deathtocapslock | GOF Chapter 2: The Scar

Harry wakes up with his scar hurting. We are let to understand that he experienced the events of the previous chapter as a dream. He quickly starts forgetting the details so as to keep him from noticing when relevant information pops up again. BTW from what POV did he experience the vision? Starting from the following year his visions will be from Voldemort's POV but this does not seem to be the case this instance. Consistency? What consistency?

The description of Harry's room shows he was already on his way to becoming the worst slob child hero in the history of literature. Didn't living in a closet teach him to appreciate having space?

Harry can't even see a cat in the darkness (sorry Harry, your Head of House doesn't spend her summer spying on you) so he concludes there can't be any wizard lurking outside. Despite knowing at least one way to be invisible and knowing that some wizards don't need a cloak to be invisible.

Bizarre accidents and injuries are unavoidable at Hogwarts, which is why it is such a safe place.

The Dursleys weren't of any help to Harry while awake. Except by magically protecting him from Voldemort, just the wizard he feared might be near. OK, they didn't have to be awake for the protection to work, but their being awake didn't hinder it either. (I know Harry didn't know of the protection yet, it's just that he makes judgments in ignorance.)

The story about Harry supposedly attending St Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys is now the official line the Dusrleys tell anyone. How does that fit with their desire to project the 'perfectly normal' image? (Note the foreshadowing of Barty entering Harry to the Tournament as a student from a different school.)

Voldemort is still "the most powerful Dark wizard for a century". Maybe the ones before him were Albus and Gellert, in the summer of 1899. Just under a century ago - the timing almost works. Gellert never came back to Britain and Albus thinks he abandoned Dark magic, under some definition thereof.

Harry thinks there was a fortnight to go until his return to school. Looks like ending his math education at 11 didn't do him good.

Harry's assessment of Hermione's probable response is realistic. However why does not knowing where Albus went for the summer preclude writing to him? Not knowing where Sirius was didn't stop Harry from writing to him. Ah, he's ashamed to look stupid for saying his scar hurt. What about including that it hurt while he was having a vision of Voldemort killing someone? Why would this look stupid to Dumbledore rather than, say, informative? But a Gryffindor can't afford to appear weak in any way, even if this means hiding potentially crucial information.

Arthur is described as a 'fully qualified wizard'. Aren't almost all adult wizards? How meaningful is this description? Again, Harry's fear of appearing weak to the Weasleys trumps any common sense.

Only Dumbledore believed the trio's story about Sirius. Maybe because he was the only one who heard it in detail from Sirius. Anyone else present (Severus, Fudge, Poppy) just heard kids insisting on something. Severus also heard Sirius and Remus admitting to being serial liars. And was repeatedly injured by Sirius (after already being injured by the kids) and thus was denied a chance to receive evidence of the truth.

So Harry writes to Sirius. The part about Dudley's diet looks like Harry already mentioned the diet in a previous letter, but on the previous page I got the impression this was the first time Harry writes to Sirius. Oh well.

Dudley is ridiculous for enjoying a game called "Mega-Mutilation Part Three". That's because Harry goes to a school where kids learn how to really mutilate each other.

Again, Harry avoids mentioning any part of his dream. Nor does he date his letter. How is Sirius going to know when 'this morning' refers to? Why be helpful to adults whose advice you are seeking?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

Adding into that the job of teaching potions it seems a pretty big load to just dump on someone at that age.

Unfortunately the only job that Dumbles could provide Snape was as a teacher at Hogwarts. Snape was brilliant at potions, not only knowing and understanding the properties of existing recipes, but in being able to develop new ones of his own.

But just because someone is a genius in a subject doesn't mean that they will be a good teacher of that subject...oftentimes the opposite is true.

You've got students who would have knowledge of his humiliations from James, of his supposed dark arts affiliation, and have first hand experience with him as a student.

It's like when you were in highschool, especially junior and senior years, and you got a student teacher who's only 3 to 4 years older than you; even if they didn't attend you highschool, it was still hard to really respect someone who's basically you own age trying to act all authoritarian.

His experience as a young professor might have been a very hard learning experience. I don't know if that is the case, but it feels like that a 22 year old isn't going to get as much respect as a professor as someone older. And kids would tend to be more disrespectful of someone they consider a peer instead of a superior.

See my comment above.

But I've been wondering if Snape really did have too hard of a time in his early teaching years?

We don't have much to go on, because we don't have many characters who attended Hogwarts between 1982 and 1991; the ones who come to mind are Bill and Charley Weasley, and Tonks...and none of them ever says anything bad about Snape as a teacher when they took his classes. Neither does Percy Weasley.

Now does that mean that Snape never said anything sarcastic/mean/snarky to them when he had them as students? Maybe, maybe not. What little interaction we see between Tonks and Snape, neither seems to hate the other's guts.

As for the elder Weasley siblings, I think Percy's personality was such that he showed respect to all professors, including Snape -- and showing Snape respect goes a long way with Snape -- and we know that Percy got good grades generally, so I suspect that there wasn't any meaningful friction between him and Snape.

IIRC, neither Bill nor Charley say anything about Snape in the books, at least not regarding what he was like as a teacher when they were students. But considering that Snape does not hesitate to throw "You're just like your father!" into Harry's face at the least provocation, one would think that if Bill and/or Charley Weasley had been particularly bothersome students that Snape would have let Ron and/or The Twins know that they were "...just like your older brothers!"

So I suspect that except for the occasional disrespectful student (there will always be such students, no matter who their teacher is), that Snape's tenure pre-Harry was rather uneventful.

...(more in next post)...

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

I think we can imagin that the Ministry or Hogwarts has some sort of program out there for Professors. Something to give learning about teaching. But as far as being canon, JKR never gave us that after graduating Hogwarts someone could go to the ministry and take Professor 101.

This past weekend I actually spent some time on the internet, trying to find out info on Rowling that isn't a regurgitation of her press releases (no joke, it's creepy how many websites have the exact same info, worded the exact same way about her, and how little really meaningful biographical info on her there really is available)...

Anyway, in addition to finding out that her father was still married to her mother when Rowling's mother died, and that Rowling's early "social life" (especially in Portugal) was quite active, it turns out Rowling took the job to teach English in Portugal right after she graduated college...IOW, she never took teaching courses, never got accredited to teach (the Portugal job didn't require it)...it was only when she came back to Scotland and found out she couldn't get a job teaching that she went back to school to take the required courses to get accredited.

So my guess is that Rowling deep down thinks that she was probably a great teacher in Portugal and didn't need any piece of paper giving her permission to do so, and therefore she's set up a world in her books were her teachers also don't "need no stinkin' papers!"

Th question, IF he was a good or bad teacher? Maybe the question should be was Severus Snape a good teacher for Hogwarts or for the general population?

Of all the things he may have thought he wanted to be/do as an adult, I just don't see Severus Snape putting "Be a teacher at Hogwarts" on the list. I don't think being a teacher ever crossed his mind while he was a student, and surely not for the few years after graduating before DD gave him the job. I think Snape was applying for the open position at the school solely under Voldie's orders, not because Snape had always dreamt of being a teacher.

I think that Snape would have been best in what we'd deem "Research and Development", basically on his own, studying and inventing new spells. He perhaps would have taken on an assistant/apprentice whom he would have taught, but that would have been the extent of his "teaching"...

From:

mary-j-59.livejournal.com

Yes, but I have to add to this that he seems to do a fine job teaching Defense. He is brilliant at Potions, true, but I really think Defense was his first love and that he really wanted that job - especially as it seems to have been taught badly over the years.

From:

borg-princess.livejournal.com

it was only when she came back to Scotland and found out she couldn't get a job teaching that she went back to school to take the required courses to get accredited.

So my guess is that Rowling deep down thinks that she was probably a great teacher in Portugal and didn't need any piece of paper giving her permission to do so, and therefore she's set up a world in her books were her teachers also don't "need no stinkin' papers!"

ILU! That bit of research is just hilariously revealing about something that's bothered me for a while! I can TOTALLY see JKR- Miss 'I based Snape on a teacher I don't like!'- thinking exactly what you described there and dismissing the need for any sort of qualifications for teaching in her world! Lol!

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

That bit of research is just hilariously revealing about something that's bothered me for a while! I can TOTALLY see JKR- Miss 'I based Snape on a teacher I don't like!'- thinking exactly what you described there and dismissing the need for any sort of qualifications for teaching in her world! Lol!

I think it's very interesting that there don't seem to be any of her students from her Portugal days who have come forward with fond reminiscences of having her as their teacher...

What I did read is apparently she had some rather dramatic (and pathetic) emotional scenes with her boyfriend-to-become-husband right at/outside the school which her friends/coworkers have talked about, so one can presume her students saw the melodramatics, too...

From:

oryx_leucoryx

Tonks is an Auror, which means she got an O on her Potions OWLs (because NEWT-level Potions is required for this career). Despite her character appearing not all-that serious. But then if she was a Hufflepuff then she may have had the emotional intelligence to be serious for Severus.

But considering that Snape does not hesitate to throw "You're just like your father!" into Harry's face at the least provocation

This is not true canonically. It took Severus 2.5 years to say it the first time, and the provocation was rather extreme. All but one of the times he said it were under rather extreme provocation.

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

This is not true canonically. It took Severus 2.5 years to say it the first time, and the provocation was rather extreme. All but one of the times he said it were under rather extreme provocation.

Totally ignores the point I was making...

But once again I bow to your vast store of knowledge, which you never fail to point out is vastly superior to my own.

Again I acknowledge how very stupid I am, I don't know why I even bother posting here.

From:

oryx_leucoryx

I apologize for offending you, this was not my intent. I was attempting to point out a canon detail in an objective manner.

Since Severus does not in fact compare Harry to his father at the least provocation we do not know how any Weasley other than Ron did in his class, because we have no basis to think he would have made a point to equate Ron with any of them. He does not compare Ron to the twins either - but then I think the twins were a weird case - they failed the Potions OWL but many of their products must require Potions knowledge.

From:

seductivedark.livejournal.com

The thing is, Dumbledore brings up Snape's "life-debt" to James in the very first book so the whole Snape/James thing permeates the series even without direct mention. Harry takes up the cause pretty much as soon as he hears it, and was behaving as if he had even before he hears about it from Dumbledore.

I got a slightly off feeling from the Dumbledore exposition at the end of SS/PS from the first time I read it. Why would the headmaster of a school allow a student's animosity toward a teacher go unchecked in any way, shape or form? By telling Harry that, he puts Snape in the wrong and Harry in the right, setting up problems for his staff and his student and his school. It was one of those moments where I was glad there were more books - I thought this and other issues would be taken care of since it wasn't at the immediate moment.

BTW, new grandbaby made her appearance a couple of days ago (see icon.) Number five in a series of six and counting, fourth granddaughter. Happily, fully and completely Muggle so, no worries about her ending up at a school like Hogwarts.

From:

oryx_leucoryx

Congratulations on the granddaughter!

Happily, fully and completely Muggle so, no worries about her ending up at a school like Hogwarts.

For a few years my daughter had me worried - so many things 'disappeared' in her room or stopped working around her. ;)

From:

seductivedark.livejournal.com

Thanks!

I haven't had a kid around whom things stopped working, thank goodness. It's bad enough we have problems with battery watches.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Aw, congrats! The little darling.

From:

seductivedark.livejournal.com

Thanks! She is a doll.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

And I agree RE Dumbledore allowing Harry to continue in his animosity and upsetting the student/teacher balance. It doesn't matter if Harry likes Snape, he owes him a basic level of respect as an authority figure, and Dumbledore as Snape's superior should not encourage students to disrupt that balance. (Nor is respect for that authority dependent upon the teacher being nice or 100% perfect; it should be respected except in cases of clear immoral directions or patent abuse of authority.)

Lupin IMO does a similar thing with encouraging the students to laugh at the the Snape boggart; he knew what Neville thought himself likely to face and could have handled the lesson privately just in case. Instead he not only goes ahead with it, he encourages his class to mock a representation of a fellow teacher, and in a school like Hogwarts that isn't going to stay privy to the class and Lupin for five minutes. No wonder Snape was so pissed off - regardless of any personal affront that might also have been involved, it was highly inappropriate, whatever Lupin's motive. (Though I've always read adult Lupin's relationship to adult Snape as rather passive-aggressive generally, here I can buy a genuine element of wanting to help Neville too; but it was still wrong.)

From:

cured4life.livejournal.com

Yep. It always bothered me that Dumbledore didn't set Harry straight with regard to respecting authority figures in his school. Apparently, he didn't want Harry and Snape to get along even on a surface level as student/teacher.

As for Lupin, more or less, it shows why he was friends with the marauders and that he never grew up either.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Yes, he certainly takes quite a while to mature at least. Take the thing with the wolfsbane in PoA. First, he repeatedly forgets it or puts it off until the last moment, so that Snape has to hunt him down with it. Then, when the man who was traumatized by seeing him in wolf-form requests that he drink it right away (something Lupin has no valid reason to deny and every apparent reason to want to do anyway) so that he can be assured that he has *taken* it and won't be an uncontrollable monster, he dances around and refuses, despite the man's clear anxiety. I've gone over that scene many times, in argument with people defending him there, and I can't find any reason for him to act as he does other than a passive-aggressive enjoyment of freaking Severus out over the 'Prank' - over a life-threatening traumatic incident - as well as over the current safety of the several hundred people living in the castle with him. I doubt he'd dance around like that if it were Dumbledore, Harry, Tonks, Molly, or just about any other 'good guy' who gave him the potion.

He only seems to grow up a bit regarding what Severus did for him with the potion after the fact, after he's lived with Fenrir's pack. By then of course it's rather too late.

Lupin has his good points too, certainly, and he's not quite the sadist that James was, but when it comes to Severus he's hardly at his best. (Nor is Severus always at his best around him, but that's not exactly something that hasn't been argued a million times by now.)

(I keep wanting to write a fanfic where Lupin pushes taking the potion back a little too late one day, so that when it accidentally gets knocked over by Crookshanks there is literally no time to brew more or even get him locked up safely...and he bites Snape. Partly I'm curious how Snape would react to becoming a werewolf, and partly I want Lupin to have to really face what he's playing with like this and see if I could get him to really grow up.)

Re: Snape the teacher Good or Bad

From:

oryx_leucoryx - Date: 2011-01-16 04:39 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Snape the teacher Good or Bad

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com - Date: 2011-01-16 04:45 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

Lupin IMO does a similar thing with encouraging the students to laugh at the the Snape boggart; he knew what Neville thought himself likely to face and could have handled the lesson privately just in case.

Yet the diehard fanatics of the series continue to give Lupin a pass on this (because Snape at least wasn't nice even if he wasn't "evil"), but continue to condemn Snape for teaching about werewolves that time he took over Lupin's class...

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Because being superficially 'polite' and nice to Harry is what really matters, isn't it?

/snark

While I can certainly see an element of wanting to get back at Lupin in moving up the date of teaching about werewolves (they were on the syllabus anyway, he simply rearranged the schedule), there is also a very practical element to it that fits in with the desire to keep the students safe. It happens in ch. 9, right after Lupin refuses to assure him that he is taking the potion (ch. 8), and Snape's response is to make sure the students know how to identify and deal with a werewolf.... Knowledge that is only effective RE a *transformed* werewolf; one in human form can't be told apart. It doesn't put Lupin at any actual greater risk of being discovered during the rest of the time, but Snape is assured that the students are forearmed should Lupin in fact turn out to be a danger to them.

So Lupin demeans a fellow professor's authority (for which Snape takes no direct revenge, unless I'm forgetting something), and chooses to toy with his condition regardless of the risk to the population of the castle, just for the fun of baiting Snape. Snape's method of revenge is to stick it in the eye to Lupin in a way that, although definitely pointed, does not actually increase the objective danger he faces of being uncovered, and gives the students practical information to defend themselves. If the two of them can't treat each other with real civility, I must say I prefer the toothless barb whose side-effect helps protect those at risk over the passive-aggressive game that ignores the risk to several hundred people.

Re: Snape the teacher Good or Bad

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com - Date: 2011-01-16 10:22 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

karentheunicorn.livejournal.com

He does not compare Ron to the twins either - but then I think the twins were a weird case - they failed the Potions OWL but many of their products must require Potions knowledge.

I think I remember Ron saying something to the effect of Snape taking points away from the twins, or maybe it was just that the twins loose enough points for Griffindor. I think I remember the twins calling Snape a git somewhere along the way in the series.

But I always wondered about the relationship between Snape and the twins because as you point out, a lot of the stuff they do involves potion making. I'd think they'd at least be curious in Snape's class. I forget how many classes they actually get OWLS on but I thought it was a very small number.

I almost wonder about Snape and the twins because like him they are extremely creative, like how we see the young Snape, or at least interperet him from the HBP potions book.

SO I've always sort of wondered what they were like in his class, to me they had to have some kind of interest and ability. We see them make so many things that you'd think they would like his class.

The first lesson in the first book is something to do with the kind of crap they seem to like. Wasn't Snape's first class with Harry something along the line of boiles or blisters or something like that. That seems like a classic potion the weasley twins would find cool.

The other side of it is that they might have been so advanced at least in there ability to already be super creative that being in a normal classroom setting was dull to them. Maybe the twins would have done better in a already advanced class to challenge their creative abilities.

From:

borg-princess.livejournal.com

What little interaction we see between Tonks and Snape, neither seems to hate the other's guts.

Except for that whole malicious 'your patronus is WEAK' comment. Although Tonks' shocked (and angry, but let's focus on the former) suggests this was an unexpected dynamic to their interaction, that they're usually civil and his verbal attack was unexpected. Then again, if Snape had a WEREWOLF patronus bounding toward him, I can see why he'd be wanting to snipe at her for unnerving him like that.

(now I'm picturing kids waylaying each other in the corridor with surprise patronus attacks- especially since in the movie, these things were able to trip people up, can't you just see the twins getting off on that?)

From:

cured4life.livejournal.com

I always took his comment to Tonks about the patronus to be about the subject. Not a personal attack on Tonks.

From:

oryx_leucoryx

Is it malicious? Tonks' Patronus was weak - it was barely recognizable (Harry thought it might be based on Sirius). It was part of the symptom of her magic being weak that year because of her depression. How can someone with such weak magic be entrusted with Harry's safety? But now that he is on the scene - "...Potter is quite - ah - safe in my hands."

From:

borg-princess.livejournal.com

Was it weak? I didn't get that from:

As Harry swung the cloak back over himself, she waved her wand; an immense silvery four-legged creature erupted from it and streaked off into the darkness.

Sounds quite vigorous...

I do get your point about her magic fading in strength 'coz of her emotional distress (ugh, sexist, much, JKR?) but it's not being adequately foreshadowed here if that's the intention.

As for malice- that wasn't my description!

"I think you were better off with the old one," said Snape, the malice in his voice unmistakable. "The new one looks weak."

What I find ridic is how Snape somehow 'took her message' even though it was meant for Hagrid. Yeah, very secure form of communication, isn't it? *eyeroll*

From:

karentheunicorn.livejournal.com

I always wondered about the Snape snarking on Tonks patronus.

Things that are similar. He himself has another persons patronus, or at least my assumption is he assumed Lily's patronus whenever it was he learned to do patronus.

His patronus is supposedly very clear and I'm guessing pretty easy to identify. Hell even Harry feels a connection with the darn thing.

Anyway, here we have Tonks, assuming the werewolf patronus because of love.

So was he sort of making the comparison to his own, and his own love and feeling of love. I'm guessing that at this point he's proud of his patronus, or at least it's proof to him of his devotion and love.

Could it also have something to do with the fact that he knew what Tonks patronus was before and thus he knew that her new one was being formed because of Remus - so maybe it was equally as much a slight against Remus as it was Tonks. I sort of get hints of his dislike of all things marauders in that comment he made to her.

Sometimes I almost have envisioned it as a kind of warning he was giving her, against falling into the same trap he suffers.

I've also considered that the character of Snape can say things that are cold, hurtful and seem to be downright mean but in a lot of ways he's speaking the truth as he sees it. So, he comes across as a bastard but he's also bluntly honest at the same time.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

The 'weak; thing can be taken a number of ways, I think. And the 'malice' is Harry's reading of the interaction, not an objective description, so it can be taken with a grain of salt.

'weak' could mean he's trying to insult Tonks' ability to cast;

he's insulting her choice of love-object (and Remus is weak in some ways, he's a moral coward and easily pressured into things);

an objective description of a patronus that is only partly corporeal and therefore difficult to make out accurately (werewolf? Padfoot? merely something four-legged is as clear as it is described);

a subjective assessment by Snape of Tonks' feelings for Remus, based on the patronus' lack of clarity;

etc. Or more than one of the above.

I agree that Snape tends to be bluntly honest about how he sees thing; he won't lie or dance around to spare someone's feelings if he thinks it better for them to simply know what he thinks. So it is possible to read the interaction (stripped of the Harry filter) as a misfired attempt to warn Tonks about her relationship with Remus, who we know Snape thinks little of. It can also be read other ways. It's an ambiguous interaction upon which Harry projects the worst interpretation, as he is inclined to do WRT Snape.