The Pensieve (again) (Was: Unfortunate!Peter)

[Sharon]

No: HPFGUIDX 118321


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> Carol responds:
> A few quick points: 1) If the Pensieve distorted memories 
> subjectively in favor of the person whose memories they are, Snape 
> would have had no reason to hide this memory from Harry. Clearly,
> he found it humiliating, in no way favorable to himself even though
> to us (and to Harry), he appears to be an innocent victim. 

But Snape does have a reason to hide this memory from Harry, 
regardless of whether or not it's been distorted - it was humiliating 
to him, and he didn't want Harry to find it.  Period.  It wasn't 
because he didn't want Harry to see how horrible James & Sirius were 
as kids; it was because Snape didn't want Harry to see the extend of 
the humiliation towards himself.

> Carol:
> 2) The primary purpose of a Pensieve is apparently not to conceal 
> them from others but to *sift* them ("sieve" = "sifter") for 
> objective study outside the subjective context of one's own mind, 
> as Dumbledore does. 

True.  But Snape is using Dumbledore's Pensieve as a way to conceal 
them from Harry.  He doesn't put anything into the Pensieve until 
just before he and Harry begin their duel, and the moment the session 
is over, Harry sees Snape take the memories back out again.  There is 
no time for Snape to pause and reflect over them - in fact, it 
doesn't seem that Snape even wants to take advantage of the 
opportunity to do so.

Carol:
> 3) As I've already noted, Harry does not see through Severus's eyes
> in this memory. He walks around inside the memory, overhearing 
> conversations and seeing things (such as Lily's initials on James's 
> DADA exam) that Severus could not possibly have seen. (He was intent 
> on his own exam, his nose almost touching the parchment. Moreover, 
> James and his friends were behind Severus, IIRC.)

Also true.  And I agree that no one would see those memories through 
the eyes of the one who they belong to - but I still stand that by 
remaining so long in the original person's memory, they can't help 
but be influenced by them.  No, Snape didn't see what James wrote on 
his exam.  But had 15 year old Snape been asked, don't you think he 
might have said, "Oh, Potter's probably still mooning over that 
Mudblood Evans."  Snape himself may have "filled in the holes" in his 
memory, so to speak.  

Even the conversation he apparently was not listening to (such as the 
one the boys had about werewolves on the exam) was background noise 
to 15 year old Snape, and the Pensieve might have simply enlarged it 
for his later study (and Harry's benefit) at a later time.  And as 
it's *still Snape's memory*, there may be missing pieces we aren't 
aware of happening.  Therefore I'm not willing to take the Pensieve 
scene as an accurate rendition of what happened that day.

Carol:
> I really think that the whole point of the Pensieve scene was to
> reveal MWPP to Harry and to the reader as they really were. What is
> the point of the scene otherwise? 


Agreed, to an extent.  The point of the scene is definitely to let 
Harry in on the fact that his dad wasn't perfect.  Any supposition on 
our parts, beyond that, is merely us perhaps being a bit too serious 
about the matter.  

Azriona, who still thinks Peter was a spy for DD, but knows there's 
not a lot of canon to back it up