Not letting go of the past

[festuco]

No: HPFGUIDX 131046

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hettiebe"
<carol_sutcliffe at y...> wrote:
> When I was at school I suffered from an amount of bullying. I wasn't 
> exceptional and, depending on how you quantify it, I think at some 
> time everybody goes through this. 


Snip
> 
> So much for letting go of the past. What I really don't understand is 
> the immaturity of Snape, Sirius, and, to a certain extent, Lupin in 
> continuing their feuds from their schooldays. From my own personal 
> experience I would think that they would want to move on and, after 
> all, they are supposed to be on the same side now and the issues are 
> life and death. 

Gerry

This is an old post, but I still want to reply to it, because I think
you missed the point. From what I read in your post you do not have
much experience with bullying, lucky for you. Real bullying is not a
bit of names calling, it is not someting that everybody goes through.
Being bullied is continously being picked at whatever you do, wherever
you are, name calling which goes for the maximum of hurt. Using every
means to make you cry or angry and having fun if you do. There are
also the threaths, destroying of personal stuff and often real
physical violence. It often takes years and years and years and only
stops when the victim leaves school and it can actually destroy
people. I remember a television program about bullying where there
were victims as well as perpetrators. People who were recent victims
and adults who were victims in their youth. And the very scary thing
was that I could point them out, each and every one of them. They were
victims, there was something destroyed in them. It was awful to see. 

If Snape's memories can be seen as general depictions of his life, it
is clear that he was being bullied for all his Hogwart years. And that
he tried everything to get even. If the memories of his home life are
also representative of that situation, then there was nothing at all
to compensate for the time he had at school. No wonder he cannot let
go of the past. He would need professional help for that. 

As for the other two: seven years of very real hatred, and current
hatred make it not easy to let go.

Gerry