Snape's Pensieve Memories (Was: Snape's Pensieve)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 137090

houyhnhnm wrote:
><snip>
> Clearly, Snape knew which memory, he was in the pensieve with Harry.
> 
> I have had some questions about Snape's use of the pensieve and the
> other two memories, though.
> 
> When someone withdraws a memory and places it in the pensieve, does
> the person lose the knowledge that the memory contained?
><snip> Perhaps neither Snape nor Dumbledore anticipates Harry's being
able to break into Snape's mind.  Because, it seems to me, the
memories Snape would be most concerned about hiding from Harry would
not be childhood/teenage humiliations, but his meetings with
Voldemort. (which we didn't know were taking place when OotP came out,
but we know now.)

Carol responds:

First I want to note that Dumbledore's memories would not have been
mixed with Snape's. You take your memories out to examine them (as DD
does) or protect them from detection by others (as Snape does) but
then you put them back in your head. Or, if it's not your own memory,
you probably put it back in a labeled bottle or vial. (Dumbledore is
not adding new memories to the mix in HBP as he does in GoF when he's
trying to figure out who put Harry's name in the goblet and all the
other mysteries in that book. IIRC, it's a clean Pensieve and one or
two new memories each time.)

The question of what happens to the memory when it's taken out of your
head is one I'm not prepared to answer. I don't think the objective
memory that the Pensieve shows is replaced by the subjective one that
the wizard would access if he tried to remember events without using
the Pensieve--a Legilimens could just as easily access that version of
the memory as the real one, with more or less equal damage. But it
seems inconceivable that the wizard would have no recollection of the
memory at all except that he put it in a Pensieve or a crystal vial.
Surely Snape knew even as he and Harry were struggling through the
Occlumency lessons what he had concealed from him? Maybe it was only
the details, the physical representation of the memory rather than the
more abstract awareness of the event that he was trying to conceal. (???)

At any rate, I do think Snape anticipated Harry accidentally breaking
into his mind. There's really no other explanation for putting those
memories in the Pensieve.

But why only three and why include that one? Was it really his worst
memory, worse than being nearly killed by a werewolf, worse than
whatever he did as a Death Eater? What about his overhearing the
Prophecy and telling Voldemort? That makes three, but what about his
past as a Death Eater? And since he's a double agent whose real
loyalty is still in doubt, at least in OoP when he hasn't yet been
trapped by the jinx on the DADA position and the Unbreakable Vow,
shouldn't he conceal his reports to *both* Dumbledore and Voldemort
from Harry, who could so easily ruin everything by learining too much?
It makes no sense to me that Snape would hide that humiliating little
incident, unendurable as it still is to him, and not also hide
whatever would tie him to Voldemort and undermine Dumbledore's trust.
Even if he is loyal to Dumbledore (and I believe he is), he has still
received the Dark Mark, sworn loyalty to the Dark Lord, and performed
we don't know what services for Voldemort before turning spy for
Dumbledore and then teaching at Hogwarts. And he would not want Harry
to hear his explanation to Voldemort for his absence from the
graveyard and his thwarting of Quirrell (much like the one he gives
Bellatrix in HBP), much less the reasons he gives for not killing the
Potter boy.

Three memories? What are the other two and why only three?

And while we're at it, I do think the Aurors will search Snape's
office after the events in HBP as other posters have mentioned, but
like Fake!Moody before them, I doubt that they'll find anything
incriminating, certainly not stored memories (bottled, not Penseived
since Snape doesn't own a Pensieve). Potions from previous years,
pickled creatures, books, marked and unmarked essays, and personal
possessions in his living quarters behind the office--things he'll
miss and will never see again, just as he'll miss the galleons he
earned this year and will never receive. IMO, Snape had nothing to
gain by killing Dumbledore and everything to lose (his position, his
respectability, his cover, his personal safety), and I don't think he
believed it would really happen, even with the jinx on the DADA
position and the Unbreakable Vow. He's now the most wanted man in the
WW (next to Voldemort), with neither home (he can't safely return to
Spinners' End) nor mentor (Voldemort is nobody's mentor). However
precarious his position as double agent, however tedious his teaching
of "dunderheads," both had to be preferable to what he has
now--especially if an ungrateful Draco is still in tow.

Carol, who thinks that Draco, Snape, and Dumbledore fell together into
a trap of Voldemort's making