Harry, Voldemort and Snape

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Hey, NPR's 'Day to Day' show did an article on a Filk convention.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4967052 (altho'
Mary Creasy is really prettier than in that photo, and one of the
nicest people I have ever met).

--- In  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3382,
"severelysigune" wrote a beautiful essay on
> 
> Harry, Voldemort and Snape, for your perusal.
> 
(snip) 

I agree with everyone else's comments and have some of my own

<< Snape says in Chapter Two of HBP that many Dark wizards were 
expecting Harry to become the new Dark Lord. Now why didn't he 
turn out to be just that? Dumbledore supplies the answer: Harry 
will never turn towards the Dark because of all he has suffered at 
a Dark wizard's hands. How can he sympathise with a man, a movement,
an ideology that is responsible for the death of his parents and thus
 the cause of all the misery of his early life? Since he was a baby,
Harry has lived the harm that Dark magic can do. He is not about to
embrace it. >>

As you mention, we've seen Harry attempt Crucio twice. He could 
have fallen into Dark magic by doing a few Dark spells and a few 
more without ever sympathizing with Voldemort, Death Eaters, or
purebloodism. I agree that Harry has a good heart and will not become
a Dark Lord, but I consider Dumbledore's explanation of why to be
nonsensical. Plenty of abused people become what the same as what
abused them -- e.g. revolutionaries who become dictators.

<< [Snape] is still human and appears to have no desire to dehumanise
himself. If you ask me, he is very much what Harry would have become
had he been sorted into Slytherin. >>

I still think of Snape's MAIN characteristic, even more than love of
Dark Arts or high intelligence, as having a world of hurt inside him.
 There's no particular evidence that Snape's pre-Hogwarts life was
worse than Harry's; Harry's life with the Dursleys was enough to
supply a person with a lifetime of hurt; why (besides being born with
a different personality, the 'resilient' type) doesn't Harry have a
world of hurt inside him? 

I say, because Hogwarts started treating him nice from its first
contact with him -- contrast Hagrid coming to give Harry his letter
and punish Harry's tormentors to Dumbledore coming to give Tom his
letter and threaten Tom with punishment. I'm supposed to be comparing
Harry to Snape, not Tom; Snape probably just got his letter the normal
way and bought his school supplies the normal way. The important part
is that Harry found a life-long friend on his Hogwarts Express, found
more friends in Gryffindor House, experienced success at Hogwarts and
eventually became popular at Hogwarts.

So I think the biggest difference between Harry and Snape is far more
that Harry was a 'natural' at Quidditch than that he was not Sorted
into Slytherin.