The length of the Pensieve Scene

[curlyhornedsnorkack]

No: HPFGUIDX 118048


> curlyhornedsnorkack wrote :
> "What Snape was doing during the scenes before he was spotted by the
> Marauders was not innocent and harmless; he was being a sneak."
> 
> Del replies :
> ...So can you back your
> allegations with canon ?


Yes. There are some staightforward tidbits. 
-In the scene, the sun is shining. Lots of people are going out to
enjoy the great outdoors. The Marauders choose the shade of a beech
tree, which allows quite a bit of sun through the leaves. Snape
chooses the "dense shadow of a clump of bushes". If you prefer dense
shadow, the best place to stay is indoors.

-When Snape is in the dense shade, Harry isn't studying Snape to see
whether he is really looking at the exam questions, so we can't see
what he's doing. But when Snape's nickname is called, Harry thinks
that Snape looks like he has been expecting an attack.

Other clues depend a lot on what one believes to be true about the
pensieve. First off, it seems clear from discussions on the pensieve
that we can't really pin down how the pensive works; I think it
enhances memories; it doesn't create new ones. For example, In DD's
memories from the pensieve in GOF, the details seem related to a train
of thought.  In Harry's first peak into the pensieve(GOF),when Harry
sees the "Judgement" Room, all details enhance the somberness of the
trials. In the memory with the Celebrity Leo Bagman, Rita Skeeter in
all her glory makes an appearance, but she would be expected to be
present in a celebrity trial. In DD's memories of Bertha Jorkins and
Sybill Trelawney (OOTP), Harry only sees their bodies, not their
surroundings.  So it seems likely that the pensieve works by fleshing
out the details that makes a memory more real- not by creating extra
scenes. 

-If Snape is so engrossed in his exam questions, he could not
incorporate into his memory words he couldn't hear.  He would be too
busy to have any awareness of whole discussions. But Snape manages to
incorporate into his memory a discussion that is heard behind another
group of people. In comparison, as far as we can tell, Harry only
hears undistinguished chattering and laughing from the girls nearby.
(I wonder whether Snape had a version of extendable ears.)

-Snape and the Marauders are about Harry's age in the scene, so,
assuming that Snape and the Marauders started in the same year, they
have had time to get to know each other pretty well. Lupin tells Harry
later that James and Snape have hated each other from the start. Yet
Snape just happens to stay close enough to his enemies to hear the
conversation, and, when they stride off across a lawn (I think we
can assume there is no path) he happens to go in the same direction. 

Finally, we have to examine Snape's reasons for hiding such a long
memory from Harry. If Snape doesn't care about the early part of the
memory, why would he hide it from Harry? Perhaps hiding his snooping
ways from Harry was important to Snape. It's interesting to me that in
this case Snape would not realize that Harry is more interested in
watching his father and his friends interact than watching Snape
snoop.

Anyway, Snape's actions seem pretty suspicious to me. 

curlyhornedsnorkack