The (Mis)Education of Harry James Potter - Part I
I promise I’ll be continuing my “Indestructible” series soon. I’m working on another long piece, but I got slightly distracted in the middle of it. ;) Plus there’s my dissertation calling.
In that series I’m focusing on moral questions in relation to Severus, and I found myself drawn out on a tangent to that issue while rereading some fanfic and meta. To be precise, I found myself considering more deeply the issue of Severus as moral teacher, particularly in regard to his most significant charge, one Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived (to Vex Him).
I was going to write a little comment answering the occasionally-leveled charge, which I disagree with, that Severus fundamentally neglected Harry’s moral education in favor of his physical protection. But it got a little…long. (Indeed, LJ is telling me it's too long for one post. It'll have to be in two parts.)
[Quotes are from e-text versions of the books, so I can't provide page numbers, but they are American editions. If someone wants me to dig up a chapter for a particular quote, I can do that.]
It was reading terri’s “ (No) Difference” while writing up the next part of my series on Severus that got me going here, thinking more about Severus as moral teacher. Because, though Harry does get bits of advice or teaching here and there from other people, really the main figures guiding his moral development are, at first, the Dursleys and then, at Hogwarts, Albus - fount of moral platitudes and, er, wisdom of a kind who drops in to explain things to Harry and stroke his ego - and Severus - the teacher who acts as the most frequent and long-running check on Harry and exercises himself over the question of discipline most often with him.
Now, there’s no question that Harry’s moral understanding and arc in the books is, um, shall we say a little counter to what we typically expect for a coming-of-age story; he seems to regress rather more than he progresses. And for all his (admirable) willingness to sacrifice himself to end the war, the Harry Potter of DH has never really grasped some key fundamental moral principles in his dealings with other people, and he shows a regrettable tendency to backslide whenever he does show a glimmer of moral understanding that might make him re-evaluate his own actions or have to take responsibility for his choices and their consequences. (I have to say that Harry’s not the only contemporary protagonist I’ve noticed such a pattern in, but that’s going way out on a tangent.) Anything that might make him feel bad tends to get ignored or pushed onto other people.
Harry’s worldview, in general, in fact, seems to be based squarely on the notion that Harry’s feelings, his most immediate emotional reality and needs, take precedence over anything else and are the source of all that is good about him or matters. A worldview I think we can attribute in part to the way he was raised by the Dursleys, but even more to the influence of the man who took him as a special burden but most failed to teach him how to overcome that early lack and build a solid moral foundation for himself. A man who had early given himself over to his tendency not to care about other people except in the abstract, and never quite did recognize his failing there despite his outward turn away from everything that symbolized that failing to him.
Albus Dumbledore.
What, you thought I meant Severus? Quite the contrary.
I know it’s easy to criticize Severus’ tactics and approach to dealing the Boy Who Lived, among others, and Severus has moral issues of his own to grapple with, certainly. But he’s at least aware of that and active in attempting to correct them, and in his dealings with Harry we must keep in mind that he has always, since before the books opened, had to operate on the assumption that he will be returning to his spying. Regardless of his own desires or capacities on that front, he can’t afford to be open and direct with him, or act publicly as any sort of obvious moral authority of the sympathetic, explanatory, twinkling-mentor kind. Even if he could explain it away to Voldemort as mere play-acting and not sincerely meant, his mentoring the Boy Who Lived would open up a channel of potential influence that Voldemort would want to exploit. Playing bad cop to Albus’ good cop is about his best strategic bet there as far as minimizing difficulties with the Dark Lord down the line goes.
Plus, I suspect that his own experience with the results of too little firm guidance - both for others and himself - has produced in him a tendency, both emotional and rational, to lean rather hard in the other direction. And that is added to his northerner’s habit of focusing on things needing improvement, rather than praising for good performance, of course. I’m not sure the good cop role was ever really going to be a natural part of Severus’ repertoire.
In this whole context the apparent decision he and Albus reached that he should deliberately play the villain, both to Harry and in general with the students, and belatedly to the other staff (see “ Shattering Trust”), makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately that approach comes with certain costs. And I think Severus originally expected Albus to be a rather more reliable moral guide to Harry than he ended up being, leading him to discount for a time the real extent of some of those costs to Harry. His major focus initially would indeed to have been to physically safeguard the boy and simply rein him in where needed, trusting Albus to deal more directly with the positive-reinforcement aspects of his moral education and acting himself more as a check on misbehavior, including that physical recklessness we’ve all noted in ickle Harry.
This is, I think, where the perception that Severus ignored Harry’s moral development comes from. At first, before he realizes how little support in that department he’s going to get, he does focus his energy on preserving the boy’s physical safety and attempting to get him to comply with rules meant to protect him, as well as others. I think what the books actually show us on balance, however, is not that Severus overall is regrettably neglectful of Harry’s moral education in his sincere zeal to physically protect the boy, leaving it always to Dumbledore to guide him spiritually and never taking any of that work upon himself. It’s not that unfortunately Severus is a major gap in Harry’s course of moral teaching.
It’s that unfortunately Severus is Harry’s most reliable and dedicated moral teacher, while being least in the position to be so openly or effectively and having the fewest tools with which to guide him.
And that unfortunately Albus Dumbledore is quite effective in countering those lessons Severus does attempt to provide.
*
First let me briefly tackle the issue of other sources of moral guidance for Harry before moving on to the main event.
The Dursleys I think we can rule out as providing any serious reliable moral guidance to Harry in general. Whatever they may have thought they were instilling, their treatment of him versus Dudley effectively modeled for him a universe in which criticism of him and attempts at discipline are biased and only a sign of personal dislike, and therefore ignorable. Neither consistent rules applicable equally to everyone including Harry, nor any atmosphere of encouragement for careful moral reflection on anyone’s part, are effectively present for him in that house. (And I will note here that my reading of canon suggests that Severus honestly didn’t realize what Harry’s home life was like until those occlumency lessons in year five - his last known dealings with Petunia would not necessarily have suggested to him she’d become repulsed by or afraid of magic, given that letter.)
Meanwhile Harry has limited interaction with people outside the Dursleys while under their care. From what little we can tell his teachers at school are, apparently, influenced overmuch by the Dursley’s assessment of him, and he finds no source of firm but loving authority there. Mrs. Figg is too controlled by Dumbledore to go counter to the Dursleys’ pattern either - she tells us she was afraid to treat him too kindly on the occasions she babysat, and so for Harry her house was but an extension of the Dursleys moral world.
Then, Harry’s introduction to the wizarding world, the counter to the narrow confines of the Dursley universe, takes place under circumstances that set him up to fall to the opposite extreme rather than to understand the wizarding world as providing a more balanced and realistic moral framework.
As, I am far from the first to suspect, was intended all along by Albus Dumbledore, who stage-managed the whole thing.
After all, a morally-developed, self-reflective Boy Who Lived might eventually start to notice some of Albus’ little lapses, particularly in regard to himself, and to question him. And his benevolent omniscient leadership, and plans for the war.
Wouldn’t do to have that, you know.
And Albus really does hate to have anyone poking him on questions of his own moral conduct. Especially regarding children in his care.
Especially people who might get public attention beyond that stemming from his own patronage.
Like, say, the Boy Who Lived, vanquisher of the Dark Lord, hero of the wizarding world.
Better by far to set him up from the beginning to have a skewed, partial, and under-developed moral education centered on emphasizing the unquestionable wisdom and benevolence of one particular Headmaster of Hogwarts than any sort of reliable, stable and nuanced larger moral understanding, or any moral teacher more effective than Albus.
Thus Harry’s introduction to his new world comes in the form of a biased, thoughtless, impulsive, but guaranteed-to-be-friendly-to-Harry half-giant, who true to form terrifies and cows the hated Dursleys while praising the headmaster and passing on certain received views regarding Harry, Dumbledore, Hogwarts, and other key features of the wizarding world. Including the bizarre idea that one’s school dormitory is a reliable indicator of one’s moral rectitude, and that Harry himself is naturally bound to be good and worthy of the idealization of the wizarding world, the innocent hero who defeated the Dark Lord simply by virtue of being who he is:
“'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. […] somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
Add to this the early experience of the adulation of witches and wizards on the street, and then his Sorting, at which Harry firmly thinks “Not Slytherin!” and finds himself, of course, in the “best” House per our first-met Muggleborn and Hagrid. And those early encounters with Dumbledore, which brighter minds than mine have already thoroughly deconstructed. The picture I think should be fairly clear.
Note, however, that from the very first Albus takes care to explain Severus’ actions - even his best ones - as being rooted, neither in any larger moral principles that Harry might respect the man for, nor of course in any well-meaning concern for Harry himself that might make Harry more sympathetic to Severus, but (we know speciously) purely in a selfish and seemingly juvenile grudge against a dead man, and thus indicating no moral understanding or worth to Severus or his decrees and requiring no respect for him and his attempts at discipline from Harry.
This may have been, as others have theorized, a deliberate strategy that Severus was in on as part of his bad cop role. But I doubt that Severus quite foresaw the truly impressive lengths to which Albus would fail to give Harry any reliable moral guidance, or the associated costs down the line of his carefully-created distance from his young charge, any more than he likely knew at that point how negatively skewed and unfair Harry’s upbringing had been.
As far as other sources of moral guidance for Harry: in those early years especially Harry associated outside of Hogwarts - quite likely very much as Albus intended - virtually only with Albus’ own devoted supporters or with people holding little status in the wizarding world outside Albus’ sphere of influence and views.
The other major figure of authority at school with whom he dealt, meanwhile, Minerva McGonagall, was at the least something of Dumbledore’s supporter at the beginning, and became quite devotedly so. And she herself is hardly an exemplar of impartial, nuanced moral guidance. For all that Harry perceived her as “strict but fair” because she bothered to levy punishments against her own House and occasionally did a thorough dressing-down of offenders, she was quite hands-off as a Head of House, and was by any close reading of canon as biased as they come for all her perceived strictness. And the example that she set for Harry in particular from the first was far from that of a moral authority who paid solid heed to impersonal rules or exemplified the need to put fairness and obedience to socially-approved standards above one’s own personal, petty desires.
For - beyond her general approach of giving her quidditch team special breaks from homework and the like - by putting Harry on the Gryffindor quidditch team and buying him that broom during his early days at Hogwarts, Minerva made it unarguably clear that when push comes to shove, she will place fulfilling her own desires and burnishing her own House’s image, over something so trivial as a school sport no less, over any consideration of fairness to others, recognition of established rules, or the long-term good of a child in her care. I mean, does anyone want to seriously argue that giving Harry one more type of special treatment, thrusting him even further into the spotlight from day one and expecting him to perform to a high standard, and putting him in the position to earn the disapprobation of everyone else in the school who might not be thrilled with her breaking of that ban on first-years playing, was ultimately good for Harry himself?
I didn’t think so.
So I think we can rule out Minerva, however well-meaning, as providing any serious, solid moral education or role model to Harry in counterweight to the special-treatment, pay-no-attention-to-rules model that Albus offered him.
*
Which takes us at last back to Severus.
It’s a little difficult to say anything for certain regarding the overall level of his concern for students other than Harry, and in HBP Draco, since we see so little of Severus disciplining them for things not involving Harry.
We do know, however, that at least his Slytherins - the group he has the greatest control over and greatest general responsibility for - get an education from him that merely toeing the line of official school rules (at least in his presence) is not enough. They take care to hide even non-officially-punishable rudeness from him. (Going by terri’s analysis of the real rules of Hogwarts here.) And as a general rule they have for at least the past seven years or so, as of PS/SS, learned to behave to a standard high enough to earn significant reward from other teachers - Severus (our supposed major source of pro-Slytherin bias at the school), recall, we never once see dole out points, yet they had that House Cup streak for the better part of a decade. Even supposing Dumbles rigged that a bit in order to set up Harry’s first year, it had to be believable to both staff and students that they had won by themselves, so most of it had to have been a real effort. And there’s no reason to suppose that all those points were only for displays of technical mastery of skills, rather than anything with a moral dimension.
Plus, it would make a certain amount of sense for Severus to attempt to shield his snakelings from potential recruitment by Voldemort by (subtly, of course, given his position) trying to instill some sort of solid moral understanding in their heads while they’re still young, among other tactics. Though this point is mere extrapolation, not explicitly attested to in canon.
However, Harry is our main focus in the books, and so will be our main focus here. And with Harry I think we can see a pattern across the books in which, whether or not Severus starts out with as great a concern for his moral development as his physical safety, he does from the beginning have some concern for it in conjunction with the issue of Harry’s safety, and at some point definitively does develop that concern for the moral issue into a question in its own right. Personally I would peg this development as occurring somewhere between POA and HBP - possibly during OotP - with the caveat that his understanding that his choice of tactics for this, out of those available to him in his position, may need adjustment is a little slower to develop.
Though, Severus is also having to fight against subtle and effective hostile rearguard action here as well, in the form of Dumbledore’s constant undermining of his authority and assessment of Harry’s character and situation. And Dumbles does like to manipulate him as well as Harry. So I can’t quite blame him for struggling with the issue.
*
In the early books most of the incidents in which Severus scolds, disciplines, or attempts to discipline Harry involve not only wrongdoing on Harry's part, but also risk to himself, which, given Severus' mission to protect him, renders us unable to judge for certain how much of his concern was for Harry's physical safety and how much for his moral development.
There are however a couple of general tendencies we can note about Severus' approach regarding Harry, and in general, here, beyond the use of empty threats of expulsion to get his attention. One is a tendency to rely upon explicit rules governing everyone as the source of authority in his judgments. For all that he demands the outward signs of respect for his position ("I believe I told you to call me 'sir,'" and so on), when it comes down to matters of correction and discipline, Severus doesn't tend to resort to "because I said so" - or even the (likely far more efficacious) "because the headmaster said so" - reasoning in his dealings with Harry, or other students that Harry sees. Instead he refers to an external, impersonal, social ground: rules. Laws. What society, not a singular personal authority, has determined to be wrong and before the expression of which everyone is (in theory) equal.
His eternal complaint about Harry to others, and repeated warning to Harry himself, even from the early books? Arrogance; he thinks he's above the rules and can do as he pleases regardless of the cost to others, accompanied sometimes by complaints about his perceived lack of honesty.
In COS:
"So," he said softly, "the train isn't good enough for the famous Harry
Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. Wanted to arrive with a bang,
did we, boys?" […]"You were seen," he hissed, showing them the headline: FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES. […]"I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow," Snape went on.
"That tree did more damage to us than we -" Ron blurted out.
"Silence!" snapped Snape again. "Most unfortunately, you are not in my House and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I shall go and fetch the people who do have that happy power. You will wait here."
[…] Snape looked as though Christmas had been canceled. He cleared his
throat and said, "Professor Dumbledore, these boys have flouted the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, caused serious damage to an old and valuable tree - surely acts of this nature -"
Later, when he thinks Harry may be lying about the attacks on Mrs. Norris and co.:
"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful," he
said. "It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges
until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should
be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready to be
honest."
(On a slightly related note of interest: I hadn’t remembered until I reread COS just who taught Harry his ‘signature spell’, the one he ultimately defeats Voldemort with in place of any curse, that simple little disarming spell ‘Expelliarmus.’
It was Severus. As Harry himself notes to dear duplicitous Gilderoy in COS chapter twelve:
“"Expelliarmus!"
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.
"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one," said Harry furiously…”
You did apparently manage to teach the boy one thing at least, Sev. You should be proud.)
*
Moving on to POA:
Draco has reported seeing Harry in Hogsmeade illicitly, which we know to be true, but Harry is refusing to either explain this circumstance believably or confess (which would allow Severus to actually punish him):
"I've been up in Gryffindor Tower," said Harry. "Like you told -"
"Can anyone confirm that?"
Harry didn't say anything. Snape's thin mouth curled into a horrible smile. "So," he said, straightening up again. "Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences." [...]
"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter," Snape said suddenly, his eyes glinting. "He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers...The resemblance between you is uncanny. [...] Your father didn't set much store by rules either," Snape went on, pressing his advantage, his thin face full of malice. "Rules were for lesser mortals, not Quidditch Cup-winners. His head was so swollen -" [chapter 14]
He does note briefly the issue of Harry’s safety here, but his focus extends beyond that to Harry’s apparent attitude that he is above rules and does not need to worry about consequences to other people. And, lacking the opportunity to levy any actual punishment for what he knows Harry to have done, he turns for the first time here to a new tactic: cutting down a potential bad role model and comparing Harry unfavorably to a figure who ought to get Harry’s attention. In James we get the first of Severus’ intended cautionary examples.
That is, he here attempts to make Harry reconsider his attitude and actions by critiquing the behavior of someone Harry looks up to and has decided to model himself after. Trying to convince him that teenaged James is not a good role model, because of his arrogant treatment of others. Someone Harry should strive to be different from. Which sentiment I think we here can all agree Severus is shown to be rather more right than wrong about, yes? Even Harry grasps that, for about five minutes anyway, in OotP.
Of course, Harry hasn’t become any more inclined to listen to Severus in this book than previously, as their little exchange in DADA makes clear after Harry rushes in late with an excuse on his lips:
"Sorry I'm late, Professor Lupin. I -"
But it wasn't Professor Lupin who looked up at him from the teacher's desk; it was Snape.
"This lesson began ten minutes ago, Potter, so I think we'll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Sit down."
But Harry didn't move.
"Where's Professor Lupin?" he said.
"He says he is feeling too ill to teach today," said Snape with a twisted smile. "I believe I told you to sit down?"
But Harry stayed where he was.
"What's wrong with him?"
Snape's black eyes glittered.
"Nothing life-threatening," he said, looking as though he wished it were. "Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask you to sit down again, it will be fifty."
Harry walked slowly to his seat and sat down.
Later, after he tells the Minister that the children had been bewitched by Black in the Shack and weren't responsible for their actions afterward (saving them from any Ministry punishment, expulsion being something Severus cannot allow to happen), Severus expresses concern that the headmaster has "allowed [Potter] an extraordinary amount of license," leading him to think himself capable of taking on Black, and questions if it is "good for him to be given so much special treatment? Personally, I try and treat him like any other student." (Er, right Sev. But the general point stands: his expressed concern to everyone is that letting his fame garner him special allowance is bad for Harry himself in addition to disruptive to others and unfair.) He explicitly connects this to Harry's treatment of his friends and consequences beyond danger to Harry himself: "And any other student would be suspended - at the very least - for leading his friends into such danger."
(I mean, it’s not as if Severus has any experience with people putting people they call their friends in danger they’re unprepared to really face. What werewolf used as a prank? What Dark Lord? What prophecy? But I’m off on a tangent again. Interesting patterns do come out, though, don’t they, when you pull on the threads...)
*
At the beginning of next year Severus is given reason to suspect Harry of cheating in an international contest - an accusation, note, that even Ron found credible at first:
"We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore," said Karkaroff, his steely smile still in place, though his eyes were colder than ever. "Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools."
"It's no one's fault but Potter's, Karkaroff," said Snape softly. His black eyes were alight with malice. "Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here -"
Echoed later in his response to Umbridge in OotP:
"'I have just found Potter using my fire to communicate with a person or persons unknown!'
'Really?' said Snape, showing his first, faint sign of interest as he looked round at Harry. 'Well, it doesn't surprise me. Potter has never shown much inclination to follow school rules.'"
In GOF he still resorts to his usual method of dealing with misbehavior worthy of detention, by Harry and others, by forcing them to complete unpleasant but harmless rote potions tasks, like (here) pickling rat brains, or (with Neville) disemboweling horned toads. It seems to be a standard technique of his with students in general: lots of time spent in boring, ick-inducing work during which one has the leisure to ruminate upon the unpleasantness and why one is there, though such reflection is not quite a built-in requirement here - deterrence does seem to be the primary focus.
After catching Harry with the magazine with Rita's article, which he reads aloud to Harry’s embarrassment, Severus uses the opportunity to once again return to his theme of not thinking oneself above others just because one is the Boy Who Lived to Be a Celebrity:
"All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over-large head, Potter," said Snape quietly [...] You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you," Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (Harry continued to pound his scarab beetles, even though he had already reduced them to a very fine powder), "but I don't care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him."
He then accuses Harry of having previously broken into his office and stealing ingredients (half-correctly) and in response to Harry's denial hisses "Don't lie to me." This is when he flashes the bottle of Veritaserum, an act a few here have interpreted as being a covert warning to him meant to keep him on guard against anyone - say, Rita Skeeter - getting to him that way. Whatever the intent of that, however, the emphasis is on the question of Harry's honesty and on halting any further moves toward theft, not punishment for the past thefts.
Continued in Part II.
In that series I’m focusing on moral questions in relation to Severus, and I found myself drawn out on a tangent to that issue while rereading some fanfic and meta. To be precise, I found myself considering more deeply the issue of Severus as moral teacher, particularly in regard to his most significant charge, one Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived (to Vex Him).
I was going to write a little comment answering the occasionally-leveled charge, which I disagree with, that Severus fundamentally neglected Harry’s moral education in favor of his physical protection. But it got a little…long. (Indeed, LJ is telling me it's too long for one post. It'll have to be in two parts.)
[Quotes are from e-text versions of the books, so I can't provide page numbers, but they are American editions. If someone wants me to dig up a chapter for a particular quote, I can do that.]
It was reading terri’s “ (No) Difference” while writing up the next part of my series on Severus that got me going here, thinking more about Severus as moral teacher. Because, though Harry does get bits of advice or teaching here and there from other people, really the main figures guiding his moral development are, at first, the Dursleys and then, at Hogwarts, Albus - fount of moral platitudes and, er, wisdom of a kind who drops in to explain things to Harry and stroke his ego - and Severus - the teacher who acts as the most frequent and long-running check on Harry and exercises himself over the question of discipline most often with him.
Now, there’s no question that Harry’s moral understanding and arc in the books is, um, shall we say a little counter to what we typically expect for a coming-of-age story; he seems to regress rather more than he progresses. And for all his (admirable) willingness to sacrifice himself to end the war, the Harry Potter of DH has never really grasped some key fundamental moral principles in his dealings with other people, and he shows a regrettable tendency to backslide whenever he does show a glimmer of moral understanding that might make him re-evaluate his own actions or have to take responsibility for his choices and their consequences. (I have to say that Harry’s not the only contemporary protagonist I’ve noticed such a pattern in, but that’s going way out on a tangent.) Anything that might make him feel bad tends to get ignored or pushed onto other people.
Harry’s worldview, in general, in fact, seems to be based squarely on the notion that Harry’s feelings, his most immediate emotional reality and needs, take precedence over anything else and are the source of all that is good about him or matters. A worldview I think we can attribute in part to the way he was raised by the Dursleys, but even more to the influence of the man who took him as a special burden but most failed to teach him how to overcome that early lack and build a solid moral foundation for himself. A man who had early given himself over to his tendency not to care about other people except in the abstract, and never quite did recognize his failing there despite his outward turn away from everything that symbolized that failing to him.
Albus Dumbledore.
What, you thought I meant Severus? Quite the contrary.
I know it’s easy to criticize Severus’ tactics and approach to dealing the Boy Who Lived, among others, and Severus has moral issues of his own to grapple with, certainly. But he’s at least aware of that and active in attempting to correct them, and in his dealings with Harry we must keep in mind that he has always, since before the books opened, had to operate on the assumption that he will be returning to his spying. Regardless of his own desires or capacities on that front, he can’t afford to be open and direct with him, or act publicly as any sort of obvious moral authority of the sympathetic, explanatory, twinkling-mentor kind. Even if he could explain it away to Voldemort as mere play-acting and not sincerely meant, his mentoring the Boy Who Lived would open up a channel of potential influence that Voldemort would want to exploit. Playing bad cop to Albus’ good cop is about his best strategic bet there as far as minimizing difficulties with the Dark Lord down the line goes.
Plus, I suspect that his own experience with the results of too little firm guidance - both for others and himself - has produced in him a tendency, both emotional and rational, to lean rather hard in the other direction. And that is added to his northerner’s habit of focusing on things needing improvement, rather than praising for good performance, of course. I’m not sure the good cop role was ever really going to be a natural part of Severus’ repertoire.
In this whole context the apparent decision he and Albus reached that he should deliberately play the villain, both to Harry and in general with the students, and belatedly to the other staff (see “ Shattering Trust”), makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately that approach comes with certain costs. And I think Severus originally expected Albus to be a rather more reliable moral guide to Harry than he ended up being, leading him to discount for a time the real extent of some of those costs to Harry. His major focus initially would indeed to have been to physically safeguard the boy and simply rein him in where needed, trusting Albus to deal more directly with the positive-reinforcement aspects of his moral education and acting himself more as a check on misbehavior, including that physical recklessness we’ve all noted in ickle Harry.
This is, I think, where the perception that Severus ignored Harry’s moral development comes from. At first, before he realizes how little support in that department he’s going to get, he does focus his energy on preserving the boy’s physical safety and attempting to get him to comply with rules meant to protect him, as well as others. I think what the books actually show us on balance, however, is not that Severus overall is regrettably neglectful of Harry’s moral education in his sincere zeal to physically protect the boy, leaving it always to Dumbledore to guide him spiritually and never taking any of that work upon himself. It’s not that unfortunately Severus is a major gap in Harry’s course of moral teaching.
It’s that unfortunately Severus is Harry’s most reliable and dedicated moral teacher, while being least in the position to be so openly or effectively and having the fewest tools with which to guide him.
And that unfortunately Albus Dumbledore is quite effective in countering those lessons Severus does attempt to provide.
*
First let me briefly tackle the issue of other sources of moral guidance for Harry before moving on to the main event.
The Dursleys I think we can rule out as providing any serious reliable moral guidance to Harry in general. Whatever they may have thought they were instilling, their treatment of him versus Dudley effectively modeled for him a universe in which criticism of him and attempts at discipline are biased and only a sign of personal dislike, and therefore ignorable. Neither consistent rules applicable equally to everyone including Harry, nor any atmosphere of encouragement for careful moral reflection on anyone’s part, are effectively present for him in that house. (And I will note here that my reading of canon suggests that Severus honestly didn’t realize what Harry’s home life was like until those occlumency lessons in year five - his last known dealings with Petunia would not necessarily have suggested to him she’d become repulsed by or afraid of magic, given that letter.)
Meanwhile Harry has limited interaction with people outside the Dursleys while under their care. From what little we can tell his teachers at school are, apparently, influenced overmuch by the Dursley’s assessment of him, and he finds no source of firm but loving authority there. Mrs. Figg is too controlled by Dumbledore to go counter to the Dursleys’ pattern either - she tells us she was afraid to treat him too kindly on the occasions she babysat, and so for Harry her house was but an extension of the Dursleys moral world.
Then, Harry’s introduction to the wizarding world, the counter to the narrow confines of the Dursley universe, takes place under circumstances that set him up to fall to the opposite extreme rather than to understand the wizarding world as providing a more balanced and realistic moral framework.
As, I am far from the first to suspect, was intended all along by Albus Dumbledore, who stage-managed the whole thing.
After all, a morally-developed, self-reflective Boy Who Lived might eventually start to notice some of Albus’ little lapses, particularly in regard to himself, and to question him. And his benevolent omniscient leadership, and plans for the war.
Wouldn’t do to have that, you know.
And Albus really does hate to have anyone poking him on questions of his own moral conduct. Especially regarding children in his care.
Especially people who might get public attention beyond that stemming from his own patronage.
Like, say, the Boy Who Lived, vanquisher of the Dark Lord, hero of the wizarding world.
Better by far to set him up from the beginning to have a skewed, partial, and under-developed moral education centered on emphasizing the unquestionable wisdom and benevolence of one particular Headmaster of Hogwarts than any sort of reliable, stable and nuanced larger moral understanding, or any moral teacher more effective than Albus.
Thus Harry’s introduction to his new world comes in the form of a biased, thoughtless, impulsive, but guaranteed-to-be-friendly-to-Harry half-giant, who true to form terrifies and cows the hated Dursleys while praising the headmaster and passing on certain received views regarding Harry, Dumbledore, Hogwarts, and other key features of the wizarding world. Including the bizarre idea that one’s school dormitory is a reliable indicator of one’s moral rectitude, and that Harry himself is naturally bound to be good and worthy of the idealization of the wizarding world, the innocent hero who defeated the Dark Lord simply by virtue of being who he is:
“'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. […] somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
Add to this the early experience of the adulation of witches and wizards on the street, and then his Sorting, at which Harry firmly thinks “Not Slytherin!” and finds himself, of course, in the “best” House per our first-met Muggleborn and Hagrid. And those early encounters with Dumbledore, which brighter minds than mine have already thoroughly deconstructed. The picture I think should be fairly clear.
Note, however, that from the very first Albus takes care to explain Severus’ actions - even his best ones - as being rooted, neither in any larger moral principles that Harry might respect the man for, nor of course in any well-meaning concern for Harry himself that might make Harry more sympathetic to Severus, but (we know speciously) purely in a selfish and seemingly juvenile grudge against a dead man, and thus indicating no moral understanding or worth to Severus or his decrees and requiring no respect for him and his attempts at discipline from Harry.
This may have been, as others have theorized, a deliberate strategy that Severus was in on as part of his bad cop role. But I doubt that Severus quite foresaw the truly impressive lengths to which Albus would fail to give Harry any reliable moral guidance, or the associated costs down the line of his carefully-created distance from his young charge, any more than he likely knew at that point how negatively skewed and unfair Harry’s upbringing had been.
As far as other sources of moral guidance for Harry: in those early years especially Harry associated outside of Hogwarts - quite likely very much as Albus intended - virtually only with Albus’ own devoted supporters or with people holding little status in the wizarding world outside Albus’ sphere of influence and views.
The other major figure of authority at school with whom he dealt, meanwhile, Minerva McGonagall, was at the least something of Dumbledore’s supporter at the beginning, and became quite devotedly so. And she herself is hardly an exemplar of impartial, nuanced moral guidance. For all that Harry perceived her as “strict but fair” because she bothered to levy punishments against her own House and occasionally did a thorough dressing-down of offenders, she was quite hands-off as a Head of House, and was by any close reading of canon as biased as they come for all her perceived strictness. And the example that she set for Harry in particular from the first was far from that of a moral authority who paid solid heed to impersonal rules or exemplified the need to put fairness and obedience to socially-approved standards above one’s own personal, petty desires.
For - beyond her general approach of giving her quidditch team special breaks from homework and the like - by putting Harry on the Gryffindor quidditch team and buying him that broom during his early days at Hogwarts, Minerva made it unarguably clear that when push comes to shove, she will place fulfilling her own desires and burnishing her own House’s image, over something so trivial as a school sport no less, over any consideration of fairness to others, recognition of established rules, or the long-term good of a child in her care. I mean, does anyone want to seriously argue that giving Harry one more type of special treatment, thrusting him even further into the spotlight from day one and expecting him to perform to a high standard, and putting him in the position to earn the disapprobation of everyone else in the school who might not be thrilled with her breaking of that ban on first-years playing, was ultimately good for Harry himself?
I didn’t think so.
So I think we can rule out Minerva, however well-meaning, as providing any serious, solid moral education or role model to Harry in counterweight to the special-treatment, pay-no-attention-to-rules model that Albus offered him.
*
Which takes us at last back to Severus.
It’s a little difficult to say anything for certain regarding the overall level of his concern for students other than Harry, and in HBP Draco, since we see so little of Severus disciplining them for things not involving Harry.
We do know, however, that at least his Slytherins - the group he has the greatest control over and greatest general responsibility for - get an education from him that merely toeing the line of official school rules (at least in his presence) is not enough. They take care to hide even non-officially-punishable rudeness from him. (Going by terri’s analysis of the real rules of Hogwarts here.) And as a general rule they have for at least the past seven years or so, as of PS/SS, learned to behave to a standard high enough to earn significant reward from other teachers - Severus (our supposed major source of pro-Slytherin bias at the school), recall, we never once see dole out points, yet they had that House Cup streak for the better part of a decade. Even supposing Dumbles rigged that a bit in order to set up Harry’s first year, it had to be believable to both staff and students that they had won by themselves, so most of it had to have been a real effort. And there’s no reason to suppose that all those points were only for displays of technical mastery of skills, rather than anything with a moral dimension.
Plus, it would make a certain amount of sense for Severus to attempt to shield his snakelings from potential recruitment by Voldemort by (subtly, of course, given his position) trying to instill some sort of solid moral understanding in their heads while they’re still young, among other tactics. Though this point is mere extrapolation, not explicitly attested to in canon.
However, Harry is our main focus in the books, and so will be our main focus here. And with Harry I think we can see a pattern across the books in which, whether or not Severus starts out with as great a concern for his moral development as his physical safety, he does from the beginning have some concern for it in conjunction with the issue of Harry’s safety, and at some point definitively does develop that concern for the moral issue into a question in its own right. Personally I would peg this development as occurring somewhere between POA and HBP - possibly during OotP - with the caveat that his understanding that his choice of tactics for this, out of those available to him in his position, may need adjustment is a little slower to develop.
Though, Severus is also having to fight against subtle and effective hostile rearguard action here as well, in the form of Dumbledore’s constant undermining of his authority and assessment of Harry’s character and situation. And Dumbles does like to manipulate him as well as Harry. So I can’t quite blame him for struggling with the issue.
*
In the early books most of the incidents in which Severus scolds, disciplines, or attempts to discipline Harry involve not only wrongdoing on Harry's part, but also risk to himself, which, given Severus' mission to protect him, renders us unable to judge for certain how much of his concern was for Harry's physical safety and how much for his moral development.
There are however a couple of general tendencies we can note about Severus' approach regarding Harry, and in general, here, beyond the use of empty threats of expulsion to get his attention. One is a tendency to rely upon explicit rules governing everyone as the source of authority in his judgments. For all that he demands the outward signs of respect for his position ("I believe I told you to call me 'sir,'" and so on), when it comes down to matters of correction and discipline, Severus doesn't tend to resort to "because I said so" - or even the (likely far more efficacious) "because the headmaster said so" - reasoning in his dealings with Harry, or other students that Harry sees. Instead he refers to an external, impersonal, social ground: rules. Laws. What society, not a singular personal authority, has determined to be wrong and before the expression of which everyone is (in theory) equal.
His eternal complaint about Harry to others, and repeated warning to Harry himself, even from the early books? Arrogance; he thinks he's above the rules and can do as he pleases regardless of the cost to others, accompanied sometimes by complaints about his perceived lack of honesty.
In COS:
"So," he said softly, "the train isn't good enough for the famous Harry
Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. Wanted to arrive with a bang,
did we, boys?" […]"You were seen," he hissed, showing them the headline: FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES. […]"I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow," Snape went on.
"That tree did more damage to us than we -" Ron blurted out.
"Silence!" snapped Snape again. "Most unfortunately, you are not in my House and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I shall go and fetch the people who do have that happy power. You will wait here."
[…] Snape looked as though Christmas had been canceled. He cleared his
throat and said, "Professor Dumbledore, these boys have flouted the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, caused serious damage to an old and valuable tree - surely acts of this nature -"
Later, when he thinks Harry may be lying about the attacks on Mrs. Norris and co.:
"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful," he
said. "It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges
until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should
be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready to be
honest."
(On a slightly related note of interest: I hadn’t remembered until I reread COS just who taught Harry his ‘signature spell’, the one he ultimately defeats Voldemort with in place of any curse, that simple little disarming spell ‘Expelliarmus.’
It was Severus. As Harry himself notes to dear duplicitous Gilderoy in COS chapter twelve:
“"Expelliarmus!"
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.
"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one," said Harry furiously…”
You did apparently manage to teach the boy one thing at least, Sev. You should be proud.)
*
Moving on to POA:
Draco has reported seeing Harry in Hogsmeade illicitly, which we know to be true, but Harry is refusing to either explain this circumstance believably or confess (which would allow Severus to actually punish him):
"I've been up in Gryffindor Tower," said Harry. "Like you told -"
"Can anyone confirm that?"
Harry didn't say anything. Snape's thin mouth curled into a horrible smile. "So," he said, straightening up again. "Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences." [...]
"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter," Snape said suddenly, his eyes glinting. "He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers...The resemblance between you is uncanny. [...] Your father didn't set much store by rules either," Snape went on, pressing his advantage, his thin face full of malice. "Rules were for lesser mortals, not Quidditch Cup-winners. His head was so swollen -" [chapter 14]
He does note briefly the issue of Harry’s safety here, but his focus extends beyond that to Harry’s apparent attitude that he is above rules and does not need to worry about consequences to other people. And, lacking the opportunity to levy any actual punishment for what he knows Harry to have done, he turns for the first time here to a new tactic: cutting down a potential bad role model and comparing Harry unfavorably to a figure who ought to get Harry’s attention. In James we get the first of Severus’ intended cautionary examples.
That is, he here attempts to make Harry reconsider his attitude and actions by critiquing the behavior of someone Harry looks up to and has decided to model himself after. Trying to convince him that teenaged James is not a good role model, because of his arrogant treatment of others. Someone Harry should strive to be different from. Which sentiment I think we here can all agree Severus is shown to be rather more right than wrong about, yes? Even Harry grasps that, for about five minutes anyway, in OotP.
Of course, Harry hasn’t become any more inclined to listen to Severus in this book than previously, as their little exchange in DADA makes clear after Harry rushes in late with an excuse on his lips:
"Sorry I'm late, Professor Lupin. I -"
But it wasn't Professor Lupin who looked up at him from the teacher's desk; it was Snape.
"This lesson began ten minutes ago, Potter, so I think we'll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Sit down."
But Harry didn't move.
"Where's Professor Lupin?" he said.
"He says he is feeling too ill to teach today," said Snape with a twisted smile. "I believe I told you to sit down?"
But Harry stayed where he was.
"What's wrong with him?"
Snape's black eyes glittered.
"Nothing life-threatening," he said, looking as though he wished it were. "Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask you to sit down again, it will be fifty."
Harry walked slowly to his seat and sat down.
Later, after he tells the Minister that the children had been bewitched by Black in the Shack and weren't responsible for their actions afterward (saving them from any Ministry punishment, expulsion being something Severus cannot allow to happen), Severus expresses concern that the headmaster has "allowed [Potter] an extraordinary amount of license," leading him to think himself capable of taking on Black, and questions if it is "good for him to be given so much special treatment? Personally, I try and treat him like any other student." (Er, right Sev. But the general point stands: his expressed concern to everyone is that letting his fame garner him special allowance is bad for Harry himself in addition to disruptive to others and unfair.) He explicitly connects this to Harry's treatment of his friends and consequences beyond danger to Harry himself: "And any other student would be suspended - at the very least - for leading his friends into such danger."
(I mean, it’s not as if Severus has any experience with people putting people they call their friends in danger they’re unprepared to really face. What werewolf used as a prank? What Dark Lord? What prophecy? But I’m off on a tangent again. Interesting patterns do come out, though, don’t they, when you pull on the threads...)
*
At the beginning of next year Severus is given reason to suspect Harry of cheating in an international contest - an accusation, note, that even Ron found credible at first:
"We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore," said Karkaroff, his steely smile still in place, though his eyes were colder than ever. "Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools."
"It's no one's fault but Potter's, Karkaroff," said Snape softly. His black eyes were alight with malice. "Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here -"
Echoed later in his response to Umbridge in OotP:
"'I have just found Potter using my fire to communicate with a person or persons unknown!'
'Really?' said Snape, showing his first, faint sign of interest as he looked round at Harry. 'Well, it doesn't surprise me. Potter has never shown much inclination to follow school rules.'"
In GOF he still resorts to his usual method of dealing with misbehavior worthy of detention, by Harry and others, by forcing them to complete unpleasant but harmless rote potions tasks, like (here) pickling rat brains, or (with Neville) disemboweling horned toads. It seems to be a standard technique of his with students in general: lots of time spent in boring, ick-inducing work during which one has the leisure to ruminate upon the unpleasantness and why one is there, though such reflection is not quite a built-in requirement here - deterrence does seem to be the primary focus.
After catching Harry with the magazine with Rita's article, which he reads aloud to Harry’s embarrassment, Severus uses the opportunity to once again return to his theme of not thinking oneself above others just because one is the Boy Who Lived to Be a Celebrity:
"All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over-large head, Potter," said Snape quietly [...] You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you," Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (Harry continued to pound his scarab beetles, even though he had already reduced them to a very fine powder), "but I don't care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him."
He then accuses Harry of having previously broken into his office and stealing ingredients (half-correctly) and in response to Harry's denial hisses "Don't lie to me." This is when he flashes the bottle of Veritaserum, an act a few here have interpreted as being a covert warning to him meant to keep him on guard against anyone - say, Rita Skeeter - getting to him that way. Whatever the intent of that, however, the emphasis is on the question of Harry's honesty and on halting any further moves toward theft, not punishment for the past thefts.
Continued in Part II.