OotP: Chapter 29 - Career Advice

[seicat]

Harry is still worrying over what he saw in the Penseive while Hermione is worrying over Harry not having any more Occlumency Lessons. Harry really just wants to talk to Sirius and Ginny thinks she may be able to help him. In the meantime, 5th years are being scheduled for Career Advice Sessions with their Heads of House. While the trio are

Comments

[cadesama]

Aw, Crookshanks loves Harry. I just find how well Harry does with animals extremely endearing.

Hmm, Hermione doesn't join in Ron's rant about Marietta, but she certainly hasn't done anything to remove the jinx. I suppose she feels satisfied enough in her retribution that no ranting is necessary.

"Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it. . ." -- What an awful thing for Harry to consider. I think that alone more than punishes him for the violation of Snape's privacy. And, again, if anyone had ever taken it into their head to actually sit Harry down and tell him about his parents, he wouldn't come to such conclusions. Lupin said something similar about the kids getting distorted information from other sources about Order business that very much applies here.

"The lump in his throat was painful. He did not understand why an Easter egg should have made him feel like this." -- More somatization. More of Harry totally not understanding his own emotions.

So, Hermione knows that Harry's been depressed, but thinks that he shouldn't talk to Sirius -- Harry guardian and the confidante that actually makes Harry feel better. Either she's unfeelingly obsessed with security, or she doesn't quite get how important Sirius is to Harry. Really, I think it's some of both. And, yeah, Harry's way more patient with her attempts to persuade him than I would be.

"when left well alone, he was able to concoct an Invigoration Draught quite easily" -- And this is end of fifth year curriculum. There's not much more before they just review and have tests. I do think Harry's got a good shot at an O.

I do wonder if Harry's even want to be an Auror after this book. Why work for a corrupt government that has personally served him with such injustice? I doubt an Auror would have the power to reform from within.

"Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school, Harry!" -- What an awful thing to say. Dumbledore "sacrificed" nothing of worth. He has had virtually no power in the school all year long. And what he bought with the sacrifice was not Harry's schooling -- it was the schooling of every member of the DA, Hermione included. In fact, if the whole truth had come out, Hermione might have been stuck with a harsher punishment even than Harry, since she was instrumental in starting the DA, and she hexed Marietta.

[didi75]

Canny observations. I like the way you think.

[cadesama]

Thanks!

[cadesama]

I am thinking in terms of what Hermione does know. If Ron was depressed over some girl, and really wanted to talk to Bill, I don't think Hermione would discourage him from writing to a family member to help him recover. With Harry, she does. Why? Either because she thinks the security concerns are more important than Harry's mental health, or because she doesn't truly understand the importance of Sirius in Harry's life.

I have no doubt that had she known about the facts, she would have helped Harry either in contacting Sirius or by just listening to his problems.

I'd like to think that she would have helped him talk to Sirius, but I'm not sure I believe it. I don't think she could have helped him just by listening, but she may have been convinced of it. Harry needed reassurance that his dad wasn't so bad, and there's no way Hermione could have supplied that.

And the silent treatment he gives her is mainly due to him not wanting to face his emotions.

Well, and the fact that her version of helping him isn't helping him the slightest bit, and she's nagging him to death about not doing the one thing that he feels will help him.

[cadesama]

Wow, mental health=/=insanity. I meant depression. And if you don't think depression is serious . . . well, I heartily disagree. Leaving aside the fact that serious depression could lead to suicide, there's utter academic ruination to consider. If Hermione thinks depression due to a break up can't be serious, I think she's severely underestimating how badly Harry has felt all year. Depression is assessed on symptoms, not causes. So if a person looks depressed, feels depressed, and says they're depressed, they get diagnosed as depressed.

I don't quite see what the argument here is. I said that Hermione placed security concerns over Harry's mental health, and you apparently agree with her. You think talking to Sirius isn't worth an expulsion or Sirius's arrest. I think that the risk is worth it -- security is meaningless if you make yourself miserable to achieve it. So, I don't think the difference in consequences between Ron's owl to Bill being caught, and Harry's message to Sirius being caught, are too important. One person's mental health isn't worth less than someone else's just because it's harder to secure.

And didn't Hermione try to help Harry when she was told the facts, on the second breaking of Dolores's office?

We clearly see things differently. The second time, Hermione tried to talk him out of it, and failing that, she decided to help him. I think that this first experience, where she did nothing to help Harry and only tried to dissuade him, influenced her later decision to help -- to the point where I don't know if she would have just helped him get into Umbridge's office without it. You probably disagree.

[cadesama]

you seem to forget that she attributed his depression to Cho's fiascoed relationship, and didn't know about the James/Snape new intelligence.

Actually, I don't. I simply think that whatever she's attributing it to shouldn't matter, because depression has no regard for causes. I don't care if Harry's depressed because he's got a hangnail -- if speaking to Sirius is the cure, then he should speak to Sirius. It looks to me like you are arguing that Hermione doesn't get why it would a be a cure, and I can see that she wouldn't. Which, actually, was one of my points. I just don't think you can say the only reason she doesn't get it is because she doesn't know the details. Talking out problems, whether or not they are related to your family, with family helps. The fact that Hermione doesn't see this, or doesn't care, downplays how important she thinks Sirius is to Harry.

In the second opportunity that she gets to help Harry, she did try to disuade him but from rushing to London, not from contacting Sirius. And this time she did know all the facts, and she understood Harry's desperation, while he didn't understand her objections -he came to that knowledge too late, unfortunately.

I know. However, these events are not independent. Hermione knows all the facts that time and has the experience of knowing for sure that Harry will completely ignore her objections and soldier on with his plan -- thus, she decides to help him and to moderate out a few reckless details. If it were just one or the other, we might not get the same result. As well, since Sirius's physical safety is the concern, checking on him in this instance doesn't at all correlate to Harry wanting to talk to Sirius for emotional reasons, regardless of the fact that they use the same method of contact.

As for Harry's depression, I believe that Hermione is the only one whom really got a grasp of it

I think we both know where each of us stands on this issue. I don't think Hermione really understands Harry's depression, and even if she does, I don't think she really helps matters most of the time. I don't think any member of the trio understands each other, not really. And I don't think Hermione went to Grimmauld Place solely for Harry's sake. She went to be with her friends, and I think it would reflect poorly on her if she only cared about people who happened to be upset at the moment. I also think it was as much to assure herself that her friends were coping okay, and see that they were safe, as it was for their benefit.

Harry expelled or Sirius caught were insignificant compared to the need for talk, well... let's just take a look at what developed in the second time around, when the ones making the diversion were not the Twins.

I never said anything about insignificance. I said that if you buy security at the price of your own happiness, it isn't worth it -- I think that the entire plot of the book reflects that. I think talking to Sirius was the right thing to do in both cases -- the fact that it was dangerous and resulted in a lot of trouble the second time around doesn't make it any less the right thing to do. Obviously there are consequences for everything, and some of them may be worse than you'd expect, but that's no reason to give in or live in fear.