The Boggart incident (Was: Nice vs. Good, honesty, and Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153247

Potioncat wrote:
> In Snape's favor, I think he was warning Lupin to watch out for 
> Neville's Boggart. Just as Lupin expected Harry's to be LV, I think 
> Snape expected Neville's to be specific DEs, or to be something 
> connected with the Longbottoms' torture. 
> 
> In Lupin's favor, once Neville announced Professor Snape as his 
> greatest fear, Lupin had to come up with something funny. It could
have  been worse, but I've never seen anything offered that would be
better (once it had gotten this far.)

Carol (raising her hand): I 'gree with Potioncat. Of course, we may be
the only two people who hold this view, but I think it's at least
plausible.

First, I think everyone (except Pippin!) agrees that Snape did not
anticipate that Neville's Boggart would be himself. As Lanval noted,
it ought logically to be Death Eaters (not necessarily specific DEs
given Neville's age when his parents were Crucio'd into insanity). We
know from the spider Crucioing incident in GoF that he is indeed
troubled by his parents' terrible fate. He's unable to sleep after the
class with Crouch!Moody, as the narrator slips out of Harry's POV to
inform us (a hint, IMO, that his reaction is important). We see more
evidence of its impact in Neville in OoP when he attacks Draco for
making fun of people whose brains have been addled by magic and in the
"Christmas on the Closed Ward" scene. This incident has shaped Neville
more than anything else in his past (and Crouch!Moody's prolonged
Crucioing of the spider causes him much greater suffering than any
words of Snape's).

Snape, who thinks logically but is not good at empathizing with other
people, would, I am sure, expect Neville's Boggart to be one or more
DEs based on his knowledge of what happened to Neville's parents. I
think that he remained in the staff room, knowing that Lupin intended
to teach a lesson on Boggarts, specifically for this reason. That he
did so immediately following the Trevor incident is, I think,
irrelevant except that it shapes Harry's reaction (and, through him,
the reader's reaction). But post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy;
just because one incident preceeds another does not mean that the
first incident caused the second, any more than Snape's looking at
Harry in SS/PS causes Harry's scar to hurt (the real cause is, of
course, the eyes in the back of Quirrell's head).

As Pippin points out, we have hints that Lupin may be a Legilimens,
and (as she didn't mention) hints that one Legilimens can pass a
message to another. So it's possible that Snape sent a message to
Lupin indicating the shape he expected Neville's boggart to take as a
warning to take care ("Do you really want Longbottom to relive this
memory? And the other students may be terrified as well.") Snape could
not, of course, speak such a message out loud. Lupin could then
perform Legilimency on Neville to see whether Snape was correct. Since
the Boggart was not a DE but Snape, Lupin could safely go ahead with
the lesson (at the cost of embarrassment to Snape and a further
eroding of Snape's trust in Lupin). But note that he *did* apply the
precaution to Harry, preventing both him and the class from (as he
thought) seeing Voldemort.

But a message passed by Legilimency isn't necessary for this theory.
Snape would expect Lupin to know Neville's past and be able to deduce
logically what he was warning him against. Lupin, being perhaps less
logical but more psychologically astute may have suspected that
Neville had repressed the DE memory and replaced it with a more
endurable "worst" fear, which turns out to be Professor Snape. So,
again, Lupin could safely proceed with the lesson (at Snape's
expense), applying the note of caution to Harry rather than to Neville.

I think we have sufficient canon to make this theory one of several
possibilities rather than simply assuming the worst of either Snape or
Lupin or both.

Carol, who thinks that this lesson was Neville's first step in
overcoming an unrealistic fear of Mean!Snape and working toward
confronting his true personal demons, chief among them Bellatrix Lestrange