Snape and Harry and expulsion LONG

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188949

Alla wrote:
<snip>

I happen to think based on this quote that he managed to humiliate Harry pretty darn well personally. Oh and I am looking at this chapter and cannot find the words where **Harry** wants to make an entrance looking as he is, I only see Snape telling him that he wants to do that.
> 
> I am going to start quoting after Snape takes points off.
> 
> "The fury and hatred bubbling inside Harry seemed to blaze white-hot, but he would rather been  immobilized all the way back to London than tell Snape why he was late.
> `I suppose you wanted to  make an entrance, did you?" Snape continued. "And with no flying car available you decided that bursting into the Great Hall halfway through the feast ought to create a dramatic effect."
> Still Harry remained silent, though he thought his chest might explode. He knew that Snape had come to fetch him for this, for the few minutes when he could needle and torment Harry without anyone else listening" – p.161, amer.edition paperback.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> "To needle and torment", "his chest might explode" – those descriptions are more than enough for me to think that Harry was hurt and humiliated a lot.

Carol responds:

But "needle and torment" is *Harry's* perception. Snape has recently helped to save Harry and his friends by sending the Order to the MoM--as Harry well knows--but Harry at this point is determined to hate Snape and to blame him for Sirius Black's death even though he knows on some level that he's seeking to scapegoat Snape. It's much less painful to blame someone he hates than to acknowledge his own gullibility or Black's recklessness.

Quite possibly, Snape is using Legilimency on Harry; certainly, he knows that he's been involved in some sort of fight given the bloody nose. But I think it's most unlikely that Snape came to fetch him in order to needle and torment him. He came because Hagrid was unavailable--he received Tonks's message for reasons that aren't entirely clear (I suppose her Patronus went to the nearest available Order member?)--and Harry needed an escort. As always, he was keeping an eye on Harry and making sure that he was safe, possibly finding out as much as he could about what delayed him. He may have thought that by "needling" Harry, he would get Harry to blurt out defensively what had happened. He may even have known or suspected that Draco, whom he was also watching over and protecting (the Unbreakable Vow) was involved. He would have wanted to know, with good reason, exactly what had happened to both boys.

At any rate, "Harry knew" is, as I've shown before, a poor guide to what's really happening, especially with regard to the motivation of other characters.

Carol, enjoying Alla's "Snipe" typo and wondering whether it's a Freudian slip