Did Snape know WHY he must teach Harry Occlumency?

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 120073


In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" wrote:

According to DD, Snape only discovered about Harry's recurrent
corridor dreams when he started teaching him. This means that the 
ONLY occurence of Harry-LV contact Snape might have known about 
previously was the Snake Dream.
Moreover, we don't know whether Snape knew about the Prophecy and the
fact that LV was trying to get it. When Harry asked him what was in
the DoM, Snape told him that there was nothing there that concerns
him. Was he outright lying ?
> 
If Snape didn't know about the Prophecy, he couldn't understand how
crucial it was that Harry be protected from mental invasion by LV.
Was Snape also outright lying when he told Harry that he was "neither
special nor important" ? If Snape knew about the Prophecy, he 
couldn't say such a thing. And if he knew, why did he lie? It was
counter-productive to assure Harry that there was nothing special
about him, to say the least.


Could it be that Snape did NOT know why Harry needed to learn
Occlumency? Could it be that Snape was only teaching Harry 
reluctantly because DD told him to, but without telling him why?
>

Alla:

Del, bear with me on this one, OK?

I don't know your position on the following question - do you 
believe  that Snape is in many ways Dumbledore right hand in anti-
Voldemort's efforts?

Because if you do, and that is kind of my stand on it, I don't think 
we can doubt that Snape knows EVERYTHING about Prophecy.

If you don't think that Snape is Dumbledore's right hand, then sure, 
it is quite possible to assume  that he did not know about Prophecy.

I also tend to share the speculation that Snape was the one who 
originally overheard the Prophecy, but that is just speculation of 
course.


Now, about the questions you asked - well, yeah, I think that Snape 
was outright lying when he told Harry that he was neither special 
nor important.
Why would he do that? Ummm, because he is Snape. :o)
Since I see him as someone who is extremely jealous of Harry's 
popularity and someone who tends to humiliate Harry the first chance 
he gets, well he had a lot of chances during Occlumency and he used 
all of them, IMO.


To make a long story short - NO, I don't think it is likely that 
Snape did not know about Prophecy, but I could be wrong of course.