Apologies and responsibility

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 139300

Lady Indigo wrote:
> <huge snip> And I never said he needs to be especially grateful to
Snape, or even grateful at all. What has Snape done for him, exactly,
since saving his life during SS? <snip--for Lady Indigo's other
arguments, please go upthread.>
>
Carol responds:
How about sending the Order to the MoM in OoP? If Snape hadn't done
that, not only Harry but five other students would be dead. I think
Snape also informed Dumbledore that Harry had run off on a wild goose
chase after Sirius; otherwise Snape could not have told Sirius Black
to stay put because Dumbledore was coming. (No fault of his that Black
didn't listen.)

BTW, I think JKR didn't allow Harry the opportunity to apologize to
Snape after the Pensieve incident because she wants to maintain the
tension between them till the final book. At the end of HBP, Harry's
hatred and anger is ratcheted up to the highest possible level. Also,
many people keep approaching the book as if it were solely a heroic
quest, but it's also a bildungsroman and the protagonist is still in
the painful process of growing up. Part of that process for a
Christian writer like JKR is to forgive those who trespass against
us--in Harry's case, learning to forgive Snape. Clearly, he has a long
way to go even at the end of OoP, and the end of HBP makes acquiring
this crucial element of a hero's character almost impossible.

Snape also has trespasses to forgive, minor compared with his own
great sin in HBP but still trespasses, and it appears that he, too,
has not yet learned this lesson, adult (and genius) though he is.
Besides violating Snape's privacy, as you rightly point out, the
Pensieve incident reinforces Snape's opinion that Harry is
untrustworthy. He knows that Harry was involved in stealing supplies
from his office in SS/PS and suspected him again (wrongly but with
good cause)in GoF; the Pensieve incident "proves" to Snape that he was
right about Harry, as does the later incident involving the HBP's
Potions book. Snape calls Harry "a liar and a cheat," and harsh though
the words are, they're true. Harry *ought* to have produced the HBP's
book, but even after finding out what Sectumsempra is, he doesn't want
the book confiscated because he finds it so helpful. Snape knows that
Harry is keeping something that rightfully belongs to him and that he
has used it to earn marks he doesn't deserve, and it's for that
reason, not because he foolishly used a curse without knowing what it
did, that Snape places him in detention (at the same time pointing out
to Harry that the curse is Dark Magic, a point that Harry doesn't seem
to get). 

It's ironic that Snape, the Head of Slytherin House, with its supposed
disregard for rules, is always the rule enforcer. And even after Snape
has killed Dumbledore (a deed for which he may or may not feel great
remorse), he's still *right* in telling Harry not to use Unforgiveable
Curses and to control his emotions, especially anger and hatred. That
is the lesson that Harry must learn, not only to grow up, as the
bildungsroman requires, but to destroy Voldemort, as the heroic quest
requires. IMO, it will be through Snape that Harry finally learns this
lesson. But in terms of both plot and character development (Harry's),
it would be premature for him to overcome his hatred of Snape and
apologize for his intrusion into the Pensieve. Snape's anger makes it
impossible when Harry is in the right frame of mind; the moment passes
and will not return. Instead their mutual prejudices are reinforced
and Harry's hatred of Snape intensifies. 

Harry should also have been grateful to Snape for sending the Order to
the MoM to rescue him and his friends. Instead, he chooses to blame
Snape for Sirius's death--chooses, in fact, to hate him ("He would
never forgive Snape. Never!"). After HBP, of course, he has a much
better reason for hating Snape, which *seems* to justify all his
earlier suspicion and hatred and *seems* to indicate that Snape was
working for LV all along. In any case, in terms of both plot and
Harry's character development, he can't apologize to Snape after the
Pensieve scene or develop a better understanding of him (and vice
versa) through the Occlumency lessons. The tension must build or the
final confrontation between Harry and Snape will be anticlimactic.
Harry's own wrongdoing (sneaking, lying, stealing, cheating) now pales
beside Snape's (however painful and difficult Snape's choices on the
tower may have been), and it is no longer an apology but forgiveness
that matters. Though I don't usually agree with Alla about Snape, I do
think she's right that Dumbledore's words to Draco, "It is not your
mercy but mine that matters now," foreshadow Harry's mercy toward
Snape in Book 7. (Nevertheless, I foresee Snape as saving Harry before
the end, which will definitively demonstrate to Harry which side Snape
is on.)

On a sidenote to Eggplant, regardless of Snape's motives in putting
his own memories into the Pensieve, Harry could not have done so
because AFWK he lacks the skill of removing memories from his own
head, and for Snape to have removed them for him would require Snape's
seeing and accessing those memories in Harry's head, defeating the
purpose of removing them. (It would also, of course, have made the
lessons pointless. As others have indicated, Harry has to have
memories to defend from prying eyes in order for the lessons to work.) 

Carol, who always assumed that Dumbledore taught Snape Occlumency but
now wonders whether it was his Head of House, Slughorn

P.S. My apologies if this post appears more than once. Yahoomort seems
to be rejecting it.