Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 168073

Nikkalmati:

> OTH is it an indication of a close relationship in which 
> DD is gently pulling SS's leg or reassuring him that wearing 
> a hat with a vulture on it is no big deal and that DD is 
> fine with doing it.?

houyhnhnm:

If that's the case, let him put on the long green dress, 
the fox fur, and the big red handbag as well.

This scene bothered me the first time I read it.  It 
still does.  The interpretation depends on whether the 
cracker hat just happened to be a witch's hat with a vulture 
on top, or if it was a set-up by DD.  As an American I'm 
not even that familiar with Muggle crackers, let alone 
Wizard ones, so I don't know if witch's hats with vultures 
on top commonly fall out of them or not.

If Dumbledore set it up, it was hardly a *gentle* 
leg-pulling it seems to me.  He may have been taking 
too much for granted and making an old man's mistake 
in failing to realize how deeply Snape was humiliated.

DD is pretty much hands-off with regards to the feelings 
of his staff members.  He leaves Hagrid to get over the 
publicity from Rita's article on his own, for example.  
It would not have been out of character for Snape, however, 
to have complained to Dumbledore about Lupin's lesson.  
Dumbledore doesn't like people coming to him with complaints, 
if his reaction to Trelawney is anything to go by.

On the other hand, the vulture hat could have been just 
an unlucky coincidence.  In that case Dumbledore was 
taking the humiliation upon himself and the gesture was a 
compassionate one. 

Overall, at least until the end of GoF, the impression I 
get is that DD is kind of patronizing towards Snape, from 
inviting Snape to come and sample a custard tart when Snape 
is furious over Harry and Ron's joy ride in the Ford Anglia 
to sighing that he could have made the conncection (Voldemort 
growing stronger) himself.  All that changes dramatically, 
though, in HBP.  Dumbledore not only seems to rely more on 
Snape in HBP, he also seems to refer to him more without 
the undertone of exasperation.

"My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus," said 
Dumbledore quietly, in PoA. Some have taken this to mean 
that DD remembers some details of the Prank that Snape 
would prefer to forget.  But it also suggests to me the 
possibility that Dumbledore really does feel guilty for 
what happened to Snape twenty-some years before and that 
Snape is in the habit of throwing it up to him.  Their 
relationship has always struck me as having the feel of a 
dysfunctional parent-child relationship, one in which 
the parent really was guilty of neglect or mistreatment 
and knows it, but where the child, as an adult, cannot let it go.

One thing I've been wondering about lately:  From all we 
know of Albus Dumbledore, even if he was never attracted 
by Darkness, it seems he did have a very great drive to 
push the frontiers of magical knowledge.  Wouldn't he have 
seen the same thing in young Severus and been drawn to him 
from the time he first came to Hogwarts?