[ SECRET POST #1509 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1509 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 16 pages, 376 secrets from Secret Submission Post #216.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[meadowphoenix]

You're saying that she would associate all of that with Snape or even blame Snape for all of that, and therefore her contempt for her would be justified. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying she probably blamed magic. It seems to me that Petunia and Lily used to hang out together all the time and then they learned about Lily's magic, and suddenly Petunia's skulking in bushes alone. Snape seems to hate her because she has no magic. Snape initially seems to like Lily, because of magic. Dumbledore tells her that magic is inherent from birth, so if Lily is treated specially by her parents because she had magic, that means (to a kid anyway) that Petunia is not special. So she transferred her hate to a small boy much the way Snape transferred his. There isn't a justification for either.

I know what you meant when you said cared for. That's what I meant too.

I agree being a double agent was extremely high-risk. But he wasn't doing it for Harry's safety so it's not something you can take into account when your weighing his actions toward Harry. To be fair, neither of them tried, but we're not talking about Harry's inability to get it together, we're talking about Snape's. Yelling is not trying. Pounding relentlessly into someone's mind like a blunt object until they are on the ground and then making attacks on some kid's self-worth when said kid cannot stop said blunt object isn't even teaching. "Clear your mind" isn't really a method worthy of note.

How does Snape being incredibly mean to Harry on a part time basis make Petunia being mean on a full time basis worse? You're right in that Petunia let her emotions severely cloud her judgment. And so did Snape. And if you're going to make the argument that Snape had James staring him in the face on a daily basis, then you also have to agree that Snape had 10 years to get over it, while Petunia didn't. And here's really the extenuating circumstances that make them equal. We only see Petunia treat Harry this way, which is horrible in of itself. Snape treats other kids for whom he has none of the baggage he has with Harry, in a similar way. For Petunia, it is about her emotions. For Snape, it seems to be about him.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

Pounding relentlessly into someone's mind like a blunt object until they are on the ground and then making attacks on some kid's self-worth when said kid cannot stop said blunt object isn't even teaching. "Clear your mind" isn't really a method worthy of note.

I don't really know how one would go about teaching something like that. It's like teaching someone to jump. And you can't even show them because it happens in your head. You can only really tell them what it's supposed to be like. And to be fair, Harry wasn't taking it seriously. He'd go back to his room and seek out the connection between him and Voldemort. Yes, it helped save Mr. Weasley but that doesn't change the fact that he wasn't serious about his Occlumency. The fact that Snape took pleasure in it makes him a giant dick and a jerk-off but saying "Clear your mind" is the only instruction I would think to give too.

Petunia has 10 years in the face of her nephew, who she raised from infancy, while Snape had ten years on his own with his guilt and his grief and his craziness. I'm not surprised he turned out the way he did or treated Harry like he did. Snape was always an emotional wreck that didn't know how to act around people. The fact that he treats almost everyone the way he does, while contemptible, is not surprising. He's a lot like a Scrooge figure, (if you'll excuse the term) socially retarded and, by extension, cruel because I doubt he remembers how to be any other way. The Death Eaters aren't exactly an affectionate bunch lol.

[meadowphoenix]

I agree that Harry wasn't taking a single aspect of those lessons seriously. But that isn't being fair, since Harry not taking them seriously has nothing to do with Snape's actions, at first at least. But you can teach someone to jump. Bend your knees and then straighten them while pushing against the ground is pretty detailed and a valid method with actual steps to follow. Snape could have given Harry any meditation book and would've been more helpful. And what did Snape mean when he said "Clear your mind?" Did he mean "imagine your head as a white space with nothing in it" or "Think of increasingly fewer subjects until you can hold only one in your mind for an extended period" or "Focus on a spot and focus only on that spot for as long as you can"? These are all clearing the mind techniques, and all of them are more step oriented than "clear you mind." Besides, presumably Snape is intelligent enough to see if there are any books on the subject (which there probably were since there were even books on Horcruxes) and give them to Harry. The onus of extolling knowledge falls on Snape since he is the teacher and he is more experienced. He didn't teach, and he didn't try.

But my point was that Petunia did not have the distance Snape had, so any excuse that he had James looking him in the face isn't one that is more forgivable. Also, there is absolutely no evidence that by the time Snape was teaching Harry he didn't know how to act around people. Scrooge and Snape have a lot in common, especially that they choose to act that way despite having access to other paths. It still doesn't make Snape more understandable than Petunia.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that Petunia didn't have distance from Harry makes me judge her more harshly. Family is an important thing. I was raised to believe that no matter how much you may dislike your family, they're still your family and they're worth more to you than anyone else in the world. Even if my sister and I fell out tomorrow and I never spoke to her again, if I found out she'd died and that her child was alone in the world, I would take him in an instant and raise him like any child that I could have for myself. Because she's my sister and this is her infant child. Regardless of anything else, she's my sister and I would never ill-treat her child. So that's why I judge Petunia so harshly.

[meadowphoenix]

If that's you're worldview then I see why you would feel as you do. I myself could not understand how anyone would treat a child that way, family or no, so I judge them equally hard. Also, where I live, while it's still hard to remove a child from an unhappy home, it's harder still to remove a teacher who abuses his power over his students, mostly because of unions. I also feel like Harry felt he had slightly more power as he got older in his relationship with his relatives, but that it never equalized with Snape.