The length of the Pensieve Scene

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118121


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "curlyhornedsnorkack"
<easimm at y...> wrote:
> 
> > 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

Carol responds:
I don't want to repeat what I've said in previous posts, but the
Pensieve appears to be an objective record of what really happened,
not dependent on what the person whose memory it is actually saw and
heard. Otherwise there would be no need to consult it; in fact, it
would be useless.

But there are apparently at least two ways of using it; sifting the
memory so it rises out of the bowl (Snape or Trelawney speaking) or
actually entering the memory, which then becomes concrete and
tangible--Harry can walk around or sit in a chair. He might even have
been able to touch one of the people in those memories or smell the
flowers, if there were any, or feel the warmth of the sun.

As far as I can see, Severus is doing nothing wrong in the early part
of the memory. He is writing detailed exam answers and then studying
the questions to be sure he got them right. For some reason, the DADA
exam was very important to him, and this information is an integral
part of the memory, both from Snape's perspective and from JKR's.

I see nothing suspicious in Snape's actions here. They're both natural
and in character. (I do think he may have wanted a good reason to end
the Occlumency lessons, which clearly weren't working, but that's
another topic.) I think Snape is angry that Harry has seen him
humiliated, angrier still that he has violated his privacy and shown
himself untrustworthy, and perhaps afraid that Harry has seen the
other memories that he deposited in the Pensieve as well.

What were those memories? Did they relate to his DE days or to his
defection from the DEs to Dumbledore? That, to me, is the important
question.

Carol, who thinks that Snape was dealing with the Inquisitorial Squad,
talking to Dumbledore, marking homework, and prowling the hallways
during the missing five hours (wrong thread, I know)