Knowing it was Snape (was: What has Snape seen)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118988


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cubfanbudwoman"
<susiequsie23 at s...> wrote:
> 
> SSSusan:
> (snip)
> > I admit that I assumed the teenage boy to be Snape, but I know some
> > have wondered whether that is true, as well as whether the hook-
> > nosed man is Snape or perhaps Snape's father, with the cowering boy 
> > being Snape.  I would argue that we cannot be certain of any of it  
> > because it's all based upon Harry's perception, and we've been 
> > shown before that the narrator has "allowed" Harry's perception to 
> > be presented as fact previously, only to have it eventually be 
> > shown to be a misperception.  
> >  
> > For another example, just think of GoF, when Harry is preparing to
> > enter the Yule Ball with the other champions & their dates.  The
> > narrator says that Harry saw Viktor Krum with a pretty girl whom he 
> > did not know.  But of course he DID know her!  It was Hermione; 
> > Harry simply did not recognize her.  Yet the narrator says it was a 
> > girl Harry "did not know", not that Harry didn't think he knew her 
> > or that he didn't recognize her.  Surely this would be a case where 
> > Harry "should" have known one of his two best friends, but he did 
> > not.  
> > 
> > Likely or not in this case of the teenaged boy & the hook-nosed man,
> > there is at least precedent for Harry's pronouncements of 
> > recognition to be faulty.
>  
> Nadine : 
> > Your example taken from GoF illustrates your point very well, Susan,
> > and I agree with you. Harry's perceptions are deceiving sometimes 
> > but in the OotP scene (Chapter 26 - Seen and Unforeseen) the 
> > narrator says: «Harry did not speak; he felt that to say anything 
> > might be dangerous. He was sure he had just broken into Snape's 
> > memories, that he had just seen scenes from Snape's childhood. It 
> > was unnerving to think that the little boy who had been crying as 
> > he watched his parents shouting was actually standing in front of 
> > him with such loathing in his eyes». Apparently, Harry 
> > just «identified» little Snape and his shouting parents... Truth or 
> > deception ?
> 
> 
> SSSusan:
> Nadine, I think they're actually similar(?).  I'm away from GoF right 
> now, but I believe it was the same kind of set-up.  Harry wasn't 
> speaking in the Yule Ball scene either; it was the narrator reporting 
> that Harry saw Krum and a girl he didn't know.  Just as the narrator 
> here [and thanks for the quote!] says Harry was unnerved that this 
> was the little boy he'd seen now standing there.  It seems to read 
> the same way to me.  
> 
> Hmmmm.  Then again, "It was unnerving to *think* that the little boy 
> he had just seen...was actually standing in front of him" [emphasis 
> added] actually makes it look a little MORE suspect than I'd 
> imagined....  This sends up a red flag kinda like "assume" and "as 
> if" in JKR's world.  Or am I missing something obvious?  Is there a 
> clear difference between the presentation of the two bits of 
> narration from GoF and OotP?  Somebody please let me know if so!
> 
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan, who wasn't a lit major and sometimes feels it 
> here!

Carol (who was a lit major, if it matters here) responds:
The difference is that we're looking at Snape's memories, not the
student body of Hogwarts. He has to be present in all of them. Ergo,
the lonely teenager zapping flies has to be Severus, as does the boy
on the bucking broom. Harry is therefore most likely right in also
identifying the small crying boy rather than the hook-nosed man as
snape. He knows very well what the adult Snape looks like and he knows
whose memories he's viewing.

I admit that the narrator is sometimes unreliable (the Hermione
example is a good one), but we've sometimes doubted information that
turned out to be correct. Remember Harry's memory of the Gryffindor
Quidditch player (James) sitting under the same tree as Ron and
rumpling {wrong verb, I know} his hair? People argued that Harry was
just assuming that his father was in Gryffindor, but JKR has told us
he was right. He's probably right in this instance, too. Who else
would the teenage boy and the broom riding boy be but Snape? And if
he's Snape, why wouldn't the little boy be as well? We certainly have
no indication that Snape was ever married and a father. And how could
he have been in the limited amount of time we have between leaving
Hogwarts and returning four years later as a teacher--meantime joining
the DEs and leaving them to become a spy. If the death of his child
and wife (whom the hook-nosed man doesn't seem to love much) were the
trigger that caused Snape to leave the DEs, the little boy could have
been no more than two, and the hook-nosed man a 21-year-old Snape.
There's no indication that either the boy or the man is that young.
And anyway, if Harry can recognize Snape at fifteen (here and in the
later Pensieve scene), he can recognize him at 21 or older.

Notice, too, that Harry finds out his mistake about Hermione
immediately. There's no such correction of the Snape memories, which
are almost certainly intended to give us some insight into Snape's
childhood and some degree of sympathy for him in preparation for the
later Pensieve scene. Foreshadowing, in a way.

Carol, who should be editing a mediocre crime novel instead of
catching up on posting