Snape as the perceived enemy (Was: Was the eavesdropper unimportant to Harry? )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147129

Finwitch:
<snip>
> Voldemort, OTOH, as evil as he is, feared by most is a different
matter 1) Most of Harry's life, he's *distant*. (Unlike Snape/Dursleys
who have been present all the time...)
><snip>
> And I don't wonder why Neville's so terrified of Snape. You know,
it's entirely different matter than imprisoned Bellatrix - there are
no school/courtecy rules involved in fighting Bellatrix/Voldemort,
which in Snape's case deprive these children from many defence strategies.

Carol responds:
I agree that it's easier for Harry to focus his hatred on Snape than
on Voldemort because Snape is near at hand, and for Neville to fear
Snape (transferring his fears onto him from his grandmother, his
previous "boggart," IMO) than to fear the DEs who attacked his parents
when he was too young to understand what was happening. They were
probably masked at the time and for most of his life they've been in
prison. His fear of them during his early years is an abstraction, the
stuff of nightmares, whereas Snape is real and frequently encountered,
with the power to sneer and criticize and give detentions and deduct
points. That does not make Snape the real enemy, only the perceived
enemy--a sarcastic and unfair teacher whom they later learn has been a
DE (and on whom Harry wants to plant the blame for Sirius Black's
death), as opposed to the murderer of Harry's parents (Voldemort) and
the torturers of Neville's (Bellatrix and company). 

And yet in OoP, after Neville has been reminded in several ways of
what Bellatrix and her male companions did to his parents (Couch!Moody
Crucioing the spider, the visit to his parents in the closed ward in
OoP) and after the Lestranges have escaped from Azkaban, Neville
suddenly shows marked improvement in spell-casting and determination
to learn the defensive spells that Harry is teaching the DA. 

It's as if he suddenly understands who the real enemy is, not Snape
but the DEs who Crucio'd his parents into insanity, an insight
reinforced by his encounter with Bellatrix in the MoM. She Crucios him
and mocks his family, gleefully pointing out that the Dark Lord has
killed or destroyed many of them--as Snape has *never* done in any of
the HP books. His treatment of Neville has stemmed solely from
Neville's abysmal performance in Potions, which begins with melting
Seamus's cauldron before Snape has spoken a word to Neville other than
calling the roll. (Crouch!Moody's prolonged Crucio of the spider in
front of Neville was incomparably more cruel than anything Snape has
ever done to Neville, especially given that Crouch!Moody was himself
one of the DEs who Crucio'd Neville's parents into insanity. Quite
possibly Neville later learns who the Fake!Moody really was, making
the suppressed trauma of his infancy more real to him--and much more
devastating than Snape's sarcasm.)

And if Snape were depriving the children of defensive strategies, how
is it that his very first lesson in *Potions* mentions bezoars, a
life-saving defense against the poisons Dark wizards frequently use
against their enemies? And why would he emphasize the extremely
important defensive strategy of nonverbal spells in DADA? 

Among the many reasons why Dumbledore finally gave the DADA position
to Snape, one of them is surely that Snape is highly qualified to
teach it. Note that there's not one shred of evidence that Snape is
teaching the Dark Arts as opposed to Defense against them (Draco
sneers at the uselessness of the class for budding DEs like himself).
And even Harry only disagrees with Snape on the best way of dealing
with a Dementor, ignoring the possibility that there may indeed be a
better way for students less able than himself to cast a Patronus in
the face of a creature sucking away their happiness.

It's quite possible that Snape has been teaching Harry to fight *him*
in preparation to fighting Voldemort. ("You are giving me weapons!" he
says in the Occlumency lessons, presenting himself in the role of
Voldemort, a tactic Harry doesn't seem to grasp.) Whether Snape is
doing the same for Neville, I can't say, but as unfair teacher he is
certainly not the real enemy to either boy (unless, of course, he's
ESE!, in which case he should have killed Harry at the first
opportunity, at least once he knew that Voldemort had returned).

Carol, thinking that the difference between Snape's treatment of
Neville and Bellatrix's treatment is at least as great as the
difference between a Boggart and a Dementor