Snape, Apologies, and Redemption

[Adriana]

No: HPFGUIDX 152477


> > Lupinlore: 
> > I think this is absolutely and totally irrelevent.  Nothing that 
> > was done to Snape, by omission or commission, in any way excuses 
> > his abuse of Harry and Neville or IN ANY WAY releases him from 
> > punishment for that reprehensible abuse.  Nor does it in any way 
> > lessen Dumbledore's fault in allowing the abuse to take place and 
> > continue.

Glykonix:

The strict, sarcastic teachers such as Snape absolutely hate 2 types 
of students, the weak, such as Neville, and the ones that answer back, 
rudely something Harry does all to often. From his first class we see 
Harry answering back to Snape. Now it's true that Snape had singled 
him out, and was humiliating him. But I'm not even sure that was 
Snape's plan. Harry could have known at least one answer, he was given 
3 chances after all. 

We of course know that Harry had no way of knowing anything, but I'm 
not to sure Snape was aware of the way in which the Durseleys had 
treated him if the Occlumency lessons are to go by.
After all we hear from Slughorn throughout the whole 6th book about 
how Lily was brilliant at potions, and we know that Snape used his own 
mothers potion book while in school, it wouldn't have been implausible 
for her Harry to have looked through his mothers books. So it's not to 
far fetched to assume that Snape might have actually expected Harry to 
know some of the answers and wasn't just trying to humiliate him from 
the first day. 

I'll bet the answers to those questions were somewhere in the first 
pages of the book, because they're clearly not things used by first 
years, but they're just the right thing to be included in an 
introduction to the study of potion making, because they make such 
great examples of why potions are so 'cool'.

I'm not saying it was alright, the way in which he gave harry 0's even 
though his potions were sometimes better then others, but I've seen 
this done in class by some of my teachers as well. Our chemistry 
teacher just a few days ago, didn't allow one of the girls to hand in 
her essay because she had entered class just a few moments after the 
teacher did. And the teacher was early.

As for his treatment of Neville, well I've seen the above mentioned 
chemistry teacher try to calm a girl who was crying because she had 
just received a 3 by shouting at her, not the best method I can assure 
you.

So taking all this in count, I can hardly see Snape as the abuser some 
try to make him look like. He's a strict teacher, who tells his 
students from the start that he will not be lenient on them. 

The simple fact that he takes only O's students proves that he does 
his job well, since there are enough students to form a class.

As for the favoritism, it's not nice, but I rather prefer his type of 
favoritism to Slughorn's.

You want to accuse somebody of abuse stick to Umbridge, she really got 
a kick out of what she was doing.

I'm not even going to start on Black and Lupin and all that because 
then I won't stop. Suffice is to say that on that night in the 
Shrieking Shack, Sirius Black had a lot of fun banging Snape's head 
against the ceiling of that corridor, while Snape took care and 
conjured stretchers for everybody to get them to the castle, Black 
included.
 
Glykonix