.  Harry was starting to get to the bottom of 
it, this is true.  He comes to the correct conclusion.  But when he gets there, Snape does not concretely confirm it, but brushes it aside.  This is point #1 -- Snape could have (and probably should have) said "yes, Harry, that is exactly what we're afraid of -- he could plant more dreams in your head that are not real, he could trick you into believing falsehoods."

I think when Harry was talking about "make me do things" he's thinking of a more direct Imperius sort of control.  He's not made the further step of considering a more devious route, of planting false information and then leaving Harry to 'do' things by himself.  Note that in the end, Voldemort did NOT actually 'make' Harry do anything.  Harry chose to do things based on what he had seen; noone had properly explained to him, though, that the things he sees might not be *true*.  So far as he could tell, he was still just seeing what Voldemort saw, and Voldemort hadn't yet done anything to try 
to control him. 

But I get ahead of myself.

At this point, I believe Harry did try to do the Occlumency as best as he could, at least at first.  It was difficult, and here is point #2: Snape was not actually that much help.  Rather than telling him what to do to protect his mind, he just said "Ok, I'm going to 
attack your mind, try to keep me out."  Okay, but HOW??  "Clear your mind of all emotions".  Okay, but HOW?  That's a horrendously difficult thing to do even when you're in a GOOD mood.  When you're insanely worried about a Dark Lord seeing into your mind, your best friends (adult ones anyway) are ignoring you, you're feeling put 
upon by the world (whether a just and defensible feeling or not, 
that doesn't change the fact that the feeling is there), it is just not so easy to just turn it all off!

Snape tells him to practice by clearing his head of emotion every night -- and leaves the instruction at that.  Once again, Okay, but HOW?  Perhaps Snape is so used to doing it easily himself that he 
has forgotten how difficult it is to start -- a common mistake made by pedagogues in any field.

When Harry does poorly on his first attempts, Snape doesn't say 
"hey, that wasn't bad for a beginner, now try doing it this way and it should be even better".  He basically says "you numbskull, that sucked, you're never going to be any good at this that way, you're not trying, you're going to fail."

Which surely helps Harry to control his emotions... [/sarcasm]

Snape's constant insulting manner and denigration of Harry's 
attempts only adds to Harry's emotional burden, making it MORE difficult to clear his mind.  Wonderful teaching methods, professor!  When his initial efforts meet with little to no success and insults rather than educational suggestions for improvement, it's little wonder that Harry starts to lose what motivation he had to start with.  He still knows it's important, but when he did try, he got nowhere, so why bother continuing to try?

Which brings us to point #3.  With things not going well with Snape, he starts to find himself feeling actually weaker.  He starts to wonder if the sessions themselves are the cause of this, which further weakens his faltering motivation.   From there it's a 
vicious circle... He's giving up.  It's sad, it's pitiable, you 
could argue that he should have been stronger and tried harder, but 
I would argue that he was just pushed too hard, too far, with not enough support underneath him and he fell.  It was too difficult for him to master under the kind of pressure and the 'teaching methods' Snape was using.

I really think Harry's failure at Occlumency is only in small part due to him 'not being explained to' properly.  Yes, I think there should have been more explanation, but yes he did have a decent idea to the reason.  But the teaching ITSELF was the greater cause.  What little motivation he had to start with was beaten out of him by Snape's constant belittling, by his own psychic fatigue, by his paranoia that it was only making things worse.  He should have been trying harder, yes, but I would submit that these are the reasons 
why he was giving up.

Add into this the 'curiosity factor' (point #4)... that he did want to see what was behind that door, EVEN THOUGH he knew he was 
supposed to be blocking and ignoring these dreams.  He was weak to 
do so, no argument from me there.  But it was still real, that intense curiosity, and whether he rationalized it to himself or it was legitimate, he felt that noone had properly explained to him why he shouldn't open the door -- wasn't he still just seeing what Voldemort saw?  Refer to point #1 -- 'making me do something' isn't the same thing as 'planting false images' in his mind.  He had the precedent that his visions were reliable on several occasions.

So long as all he was seeing were dreams and visions, he felt (with the brazenness of youth) that he was still in control.  He wasn't hearing voices, he wasn't being controlled to actually do things.  
He was only seeing things.  He was mistaken, but I don't blame him 100% for this.

heather the buzzard