First lesson WAS: Re: Marietta, was Slytherin's Reputation

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185685

Alla:
> 
> And after this interaction and his dream Harry comes to Potion class
thinking about how horrible the professor will be, how much he will 
suffer...  I do not think so. Quite the contrary, narrator says that
Snape just as McGonagall has a gift to keep class quiet (paraphrase).
Yes, I know Harry is not narrator, but narrator describes how Harry 
feels and it seems to me that Harry decided to disregard the pain he
felt (he thought) from Snape and just give him a chance. Not  till 
Snape starts bullying him and takes a point off for not helping 
Neville, Harry starts thinking bad thoughts about greasy git.

Carol responds:

The dream shows that, thanks to Hagrid, Percy, Draco, and others--not
to mention his delusion that Snape caused the pain in his scar--Harry
is predisposed to think that Snape is prejudiced against
non-Slytherins and particularly against Gryffindors. Snape's
questioning, which I admit is accompanied with sarcasm and Snape's own
assumptions about Harry, reinforces that negative impression, leading
Harry to think the worst and assume that Snape is trying to steal the
Sorceror's Stone.

As for the narrator's comment that Snape, like McGonagall, had the
gift of keeping the class quiet before he even spoke, that's not a
favorable observation but a simple (and neutral) statement of fact. We
see it again long after Harry has developed an active hatred for
Snape. That gift for walking into a room and holding the students'
attention is shown again as late as the DADA class, in which the
students' eyes follow Snape about the room as he speaks in a soft
voice they strain to hear. And we see it yet again, with adults, when
the DEs on the Tower, even the werewolf Fenrir Greyback, seem cowed by
his presence. So this statement is not evidence of the narrator's or
Harry's open-mindedness toward Snape. It's an inescapable facet of his
personality.

Carol, who thinks that Harry's relationship with Snape was marred by
mutual misunderstanding and preconceptions from Day One