Occlumency, Narcissistic!Snape?

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 127598


Jen previous:
All of the memories Snape elicits from Harry have very vulnerable 
feelings attached to them: Fear of the dementors, {fear of} Ripper the 
dog & being sorted into Slytherin; shock and grief over Cedric's 
death; jealousy of Dudley's bike; ambivalent feelings toward Cho. The 
rage Harry feels almost constantly toward Snape may not be the kind of 
thing a Legilimens is skilled at retrieving.

Pippin:
Harry doesn't always feel angry at Snape --  often he's very scared, 
for example when he's caught on the grounds in CoS, or near the one-
eyed witch in PoA. And what happens to Snape's statement that anger 
will make Harry easy prey for the Dark Lord? Is that now supposed to 
be a lie? That would certainly turn the "Snape sabotaged the 
Occlumency lessons by making sure Harry was angry all the time" theory 
on its head! 

Jen again: 
Oy! I was only thinking of the memories Snape calls forth from Harry, 
and not the actual memories Harry has of Snape. As you said, in some 
interactions Harry has feelings other than anger or rage. And no, I 
don't think Snape is lying there. He may be many things, but a liar 
isn't one of them so far.

But back to Pippin's original list from post #127535, because she 
asked a very intriguing question--why don't we see memories of Snape 
during the Occlumency lessons? 

Pippin suggested these possibilities:
* The legilimens can't probe any memories regarding himself
personally

* Harry's memories of Snape aren't that traumatic

* Harry's a much better occlumens than he thinks, and is able
to unconsciously block memories of Snape

* Snape is deliberately avoiding those memories. That would really
blow Narcissistic!Snape out of the water, wouldn't it? Could a
Narcissist really consistently avoid reliving his moments of triumph?


Jen: We don't know enough about the process to say the first example 
is true or false. The only other canon example we have for this is 
Snape's comment: "The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows 
when somebody is lying to him." (OOTP, Occlumency chapter). That 
doesn't tell us whether LV can actually extract memories involving 
himself. And *if* Lupin is a Legilimens, which is at least a 
possibility, on the occasions he's looked 'intently' at Sirius, he 
makes comments only about Sirius' behavior and not his own (i.e., 
Shrieking Shack/Cat, Rat and Dog chapter).

Pippin's second and third possibility I'm not going to conjecture 
about because my thoughts would only be subjective. Harry may not feel 
traumatized by Snape, and he may be a better Occlumens than he thinks, 
but I can't think of proof either way.

Now the fourth possibility, that Snape is deliberately *not* calling 
forth memories of himself, we might have a bit of canon on this one.

Sometimes the memories come in chronological order, but there's only 
one memory per time period. An example of this is the very first 
session of Occlumency, where first Harry is age 5, then 9, then we 
have a first-year memory, a second-year memory...etc.

At certain times, the memories seem to come in connected bunches. An 
example comes in the first session, with memories about the Triwizard 
trounament and Cedric's death. 

Here's another example of a connected bunch: "He had just been forced, 
yet again, to relive a stream of very early memories he had not even 
realized he still had, most of them concerning humiliations Dudley and 
his gang had inflicted upon him in primary school." (OOTP, Seen and 
Unforseen chapter). 

Then we have the examples where Snape is surprised by Harry's visions 
of the DOM and Rookwood. He clearly does not expect to see those.

It doesn't seem Snape can actually control the memories. Unless 
there's something he's able to do prior to a session, some trick to 
close off eliciting memories of himself, he doesn't appear to be doing 
anything different when he says "Legilimens" each time, and yet each 
time the memories can come out in different forms.

That's the extent of canon I can think of at the moment. Anyone else?

Jen