Was the eavesdropper unimportant to Harry? WAS: Re: Snape again

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146990

Carol earlier:
> <SNIP>
> > Later (in OoP), Harry finds out about the Prophecy and that
someone (the eavesdropper) revealed part of it to Voldemort. He has,
IIRC, almost no reaction to this information. He certainly doesn't
react with the anger he felt against Black earlier when he thought
that Black had betrayed his parents. The eavesdropper, as far as he's
concerned, is unimportant, just another detail related to the
Prophecy. But in HBP, he finds out that this seemingly unimportant
person was Snape, and immediately, the murderous rage is kindled again. 
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Right, I am not going to answer your main question about why Harry
hates Snape and at one time hated Sirius more than Peter, because I 
can just voice my agreement with Amiable Dorsai and Lupinlore, but I 
just wanted to comment on this. I absolutely disagree that 
eavesdropper is not important to Harry till he learns that it was 
Snape. Could you refer me to canon where Harry says that he LIKES 
what eavesdropper did? <snip>
> 

Carol responds:
Alla, I'm a bit surprised that you'd put words in my mouth. :-) I
never said that Harry "LIKES what the eavesdropper did." He'd be
insane to *like* it. I said "he has, IIRC, almost no reaction to the
information." Very different from liking it, right? As for canon that
he has almost no reaction (which is what I really said), how about this?

Dumbledore tells Harry that LV's information about the Prophecy was
incomplete because "the eavesdropper was detected only a short way
into the prophecy and thrown from the building."

Instead of saying, "What eavesdropper? What are you talking about?"
Harry only says, "So he only heard . . . ?" and DD finishes the
thought: "He heard only the first part . . . . Consequently, he could
not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring
powers to you" (OoP Am. ed. 843). The conversation then shifts back to
Voldemort and the eavesdropper is not brought up again. DD, of course,
doesn't want to call attention to him, but *Harry* clearly doesn't
regard him as important at this point. Certainly he doesn't blame him
for his parents' deaths. He focuses on the transfer of power(s) idea
instead. The eavesdropper is not brought up again. (Neither is the
betrayer, PP, who seems to have faded from the picture.)

In a nutshell, here's what I'm trying to say. In books 1 and 2, Harry
sees only one person as responsible for the death of his parents,
their true murderer, Voldemort. In PoA, the focus shifts to the
supposed betrayer, Sirius Black, whom Harry hates with a murderous
rage after he finds out that Black was his parents' friend. After he
finds that the real betrayer was Peter Pettigrew, also his parents'
friend, he does *not* hate PP in the same way. (He does feel that PP
deserves to have his soul sucked out, but he also prevents Lupin and
Black from killing him, whereas he was ready to kill Black himself
with his bare hands.) The personal element, the rage and the hatred, 
disappears at this point. So does the significance of the betrayer,
even though the resurrection of Voldemort is his doing. 

The blame for the Potters' deaths reverts to Voldemort (where it
chiefly belongs), as shown by the discussion in OoP partially quoted
above. When Harry finds out that a third person, the eavesdropper, had
a role in his parents' death, his anger and hatred don't shift to that
person. What's important to Harry at that point is Voldemort's
interpretation of the Prophecy, Voldemort's decision to "try and kill
me as a baby" rather than "wait[ing] to see whether Neville or I
looked more dangerous when we were older and tr[ying] to kill one of
us then" (843). *Harry doesn't see the eavesdropper as more important,
more worthy of hatred than the betrayer or Voldemort himself, until he
finds out that it's Snape.* 

So, just as he had shifted most if not all of the blame for his
parents' deaths from Voldemort to the supposed betrayer Sirius Black
in PoA (but did not do so for PP, who is guilty of the crimes Harry
thought Black had committed--and more, as of GoF), he now shifts most
if not all of the blame to Snape, with Voldemort almost forgotten and
Wormtail entirely so. Yes, of course, there's a personal element.
Harry *wants* to hate Snape, *wants* him to be guilty of every
possible crime. But he also violently hated Sirius Black when he
thought him guilty of betraying and therefore "killing" his parents.
Why hate Black and not Pettigrew for the exact same crimes when both
PP and SB were his father's friends? (I hold with the "vermin" theory
myself. Interesting that Snape holds the same view.)

So here's the thing. The betrayer, the friend of Harry's parents who
revealed their secret hiding place to Voldemort, is extremely
important when he's Sirius Black. He becomes next to nothing when he's
Wormtail. The eavesdropper, who could not have known who the unborn
children were or how LV would interpret the Prophecy, is unimportant
to Harry when his identity is unknown (surely because, unlike the
betrayer, he's not directly connected to the murder of the Potters,
nor is he responsible for LV's interpretation of the Prophecy), but
takes on extreme importance when he turns out to be Snape. If Valky(?)
is right and "Kill me like you killed him!" means "Kill me like you
killed James" (rather than Dumbledore), Harry is now placing the blame
for his parents' death squarely on Snape's shoulders. The eavesdropper
role has been distorted out of all proportion, from insignificance to
worse than the AKs that really killed his parents.

Obviously Harry hates Snape (not because he's a "child abuser" but
because he favors Slytherin, deducts points unfairly, and hates dear,
dead Sirius). But I'm trying to point out how Harry's emotions shape
his perception of the events at Godric's Hollow, how the blame for
what happened keeps shifting away from Voldemort, and how Harry's
hatred of Black in PoA parallels his hatred of Snape in HBP, with no
such feelings attached to Wormtail. I see a parallel here between
Black and Snape, and I'm trying to determine its significance. Can it
be because Voldemort is insufficiently human to be an object of real
hatred? Or do his parents' deaths become more real and painful to
Harry when they're linked to people who knew them at Hogwarts rather
than to the snake-faced monster for whom they had no human identity?
But if that's so, why not hate Wormtail, too?

Carol, who hopes that Harry will learn to see clearly (and stop
hating) in Book 7