Snape and Harry WAS: Hermione and her parents redux

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188175

Alla:
> > > 
> > > One can of course argue that the very **thought** of supposedly teaching a lesson to the teenager stricken with grief over death of his mentor is abusive, sadistic and totally totally disgusting.
> > > 
> > > One can also argue that the thought of **punishing** this teenager when he is in such horrible pain is ten times more sadistic.
> > 
> > Potioncat:
> > In this case, does the phrase "teaching a lesson to" mean, instructing or punishing. Because that wording can go either way. I'm just not sure if you're saying that even teaching Harry would be abusive. I would agree if say, after DD had fallen off the tower Professor Snape said, "Get to class, you'll be late."
> > 
> > But Snape and Harry were in battle, Snape was defending himself while trying to keep his cover, and it was his only opportunity to prepare Harry to face LV.
> > 
> > Besides, I think Snape was also stricken with grief, and had the extra burdens of not being able to express it, and having caused the death.
> >
> 
>  Alla:
> Well, first of all let me be clear that I wrote the above post based on hypothetical premise that I agree that what Snape was doing is teaching Harry. I really do not accept said premise, but if I were agree with it for the sake of the argument, yes I do think that it was sadistic.
> 
> Let me elaborate on both parts. See, after DH revelations I tend to agree with you that Snape likely was in a great deal of pain after killing Dumbledore, since this is not something that he wanted to do. But I do not think that you (hypothetical you) can have it both ways here – either Snape WAS in a great deal of pain and he was in no mood to think of teaching Harry or he was not in any sort of pain and then if he decided to teach Harry something, I thought he really ought to teach Harry something that Harry really needed and without causing him additional pain.
> 
> Does that make sense? I tend to believe that Snape was in a pain and he was lashing out at Harry and wanted him to be in pain too, funnily I tend to be more forgiving in this situation, than if what Snape was doing was calculatingly taunting Harry and then cursing him.
> 
> And OMG especially if what Carol postulated that Snape was "punishing Harry's insolence and ingratitude", that to me is of course sadistic with capital S. I mean, seriously, if Snape is in a state of mind to be calculating enough to punish Harry for something, surely he would understand that there could be no insolence and ingratitude, because Harry would not know why he is supposed to feel gratitude. Gee, Snape, you killed Dumbledore, thank you so much, you murderer and then you so graciously stopped the curse of another DE because you wanted me to be a present for your Lord. Oh yeah, that is a reason to be grateful, NOT in my mind.
> 
> So, if you are interested to know how I would like Snape to behave, if he was somewhat rational and to show that he is not sadistic, I will tell you. :) I would like him to not engage, just block Harry's curses if it is necessary to do so for him to escape, but certainly do not talk to Harry back and most certainly not cursing him back.  And maybe then it will be a lesson for Harry how to do a job one does not want to do and not hurt innocents in progress of it, or something like that.
> 
> And of course we all know how much Harry "needed" Occlumency after all, that is not at all, he won based on his ability to love and sacrifice himself for others, not because he could close his mind, that to me also tells that Snape had no clue what Harry needed to be taught.
> 
> JMO,
> 
> Alla
>
Carol responds:
Actually, I agree one hundred percent with Potioncat's post. And when I said that Snape wanted to punish Harry's ingratitude and arrogance, I meant that Snape had finally had enough. After enduring Harry's taunts and deflecting his curses, including a Crucio, without hurting him, and after trying to get in a desperate last lesson about dueling DEs (use Occlumency and nonverbal spells!) and after saving him from a Crucio and getting the DEs out of Hogwarts-- he finally punished Harry with a minor spell that simultaneously disarms him and hurts a little (cf. Narcissa hitting Bellatrix with as Stinging Hex and Harry accidentally doing the same to Snape in the Occlumency lessons). Until that point, he has shown remarkable self-control, teaching Harry in the only way possible (through taunts) and reacting with sarcasm rather than open anger, at the same time *parrying* all his curses rather than fighting back as Harry wants him to do.


But when Harry, in his own pain and anger, implies that Snape not only killed Dumbledore but killed *James*, whom Snape hated but tried to protect once he realized that the Prophecy involved Lily, Snape reaches the breaking point.

How could Snape, who has been protecting Harry and who killed DD against his own will and is suffering the fires of hell in his own mind as even Harry can see (the narrator compares his pain to that of Fang in the burning hut) not think that Harry is arrogant and ungrateful (not to mention deluded) when he tries to Crucio him and use his own spells against him and calls him a coward? And when Harry pushes his buttons by implying that Snape killed James, whom Snape had tried, despite loathing him, to save, how do you think Snape feels? I think his pain, already unimaginable, reaches the point where it's beyond endurance.

At that point, Snape's reserve breaks. He's had enough, and besides, he has to get off the Hogwarts grounds, and he has to keep Harry thinking that he's LV's man. So he casts--not the Crucio that Harry aimed at him but some sort of stinging hex to disarm and temporarily distract Harry--and, yes, to give him a bit of temporary pain--so that Snape can get off the grounds and get back to the job we know he does only because DD orders him to, being Voldemort's right-hand man. 

At any rate, I certainly don't agree that the very thought of teaching Harry a lesson (in the sense of teaching him to defend himself against a skilled DE like himself) is cruel under the circumstances. Snape is suffering just as much if not more than Harry, but he knows that this is his last chance to teach the boy *anything.* He wants to make the point that if he were really a DE, he could easily have killed or tortured Harry on the spot. He could have beaten him with no effort at all because he can read Harry's mind, not to mention that the shouted spells tell even a DE who is not a Legilimens what Harry is about to do. Now, granted, Harry is never in a position to duel a DE (the final battle with Voldemort is different), but Snape can't know that. He's trying to say, "If you want to defeat a skilled DE, you have to use both Occlumency and nonverbal spells." (Think what a great duelist--and later, Auror--Harry would have been if he'd learned what Snape tried to teach him in OoP and HBP!) How trying to pass on that one last piece of what Snape considers to be crucial information can be considered cruel, I don't know. It has to be in the guise of a taunt; there's no alternative.

My main point, though, is that the impulse, at the very end of the battle, to punish Harry (if that's what he's doing) occurs when Snape is at the end of his rope, desperate and tortured and furious. He can't tell Harry the truth. He can only--like Harry himself, who is trying to punish Snape--take out his anger on the boy he hates. The difference is that Snape is still trying to protect Harry, that he has much more power than Harry but has refrained from using it, and that he uses only a minor spell when he could easily have killed or tortured him or used Sectumsempra. That he did none of those things ought to have been a clue to Harry that Snape was not the murdering traitor he seemed to be, just as the lessons he tried to teach ("No Unforgiveable Curses from you": "Close your mind and your mouth") should have been a clue that he was trying to help Harry fight as Dumbledore's man. (Snape himself never uses an Unforgiveable Curse other than the AK on the Tower that we know of and uses Sectumsempra only against a DE--though, unfortunately, he misses.)

I don't expect you to agree with me. I'm only trying to present my point of view more clearly.

Carol, who revised her paragraph-long sentences but suspects that she's still rambling a bit