[HPforGrownups] Re: First potions lesson

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 145860

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Irene Mikhlin 
> <irene_mikhlin at b...> wrote:

> Geoff:
> I'm afraid I don't read it in this way. This is no way to treat a
> class - or especially a single pupil - on their first encounter.

This is somewhat embarassing to talk about... but I've talked about 
my own school experiences and how I see them relating to Harry Potter 
in the past, and it hasn't killed me yet.

When I was 12, I endured a year of hell on earth at school. Numerous 
reasons - why it happened isn't that relevant on this occasion - but 
as a result of attempts to find out why I was going through so many 
problems I was psychologically tested - and was found to have an 
extremely high IQ. They also decided that the schooling I was 
receiving was incompatible with my needs, and so on the advice of the 
psychologists my parents managed to get me admitted to an exclusive 
private school from the start of the following year.  

My reactions to this school once I started there and got to know the 
place were rather similar to Harry's to Hogwarts. I felt like I'd 
come home in a sense. Found a place I belonged that I hadn't known 
existed before. That's one reason why Philosopher's Stone so appealed 
to me the first time I read it - because of the similarity in 
feelings. But it took me a little while to work this out - when I 
first started at this new school, I was clinically depressed (because 
of my previous years experiences), I was incredibly nervous - because 
this was a very new environment for me, and I was conscious that my 
background was not the normal one for such a school.  

And while I wasn't by any means as famous as Harry Potter, I was in a 
situation that I consider slightly similar. It was very rare for a 
boy to be admitted to this school at the level I was joining it 
(there was a normal entry point a year younger than me, and one a 
year older - but at this point it was extremely rare for someone to 
join the school - and my future classmates knew this. A small number 
of them had also met me at a camp a couple of weeks earlier where I 
had dominated a trivia night and a competition based on logical 
reasoning... and so a rumour had spread through the school that I was 
some sort of child prodigy, some sort of genius. There was enough 
truth in this that I was in a pretty awkward position.  

Now, my new teachers had naturally been briefed about me. And in my 
first lessons, two of these teachers basically did to me pretty much 
exactly what Snape did to Harry in his first lesson. As the academic 
standard at this school was much higher than that of my old school, I 
didn't have the mathematics knowledge needed to answer my Maths 
teachers questions - and the other teacher was teaching us Latin, 
which my new classmates were starting for the first time as well - I 
wasn't equipped to answer his questions either.  

I can't be sure exactly why those teachers did what they did. But I 
know that it broke down some barriers for me, and I suppose that may 
have been the reasons they did it. My classmates stopped being 
convinced I was some sort of freak and a lot of the awkwardness went 
away (unfortunately some things I did later rebuilt some of it - but 
that was self inflicted).  

Is Snape doing the same thing for Harry in that first lesson? I have 
to say I doubt it - while I often defend Snape's teaching methods in 
general, I think that in the non-general, specific case of Harry, he 
does unfairly target him, so I'd be rather surprised to discover he 
had been deliberately acting in Harry's best interests in that first 
class.  

Nonetheless, I do wonder if it may have had a positive effect for 
Harry overall (even if it is accidental). He is the 'Boy Who Lived'. 
Everybody in his new world knows who he is. The other kids must, it 
seems to me, have misconceptions about him based on the little they 
know. Snape shows them, in that lesson, that Harry isn't all that 
special. He isn't all that unusual. He's just a kid who is at 
Hogwarts for the same reason as the rest of them. To learn.  

And while Harry isn't arrogant about his past (partly because he 
knows so little about it), frankly, I was when I started my new 
school. I'd been told that I was smarter than just about anyone else 
I'd ever met. I hate to admit it (and in my defence I would point out 
that I'd been made to feel so worthless during the previous year that 
I don't think jumping the other way was all that surprising). That 
attitude would *not* have done me any favours in my new school. 
Taking me down a peg or two in those first classes was probably the 
kindest way of dealing with my incipient arrogance in the short term. 
OK - Harry didn't have that problem. He wasn't arrogant. But I don't 
think it's unreasonable for Snape to have suspected he might have 
been. Harry looks a lot like his father - when Snape saw him, he must 
have noticed the resemblance, it would seem to me. And from what we 
know of James, he was arrogant.  

Dumbledore knew the risks Harry could become arrogant - and took 
steps to try and limit the chances of that happening, but keeping him 
away from the Wizarding World - so I don't think it's unreasonable 
for Snape to have considered it a possibility as well. Yes, he's 
wrong... but if he'd been right... then maybe that first class could 
have been a much more positive experience for Harry, long term, than 
it actually is.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia