Losing Your Place

[harmony_bites]

Title: Losing Your Place
Challenge: Bookmark challenge
Team: The Order
Words: 100
Rating: PG
Characters: Hermione, Severus, Ron

We buried Snape yesterday-seven witnesses, but no real mourners, though it’s creepy how much Harry is now making of the git

Comments

[kribu]

I wondered about the bit about Demelza, as I didn't remember Ron hitting her on purpose. Most of the other quotes were quite accurate though, I think - and scary, when collected together like that.

I still don't think Ron would get physically abusive towards Hermione - if not for any other reason then because he'd know Hermione's skills with her wand - but there are plenty of other ways for him to keep hurting her in a long-term relationship.

I also agree about Snape - I do think he might have been somewhat less cruel towards other Gryffindor classes than towards Harry and his closest friends (or Neville, who he probably considered a real danger in the classroom and tried in his own way to get him to see sense, just that it wasn't quite the right way - but then, I don't think Snape ever got any training on how to be a teacher and how to handle children with problems; he certainly would not have had positive experiences from his own youth to draw upon).

I think Snape's detentions, for instance, say a lot of positive things about him (and not even just when compared to Umbridge!) - I can't really remember him assigning detentions without any reason at all, and when he did, they were never really too bad IMHO (although I can see why the kids would disagree).

[harmony_bites]

In terms of Snape there was an article defending him as a teacher on the net and why they actually thought he acted as an excellent teacher--unfortunately no longer available--but one point it made I remember was that Umbridge herself said that Snape's class was "advanced" for its level and that Snape expected his class to get "high passes" (ie Es) on their OWL. More than that, Snape expected to fill his Advanced Potions classes only with Oustandings--I think that alone is a tribute to his teaching.

Nor is Snape as unfair as Harry--or many readers claim or even SSHG shippers write him--I was struck on reread that despite Harry's resentment his points taken off by Snape in Philosopher's Stone were often for good reasons--they were low numbers too--sometimes consisting of just one point. Gryffindor lost lost lots of points due to McGonagall actually in that book--not Snape. And not once, in any book, despite Harry complaining about not getting points--does Snape give points to anyone--not even Slytherin, not even Draco. And no one ever complains about their final grades being unfair--Harry is so sure he passed because Dumbledore must have *made* Snape grade fairly--but we don't know that.

As for Ron as an abuser, physically--I admit I find it hard to believe--someone using that in a fic would have a hard time with me. Partly because I don't believe Hermione would put up with it. That's part of why if you write SSHG at all in a romantic sense, I'm not going to buy an abusive, predatory Snape, let alone an abusive Ron.

Otoh, some really smart, otherwise confident women sometimes get into abusive situations.

But despite it being a little scary how well King made Ron fit the profile, I still find it hard to see Ron as a potential batterer. I don't think it's that Ron wouldn't hit Hermione because she's a witch. Did that ever stop him with Draco? I don't know that I can say why--but I just can't see Ron that way. He'd hurt Hermione, I think--hurt her badly. He's done so before and I think he'd continue to. I could easily see him as unfaithful, for instance. But not physically abusive--and he'd never mean to hurt her.