Snape / Harry & Temptation / Healing

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 161418

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > I think this goes towards the Potter books as a "child 
> > healer" type of story.  Harry is there to heal the rift
> > in Hogwarts (and therefore the WW), and I'm wondering if
> > Snape has maybe done some foundation work for him. Snape
> > has cleaned out the poison of the Voldemort temptation 
> > so Harry can get on with the healing.
> > Does this make sense?

> >>bboyminn:
> Oddly, and I say 'oddly' because you and I are so rarely
> on the same page, to some extent I can see what you are
> saying. Perhaps in a sense, by seeing Snape, even knowing
> that Snape changed sides (bad->good), and by seeing the
> mistakes Snape has made, Harry out of shear determination
> to never be like Snape is equally determined to not make
> those same mistakes.
> <major snip>
> Again, I admit to way overstating myself, but have I at 
> least touched on some aspect of what you were trying to
> say????

Betsy Hp:
I think so...  (This is made difficult because I'm not really sure 
myself what I'm trying to say. <g>)  Though I was more thinking of 
this happening on a more... subtextual level.  Not that Harry looks 
at Snape and says "never will I be like him", but that Harry doesn't 
even have to face Snape's challenge because Snape has already gone 
through it, so the challenge no longer exists.

However...  I'm trying to fit this idea in with the rift in Hogwarts 
that began when Slytherin left (or was cast out).  Voldemort 
obviously took advantage of a weakness.  Slytherin, with its 
outsider status, was vulnerable.  (I'm thinking wounded gazelle 
meets hungry lions, here.)

So Slytherin came under Voldemort's sway.  And that has to change, 
obviously.  Slytherin needs to come back, move away from Voldemort.  
Snape, then, would represent that breaking away from Voldemort's 
influence.  Something Harry's never had to do because he was never 
tempted to come under that influence in the first place. (Huh...  
Suddenly the original Sorting carries a whole new meaning.)

And, it's not that Harry's had to really *fight* to stay away from 
Voldemort.  He's always seen Voldemort in his true ugliness.  I 
think everyone else (including Snape) were probably taken in by 
Voldemort's Tom-Mask of a charming and beautiful man.  Harry briefly 
met that mask in CoS.  But Tom very quickly revealed his true nature.

Yeah, I have no idea if this cleared anything up. But I'm glad to be 
on a similar page Steve. <g>

Betsy Hp