Harry's inability to perform occlumency

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160605

> > Nicole:
> > One huge one you didn't mention, was that Bellatrix taught him
> > something Harry failed to learn.  Draco learned Occlumency so
> > well, that even Snape couldn't read his mind.  A big difference
> > between them was that Draco had a caring teacher and he didn't
> > have dreams he wanted to see. <snip>
> 
> 
> Davida wrote:
> I believe it was who was teaching Harry that he couldn't learn
> Occlumency. If he had another teacher that was patient with Harry,
> he would have learned it.

Carol responds to both:

First, I'm not so sure that Draco learned Occlumency well. He was
rather slow about it, wasting time saying "I know what you're doing! I
can block you!" and the block itself was very conspicuous. If Draco
tried that on Voldemort, he'd be Cruciod. Snape, in contrast, is a
"superb Occlumens" who can conceal a thought or memory without
appearing to do so and consequently lie to Voldemort without being
detected. Still, Draco learns the basics of Occlumency, as Harry is
unable to do.

Second, it isn't merely the fact that Snape was teaching him that
prevented Harry from learning Occlumency. Snape was actually quite
patient (for snape) and explained what Occlumency is and what he
expected Harry to do, as well as telling him as much as DD allowed him
to say about why Harry was supposed to learn it. And when Harry
actually used Protego and revealed some of Snape's own memories, Snape
controlled his anger. It was only when Harry refused to block the
memory of the dream about the MoM (which he should not have been
having because it was Voldemort's dream) that Snape got angry (and, of
course, when Harry violated his privacy by entering the Pensieve, by
which time it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to learn
Occlumency anyway and that the lessons might be doing more harm than
good).

Setting aside JKR's comments in an interview about why Draco is more
adept at Occlumency than Harry (he can compartmentalize his thoughts
and feelings and Harry can't), Harry was too angry to learn Occlumency
from anybody. More important, he wanted to finish having that dream.
The last thing he wanted to do was close his mind to it. He never
practiced Occlumency and almost never did what Snape told him to do.
How, then, could he have learned it even if he'd had a different
teacher? I suspect that the method of teaching Occlumency would not
have been different. He'd still have had to fend off Legilimens
spells, and he'd still have been reluctant to practice because of the
dream. It's unfortunate that Snape couldn't tell him *why* he should
stop having that dream and *why* he should stay away from the MoM at
all costs.

Carol, noting that Snape still thinks that Harry should learn
Occlumency, as indicated by the "close your mind" advice at the end of
HBP, but fearing that Harry will never learn it and will suffer the
consequences