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

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 147001

Carol:
> 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.

Jen: My guess is Harry had simply taken in too much information to 
pursue the eavsdropper at that point. His focus is on this earth-
shattering development(to Harry anyway, if not the readers) of the 
prophecy, Voldemort's choice and the aftermath.

A better case is made by the fact Harry never pursues this 
information with Dumbledore until he hears Trelawney mention it. 
Without being given specific canon, it does seem he forgot about it 
until the moment he hears Snape was the eavesdropper. Now this is 
conjecture, but I do think if Harry had learned the eavedropper was 
*anyone* he knew he would have felt shock. He jumps all over 
Mundungus earlier in the book for stealing from Sirius, presumably 
because Harry views it as an insult to Sirius' memory, so I think  
anyone who had even an indirect part in betraying his parents would 
have caused a reaction.

But since it's Snape, I have to agree with Dorsai that the rage 
Harry feels includes Dumbledore as well. Dumbledore has always 
protected Snape from the outside world almost as much as he protects 
Harry, and there seems to be a sibling rivalry aspect to their 
antipathy--who does Dumbledore care about the most? That seemed like 
the core of Harry's anger to me when he confronted Dumbledore, that 
the eavesdropper was the hated Snape but also the prodigal bother, 
undeserving of Dumbledore's trust and protection.

Carol:
> 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.)

Jen: I think the initial strong reaction against Sirius had more to 
do with him being an abstraction to Harry until the Shrieking Shack. 
He was simply a madman who was best man for James and then betrayed 
his parents. No personal connection to Harry except one photo. 
Actually meeting Sirus, hearing the story, meeting Peter--all those 
elements cast a different light both on Sirius and the 'betrayer'. 

I think Snape's greatest sin is that he hated James and he can never 
overcome that in Harry's eyes, just as Harry can never overcome 
being James' son. In the abstract Harry can hate the person who 
betrayed his parents but when actually facing his father's old 
friends and learning they cared about each other once, the feelings 
change. There's no room for Snape in either generation, he's the 
hated outsider to both the Marauders and the Trio. <not arguing here 
whether he brings that on himself>

Carol:
> 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? 

Jen: I see this as a pretty classic psychological mechanism. 
Voldemort is overwhelming in his power and domination and Harry 
doesn't see how it's possible to defeat him, even after Dumbledore 
attempts to show him where the cracks are. Snape *can* be defeated 
as Harry saw in POA and the Pensieve scene. He's weak, sometimes in 
the same places Harry is weak--letting emotions get the better of 
him, getting into messes he can't get out of on his own, being 
picked on. So I think both your statements above are accurate, it's 
a combination of both Voldemort not really being human (i.e. not 
weak yet) and Harry filtering people in or out based on whether they 
cared about his parents.

Finding out Lily cared about Snape in some shape or form would 
really rock Harry's world in that respect, probably force a re-
evaluation. That idea galls me though, she would be too good to be 
true: Champion of underdogs, turning James into a respectable 
husband and father, the sacrificial mother, and cheeky to boot? Bleh.

Jen