Snape's Remorse vs. Snape's Worst Memory

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 139596

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat4001" <zarleycat at s...>
wrote:

> The events surrounding the prophesy were enough to so overwhelm 
Snape with remorse that he changed from an active DE to someone 
working for Voldemort's downfall. This is life-changing, dangerous 
stuff taking place in the middle of a chaotic and deadly war. It 
strikes me now as a little peculiar that Snape's worst memory
should  still be his ambush by James and Sirius after their O.W.L. in
fifth  year.
> 

Pippin:

Snape put *three* memories in the pensieve. Presumably Harry was
seeing them in chronological order and only encountered the first.
If Harry had only seen Bagman's trial in the pensieve, he'd have
come away with a very different picture of how suspected Death
Eaters fared in the courts. It could be that we can understand 
why this memory is Snape's worst only in conjunction with the other
two. Or it could be that the narrator was reflecting Harry's point
of view and was simply wrong.

Dumbledore said that Snape's relaying the prophecy to Voldemort
was the greatest regret of his life. So I guess the question is, do
you believe the narrator or do you believe Dumbledore? The
narrator has proven to be unreliable before -- for example telling
us that Harry's parents died in a car crash.Though Dumbledore
has often not told Harry everything he knows, and has often not
bothered to correct Harry's misconceptions, I don't believe he
has ever directly lied to him.

But I have a problem with the whole idea that Snape put those 
memories in the pensieve to protect his mind from Harry,
or Voldemort seeing through Harry. 

It  doesn't seem that putting a memory in the pensieve erases
it from your mind, so Harry must have been wrong about that. Now,
presumably Dumbledore knows all about how a pensieve works, but
Voldemort doesn't, so Harry was allowed to draw a wrong conclusion
in order to mislead Voldie, and make him think that Snape is a
weaker occlumens than he actually is.

In any case, Snape chose a memory that didn't need to be hidden from 
Voldemort--Wormtail could have told him all about it. Whether that's
true of the others, we can't say.

Pippin