Pensive Peeking - & it's Dymanics

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 124072


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
> 
> If someone peeks in your pensive, how do you know how much the 
> pensive peeper saw?  Does Snape assume that Harry saw more than he 
> did? 
> 
> Tonks_op
> I hope someone here writes a poem about pensive peepers.

bboyminn:

Here's my take on the Pensieve and how it works.

First, believe it or not, I don't think Harry really enters the
Pensieve, at least not in the way that it appears to him. That is to
say, I don't think Harry physically enters the memory as he preceives
himself doing. In the memories in which Harry witnessed the various
Wizangamont trials, Harry sees himself in the room, sitting on a bench
next to Dumbledore. 

In the Pensieve we have a meeting of minds, of thoughts, not the
meeting of a mind and body. So while Harry sees himself physically
inside the memory, in reality, he is standing inside Dumbledore's
office with his head/face stuck in the Pensieve, and that's how
Dumbledore found him when he returned to his office. 

Now to the question of how Dumbledore or Snape know which memory Harry
is viewing, and how they manifest their own presences in the memory in
question. 

First, and easiest, is to simple look in the Pensieve as Harry did
before he stuck his face in the 'bowl'. The top of the Pensieve is
like a window; so you simply look through the 'window' and see the
memory inside. 

Next, I speculate that by making physical contact with Harry out side
the Pensieve, or by dipping a finger into the Pensieve /fluid/, their
(Snape or Dumbledore) mind could join Harry's mind inside  the memory.
>From Harry's perspective the presence of this new external mind (Snape
or Dumbledore's) would manifest itself as a preceived physical
presence inside the memory. 

Consider when Dumbledore entered his office and discovered Harry in
the Pensieve. If Harry was truly /in/ the Pensieve, Dumbledore would
have found his office empty, and would have assumed that Harry left.
The only, most likely, way he could know that Harry was there and know
what Harry was doing, would be if Harry was standing there with his
face in the Pensieve bowl. 

When Harry entered the Pensieve memory, he had the preception of
falling through space until he found himself sitting of the bench.
When he exits, he has the same preception of flying though space,
turning a somersault in the air, and landing on his feet in
Dumbledore's office. But that is his mind/consciousness, in a sense,
returning to his body, not his body returning to the office.

As far as what the owner of the Pensieve sees relative to what Harry
saw, I think it happens in realtime. When Dumbledore join Harry in the
courtroom memory, he only saw what Harry saw from the time Dumbledore
joined him until the both existed the memory.

In the case of both Snape and Dumbledore, they would have both
recognised the memory and would have been able to fill in the blanks
from their own knowledge. In Snape's case, he arrived just as he was
dangling upside down with his underwear showing, if Harry saw that,
then he probably saw the most humiliating part, and what else he saw
was irrelavant to Snape.

On the nature of Pensieve memories and memories in general. If you
take a memory out of your mind, how would you ever know to view it, or
retrieve it, or that the event/memory in question even exited? 

The answer is that not only do we have memories, but we have memories
of memories. If you are over 30, then it's possible that some of your
fondest memories are, to some degree, false. When you recall those
fond memories, you aren't recalling the actual event, but are instead
recalling the last time you recalled them. That's how memories get
distorted over time. That's why the grand towering Elm tress of your
youth, turn out to be scraggly box-elders when you go back to visit
the place. This isn't really critical information, I'm just laying
foundation for what I'm going to say next.

So, how do you know a pensieve-stored memory even exists? Because,
even absent that primary memory, you have peripheral and secondary
memories the allow you to recall, at least, the fact the the memory
itself exists. 

Final note; notice that in the times we have seen Dumbledore use the
Pensieve, he does not dive in after the memories; he brings the
memories out to him. If Harry's going to be mucking about in people's
pensieves, they should at least teach him how to do it right.

I'm sure that more than you wanted to hear.

Steve/bboyminn