[HPforGrownups] Oop-Snape's worst memory

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 64058

lauralaylin wrote:

> I know in the past few days in those hundreds of posts, a few people
> have questioned why Snape's worst memory is really so bad.  I think I
> have a possible answer.  Snape pulled Harry out of the Pensieve
> before the memory was finished, and the memory must have gotten
> worse.  My guess, James did take off Snape's pants.  If I was naked
> in front of the general public, whether it be when I was 15 or now,
> it would definitely be my worst memory.  Even if it wasn't, Snape
> probably wouldn't want Harry to see him naked, so he'd put the memory
> in the Pensieve.

Has anyone considered the possibility that "worst" doesn't refer
to Snape's attitude toward the memory, but Harry's?  That it's
the worst one for Harry to come across at that moment (which may
be one reason Snape removed it for safekeeping)?

I can't imagine that someone who'd been a Death Eater and then
switched sides has no worse memories =to him= than a teenage
humiliation.

Another reason I can think of for Snape to have removed that
memory specifically was not so that Harry couldn't access it, but
so that Snape himself couldn't while he was trying to teach
Harry.  IOW he was =trying= to not let his antipathy toward James
affect his interaction with Harry -- trying for some
professionalism.


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>