![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Several different lines of argument are used to explain why Severus is behaving in ways that Harry takes as hostile. One is that Severus had to act this way to maintain his cover as Death Eater: That when Voldemort returned Severus could point to his treatment of Harry as evidence that he remained a true DE and was never influenced by Dumbledore's agenda (and this would be supported by the testament of sons of DEs in his class if needed). A different argument is that Severus has strict and demanding standards (both academic and behavioral) as a teacher and Harry repeatedly fails those, thus bringing upon himself sarcasm, wrath, loss of points and detentions, as the case may be. And of course the argument more common among non-fans of Severus, that from the moment Severus saw the physical resemblance between Harry and his father Severus started taking on Harry his unreconciled enmity towards James (whether consciously or unconsciously).
This relationship becomes mutually hostile and results in Harry and his friends mistrusting Severus time and again - when they thought he was cursing Harry's broom and trying to steal the Philosophers' Stone, in the Shrieking Shack in POA, when they went to the Ministry in OOTP despite having already delivered him what should have been a sufficient warning to the Order and when Harry suspects Severus is a party to Draco's plot in HBP (well, he was in a way, but not how Harry expected). Severus' outburst in the Shrieking Shack ("... I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee!...") shows that Severus was offended by this state of affairs, he really expected to be trusted by Harry.
If Severus' behavior was strategic, intending to act the DE part - why would he expect Harry to trust him? Or is it that since their relationship already had a hostile start (whether because of Harry's conduct as a student or because of Severus' unsettled account with James) Severus decided to use it as part of his justification to Voldemort and the DEs (as we see him do with Bellatrix in HBP)? Did Severus expect Harry, perhaps with the aid of more trusted authority figures such as Minerva or Albus, to see the protection beyond the wrath and snark?
How does Albus fit in? In the early books he contributes to the distrust between the two - in PS he says Severus saved Harry so he could hate James' memory in peace, in POA he blames Severus for the need to make a daring rescue of Sirius. But later Albus reassures Harry that Severus was never suspected with any Dark activity since the first war (GOF), tells him how Severus warned the Order and searched for Harry and his friends in the forest, refrains from mentioning Severus' part in the matter of the prophecy until Harry learns of it himself (OOTP vs HBP) and tells Harry again and again that he trusts Professor Snape (HBP). Yet in OOTP he also says he expected Severus to have gotten over the past enough to teach Harry Occlumency successfully. So did Albus initially think he was supporting Severus' cover story but changed gears when he saw things were going badly? Or was he deliberately preventing the reconciliation of undesired hostility because it served his own plots?
This relationship becomes mutually hostile and results in Harry and his friends mistrusting Severus time and again - when they thought he was cursing Harry's broom and trying to steal the Philosophers' Stone, in the Shrieking Shack in POA, when they went to the Ministry in OOTP despite having already delivered him what should have been a sufficient warning to the Order and when Harry suspects Severus is a party to Draco's plot in HBP (well, he was in a way, but not how Harry expected). Severus' outburst in the Shrieking Shack ("... I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee!...") shows that Severus was offended by this state of affairs, he really expected to be trusted by Harry.
If Severus' behavior was strategic, intending to act the DE part - why would he expect Harry to trust him? Or is it that since their relationship already had a hostile start (whether because of Harry's conduct as a student or because of Severus' unsettled account with James) Severus decided to use it as part of his justification to Voldemort and the DEs (as we see him do with Bellatrix in HBP)? Did Severus expect Harry, perhaps with the aid of more trusted authority figures such as Minerva or Albus, to see the protection beyond the wrath and snark?
How does Albus fit in? In the early books he contributes to the distrust between the two - in PS he says Severus saved Harry so he could hate James' memory in peace, in POA he blames Severus for the need to make a daring rescue of Sirius. But later Albus reassures Harry that Severus was never suspected with any Dark activity since the first war (GOF), tells him how Severus warned the Order and searched for Harry and his friends in the forest, refrains from mentioning Severus' part in the matter of the prophecy until Harry learns of it himself (OOTP vs HBP) and tells Harry again and again that he trusts Professor Snape (HBP). Yet in OOTP he also says he expected Severus to have gotten over the past enough to teach Harry Occlumency successfully. So did Albus initially think he was supporting Severus' cover story but changed gears when he saw things were going badly? Or was he deliberately preventing the reconciliation of undesired hostility because it served his own plots?
Re: Dumbledore's Smiling Face, Part 2
The boy and the young man do get off on the wrong foot, and their personalities (which are almost bound to clash) and their past experiences do feed into this. However, Dumbledore manipulates both of them, throughout, for his own ends. I think you are dead right in saying that he - Dumbledore - did not want any young adult male to bond with Harry. Lupin, being a distant sort, was no great danger to him, but Severus and Sirius were. It suited him very well to confine poor Sirius to a home filled with toxic memories, where he drifted into alcoholism. And it suited him to encourage the natural antipathy between Harry and Severus. So he did it.
As for the clashing personalities, people have pointed out that Harry, given his circumstances with the Dursleys, would be naturally rebellious and distrustful of authority figures, and would see hard work and discipline as punishments. Well, Dumbledore engineered Harry's circumstances. We know from SS/PS that he was aware of them and could have mitigated them at any time. For ten years, he chose not to do so.
So yes. Dumbledore benefited from the hostility and suspicion between Harry and Severus, if only because it made it easier for him to manipulate both of them. Severus does bear some responsibility for the impasse, if only because he's an adult. But Dubmledore bears far more. He is evil, IMHO.
"Poor Severus" my foot!
Re: Dumbledore's Smiling Face, Part 2
I couldn't forgive Dumbledore after finding out that he deliberately placed Harry with the Dursleys, and giving no real reason for it when talking to Harry (that tearful "explanation" that he "loved" Harry is NOT a reason!) in the last parts of Book Four.
No given reason plus a load of emotional bollocks plus the way he's behaved toward both Snape and Harry: I put that book down convinced that Dumbledore had quite deliberately left Harry to the Dursleys' care because it set Harry up to trust only Dumbledore and to tie him very closely to the Wizarding World, thus making it easy to make him both Dumbledore's catspaw and unlikely to resist his "expected" position as Hero, even at the cost of self-sacrifice.
Think about it. If you spent eleven years without any form of love or recognition, and then someone took you to an amazing new place where everybody thought you were great, wouldn't you feel indebted to that person? Wouldn't you do anything to stay in that new place?
He even set Arabella Figg to watch Harry, doubtless reporting on him regularly; that way he could make sure the boy wouldn't form any lasting attachments to the Muggle world or find any parental role model/affection giver until Dumbledore decided to enter the picture and set himself up in that role.