The length of the Pensieve Scene

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 116815


Thanks Steve for the thoughtful answer (no pun intended).

Steve wrote :
"When Snape withdrew his memory of that specific event, it may have
been critically important to his memory to include the 'I was just
minding my own business' part. That's not so relavant to what Harry
might see, but it's very relavant to Snape's emotions surrounding the
event."

Del replies :
This in turn begs the question : *why* was it relevant ? The way I
understand it, Snape took his memories away before starting the
lessons, and then put them back at the end of the lesson. The only
point seemed to be preventing Harry from seeing them, and Snape
apparently wasn't leaving his memories in the Pensieve for further
study. So why would it be important that the scene contains the "I was
just minding my own business part", since this was not the part that
Snape truly wanted to hide from Harry ?

Unless of course :

1. He did leave some memories in the Pensieve for further study, and
that memory happened to be one of those. Which makes me wonder what he
was studying : was he trying to understand James and Sirius, or was he
trying to reinforce his own hatred of them ?

2. He intended Harry to see that memory, in which case it's obviously
critically important that Harry see the "minding my own business" part.

Or maybe this memory was so loaded emotionally that he couldn't
pinpoint the actual critical element, and couldn't help but put the
whole package with it. So much for controlling his emotions.

Hum, seems like your answer only sparked more questions in my mind,
Steve :-) Sorry !

Del