Occlumency

[evangelina839]

No: HPFGUIDX 75227

"meltowne" <meltowne at y...> wrote:
But that begs the question of why Snape didn't put these memories into the Pensieve 
and lock it away even before Harry arrived?  <snip>

I (evangelina) replied:
<snip> As for why he didn't put his memories away before Harry arrived, I can only 
guess that it could have something to do with the timing, that there was something 
he needed to remember during the beginning of lesson. That would of course be 
something from the other two memories, I don't think James & Sirius taunting him 
had anything to do with teaching Occlumency...  

Mali then answered:
> Well, when I read this chapter, I just had the impression that Snape 
> put this memory in the pensieve before starting the lesson with Harry 
> just to avoid thinking about his hate towards James while having to 
> teach something important to his son... I don't know, just my 
> impression... 

Interesting. :) I reread the chapter to see if there really was anything to support my 
"timing" speculation in there, and Snape waits (which all of you probably already 
realised ;)) until it's time for the practical lesson, to remove his memories. So if it 
really was his feelings for James he wanted to have put aside, then he didn't care 
about having it in the way while explaining the theory of Occlumency, but at least got 
them out of the way when it was time for practice. And I don't know, but to me it 
seems that he was a little nicer after using the Pensieve. He didn't point it out that 
Harry wasn't calling him "sir", there was some credit for Harry's achievement 
(although as a near-insult, "that was not as poor as it might have been"), and there 
were not as many nasty comments as before (such as calling Harry a "lamentable 
potion-maker", implying that his mind isn't complex, etc...).
Maybe this post is as incoherent as I imagined the last one to be, my mind is a haze 
today. :)
evangelina