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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185857

Alla:
> > 
> > Heh, of course not. I was saying that his fall was embarrassing
for > Flitiwick, not for Harry IMO.
> 
> Montavilla47:
> I would think it would be embarrassing for Harry as well--at least a
little and here's why:  The next year, Lockhart makes a bigger fool of
himself and Harry finds that highly embarrassing.  He also finds Colin
Creevey embarrassing.  You could argue that both of those people are
only embarrassing themselves--but it's evident that Harry *hates* the
attention that both of them bring to him.  
> 
> He even gets embarrassed by Ginny's attentions--and again, Ginny is
really only embarrassing herself.

Carol responds:

I agree with you, though I suppose having a dwarf dressed up like
Cupid and singing, "his eyes are as green as a pickled toad," made
Ginny's adoration the most intolerable of all.

Unfortunately, we're not given Harry's reaction to Flitwick's excited
squeak and toppling off his chair. Suppose that Harry had liked it and
felt flattered and wanted more of the same (as I suspect James would
have in the same situation)? That, I think, would have been worse for
him by far than Snape's publicly exposing his ignorance (which is,
after all, no worse than most other first-years'). We see no harm to
Harry himself from that initial encounter, only to whatever mutually
productive and respectful relationship he might have had with
Snape--not that I think such a relationship was possible with a man he
thought had caused the pain in his scar (unless, possibly, he'd gotten
the questions right).

But I meant to post about Flitwick, not Snape. Imagine a real-life
teacher of a child celebrity at a public school figuratively falling
off his or her chair after seeing the child's name on the roll. Harry
was no more responsible for his own celebrity--had done no more to
earn it--than the Obama girls are for theirs. (I can see why Obama put
his girls in a private school with other children of politicians and
diplomats and not in a U.S. public school in which teachers might fawn
on them and other kids follow them around.) Snape's action, regardless
of its motivation, spares Harry some of the consequences of that type
of celebrity status by making it clear that he's no more of a prodigy
(or budding Dark Lord) than anyone else in the room. (Harry might have
reacted differently to Lockhart the next year if his celebrity balloon
hadn't been somewhat pricked by everyone's knowledge of his mediocrity
at everything except Quidditch. McGonagall, IMO, doesn't help matters
by making him the Gryffindor Seeker and, apparently, buying him a
broom as well, but I do give her credit for keeping quiet about him in
Transfiguration--although, of course, she doesn't yet know how well or
poorly he'll perform.) But, luckily, Harry displays his own mediocrity
in Flitwick's class, where he's quickly shown up by the previously
unknown Muggle-born, Hermione Granger.

Carol, who thinks that celebrity status in combination with doting
adults is a dangerous thing (good thing harry didn't have Slughorn and
the HBP's book in first year!)