Snape's Worst Memory

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150671

Andrea wrote:
> I don't think that Snape is concerned about him [Harry] seeing it at
all.  I think it's basically planted for the express PURPOSE of Harry
seeing it.  Suppose you're ESE!Snape. Your working as a double agent
for LV by POSING as a double agent for DD.  LV couldn't have been too
happy that ESE!Snape is being ordered to teach Harry occlumency,
especially since entering Harry's mind was a pretty successful tool
for LV in OoTP.  So here's Snape, having to teach LV mortal enemy how
to fend off intrusion. 

Carol responds:

As you indicate in your last paragraph (snipped), Snape need not be
ESE! for the memory to be a plant. He does hate Harry, and he probably
wouldn't mind an excuse to end the Occlumency lessons. But how is he
to anticipate that Harry will have, and take, the opportunity to enter
the Pensieve? Snape has already run off once, leaving the Pensieve
unguarded, to see who is screaming upstairs (the Trelawney/Umbridge
incident) and Harry followed him on that occasion. When he runs out a
second time (to rescue Montague), he probably assumes that Harry will
just leave his office and return to the rescheduled lesson as
instructed. And certainly Harry *ought* to have closed the door and
obeyed him. I do think that Snape was uncharacteristically careless or
trusting in this scene, but I see no reason why he would want Harry to
see him humiliated. Also, if the memory is a plant, how was Snape to
know that Harry would see that particular memory rather than one of
the other two that he placed there? Snape may be a good actor, but his
anger is clearly unfeigned. (Although Harry thinks that Snape threw
the jar of cockroaches at him, I think it exploded as accidental
magic, rather like Aunt Marge's brandy glass in PoA.) At any rate,
even if you're right, Snape need not be ESE! to want to end the
lessons, which are wasting his time as Harry is making no effort to
learn. Snape may even fear that they're doing more harm than good and
opening Harry's mind to the Dark Lord, in which case planting the
memories in the Pensieve to tempt Harry would provide DDM!Snape with
an excuse for ending the lessons. Whatever happened, Dumbledore is
clearly not angry with Snape.

Andrea:
 PLUS, it turns out that Harry might have some talent at it 
> when he applies himself and even starts to fight back to enter ESE!
> Snape's mind.  This has become, not only inconvenient for LV, but 
> potentially dangerous for ESE!Snape as well. <snip>

Carol responds:
Talent? JKR suggests otherwise in a recent interview, noting that
unlike Draco, Harry has difficulty compartmentalizing his emotions.
Snape has told Harry that he can use any spell he chooses to ward off
the spells, but that it's best to use his mind as he did with the
Imperius Curse in Fake!Moody's class. He (faintly) praises Harry
("That was not as bad as it might have been")when he succeeds in
fending off the spell.

It's important to note, however, that the three memories that Harry
sees are not the result of a deliberate effort on his part to block
Snape's spell, much less the result of his own Legilimency spell. They
are the result of an accidental Protego (Shield Charm) that deflects
Snape's Legilimency spell onto its caster. ("Did you mean to cast a
Shield Charm? I thought not.") Snape is angry here but suppresses his
anger because Harry has (accidentally) done what he is supposed to do.
(And it's most likely in anticipation of an incident like this one
that Snape put the three memories in the Pensieve in the first place.
These are the ones he doesn't want Harry to see if he manages to do
what he's supposed to do.)

What makes Snape even angrier is that Harry is not trying, that he has
memories that are not his own. ("What are that man and that room doing
in your mind, Potter?") And when Harry sees the memory of his dream of
the DoM, actually prolonging it rather than preventing Snape from
seeing it, Snape stops it himself. Almost certainly he reports this
incident to Dumbledore. It's possible that when Snape stops the
Occlumency lessons because of Harry's intrusion into his Pensieve, DD
agrees with him that they should be stopped and uses Snape's hatred of
James as his excuse to Harry rather than admitting that he and Snape
had consulted together and felt that the lessons were not having the
desired effect because Harry himself was not trying. (Considering that
Harry is upset over Sirius Black's death, blaming him for not doing
his best to learn Occlumency would have been both badly timed and
tactless on DD's part.)

Whatever Snape's reason(s) for stopping the Occlumency lessons, it is
not Harry's (nonexistent) talent. As late as their final confrontation
in HBP, Snape is still telling Harry to close his mouth (nonverbal
spells) and his mind (Occlumency). Whether Occlumency will help him
against LV or not is irrelevant here. Snape believes that it will, and
he is still, even as Harry is raging at him for killing Dumbledore,
trying to get that lesson into his head.

Carol, who obviously doesn't see Snape as ESE! and can't see any
advantage for him in loyalty to Voldemort