First Potions lesson

[ornadv]

No: HPFGUIDX 145901

>"hartsonthemove"
>Hermione has a family dynamic that ALLOWS her to read and
>possibly encourages her to read and be the best witch possible
>once she receives her owl announcing her acceptance to Hogwarts.
>Harry, on the other hand, does NOT have that same home
>environment. How on earth can you possibly think that after all
>the hullabaloo over the owls and letters that Vernon would ever
>allow him to crack a single book of that "dreadful" subject????

Orna:
I don't think so – not on earth. I just said that Snape, who 
probably hadn't any information of how Harry spent his first 11 
years, could assume that he was raised in a family glorifying his 
parents, and allowing him to read books. And he might assume Harry 
had a natural talent for potions - like his mother. 
Again, I do think Snape picked on Harry and don't approve of it – I 
was just trying to say, he is a nasty person in general, and he 
might have been curious about Harry's abilities. He had no way of 
knowing what the Dursleys were like. Average normal parents, would 
have enabled Harry to come much more prepared. So asking him (in a 
civil way) – wouldn't be totally unexpected. Slughorn does it, just 
the same – only with a more benign nature. But had Harry 
disappointed him (as Neville did, and as Harry would have done 
without the HBP ), he would be quite nasty – ignoring him in 
future.  
Another point – in Spinner's end we see Snape surrounded by a lot of 
books – and from HBP, we can imagine him to be quite a book-worm, 
doing experiments in magic. From his POV, it would be a basic 
standard from a boy, who has remarkable magic powers to know more 
about magic than Harry does. After all, Voldemort had quite a 
remarkable control over magic at this age, and Harry is supposed to 
equal him.

>Carol responds:
>I agree. We see in CoS that Snape isn't entirely sure that Harry
>didn't petrify Mrs. Norris, and he may have had Draco cast
>Serpensortia rather than some other curse to find out whether Harry,
>like Voldemort, had some sort of affinity with snakes.

Orna:
Agree. That's what I'm trying to say – Snape was and is trying to 
understand Harry's power – after all he heard the prophecy, and 
should be quite curious. The more he comes to know Harry the less 
powerful he looks – not a natural potion-brewer, like his mother, 
not a model-student - like Hermione, as Harry himself says in GoF – 
his best talent is to fly a broom – wonderful talent for fighting 
Voldemort. And of course - immediately reminding Snape of arrogant 
nasty James, from his POV.

Orna