Snape's Behaviour and Legilimency

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161591

Tinktonks wrote:
<snip>>
> So back to Harry Potter. Harry doesn't REALLY understand what a
> Legimens sees or feels. Snape is adamant it is not like reading a
> book as Harry understands 'mind reading'. LV always knows when
> people are lying. I think it is not just PICTURES that you see, like
> in the penseive, but feelings and thoughts. (Canon for this would be
> where LV knows Wormtail wants to desert him in GOF).

Carol responds:
Snape says that Voldemort can usually tell when a person is lying and
only a skilled Occlumens can conceal the thought or memory that
reveals the lie. But it's not clear whether those thoughts and
memories contain words and sounds or only pictures. We do know,
however, that the "thought" that rises to the forefront of Harry's
mind when Snape is using Legilimency on him in "Sectumsempra" is the
image of his Potions book--no sound, no thoughts, no accompanying
actions, just a mental image of a book (one that Snape is sure to
recognize, particularly if the book is opened to reveal the
handwriting in the margins). The image is all that's required for
Snape to know that Harry is "a liar and a cheat" (IOW, Harry didn't
find Sectumsempra in a library book, as Snape would know already,
having invented the spell himself; he found it in the HBP's [Snape's]
old Potions book, which Harry is obviously using to "earn" undeserved
high marks in Potions. 

The memories revealed through the Legilimens spell that Snape uses
(including his own memories revealed through Harry's Protego) in OoP
also appear to be silent images (at any rate, no sounds are described
though it's possible that Harry hears what the hook-nosed man is
shouting at Snape's mother), but they are presented in third-person,
with young Severus or Harry visible in most cases, just as the person
whose memory is being explored is visible in the Pensieve. In no case
 is harry or the reader inside that person's mind, experiencing
his thoughts and feelings. What is revealed through the Legilimens
spell and the thoughts/memories removed from a person's head and
placed in a Pensieve is an objective record of the memory, what a
third-person observer would see and perhaps hear, not what the person
felt at the time. Harry feels neither Severus's pain nor his
humiliation in the "worst memory"; he only observes and/or deduces them.

Tonktonks:
> This being the case I am totally buying in to the theory that
> Snape's Worst memory was extracted by LV with Snape's running
> commentary of thoughts. <snip>

Carol:
Snape specifically placed this memory in the Pensieve so that neither
Harry nor Voldemort (using Legilimency on Harry or accessing it via
the scar) could see it. He would know if Voldemort had actually
extracted the memory, which would require a wand, not the fleeting
glimpse allowed by the Legilimens spell or eye-to-eye Legilimency, and
would require a Pensieve to view. And Voldemort would not know from
the memory, with its third-person perspective, how Snape felt about
Lily. He would only know that the angry and humiliated Teen!Severus
had turned on his would-be rescuer and called her a Mudblood and that
she had retaliated by calling him Snivellus and telling him to wash
his underwear. Voldemort, who knows nothing about love, would hardly
infer from this bit of information, even if it were available to him,
that Teen!Snape loved Lily. Most likely, he would think that Snape
would be glad to see both James and Lily dead. But my point is, he
wouldn't have access to any such detailed memory, only perhaps a
glimpse of Lily and Severus exchanging angry insults (each had hurt
the other's feelings or pride)--assuming that young Snape did not know
Occlumency at that time, a point I'm not convinced of.

Tinktonks:
> This explains to me the look of hatred he has when he AK's DD. He
> hates himself as realizes fully for the first time that he 'loves'
> DD and that this has caused DD's death (In Snape's mind if not in
> reality-or WW reality anyway)

Carol:
The look relates to Dumbledore, not to Lily, and is better explained
by his hating himself for killing Dumbledore or (temposarily) hating
Dumbledore for forcing him to keep the UV and kill him. The similarity
to Harry's feeling of revulsion (repulsion) for feeding Dumbledore the
poison in the Pensievelike bowl in the cave cannot be coincidence, IMO.

Tinktonks:
> I also think that Snape's hatred is not really aimed at Harry, it is
> caused by Harry. Snape hates himself for depriving Harry of a
> family, he also hates that he has caused this boy to be marked as
> LV's equal and possibly be murdered by him. That's why he is so
> strict on Harry and gets so annoyed when Harry is bad at something.
> When Neville is rubbish Snape ignores him most of the time,
> occasionally remarking on his inadequacies. When Harry is bad it is
> almost a manic disapproval with Snape.
>
> I think Snape believes in the prophecy, and is fighting against the
> possibility that he (Snape) could be responsible for the loss of the
> WW's last chance of defeating LV by marking someone unworthy.

Carol:
While I more or less agree with these two paragraphs, this view does
not require Voldemort's knowledge of Snape's worst memory or even of
his feelings, if any, for Lily. Snape's self-hatred or remorse has
already been explained as relating to his regret for revealing the
Prophecy to Voldemort, and, IMO, it was greatly intensified by his
failure to prevent the Potters' deaths. We don't know why he regretted
their deaths. Maybe he simply didn't want to be a party to the murder
of people he knew, particularly an innocent child. Maybe it relates to
the life debt (how dare James die without letting Snape repay the life
debt!) or to unrequited love for Lily or simple respect and affection
for her despite the insult that escaped him when she injured his pride
by trying to rescue him (he was quite capable of defending himself in
a fair fight even then, IMO).

I agree that Snape knows that Harry is the Chosen One though he's not
happy about it and that he's doing his best to provoke Harry into
learning--following rules and directions, remembering what a bezoar is
for, understanding Occlumency and the consequences of not learning it.
I disagree that he doesn't care what Neville learns. He's determined
that Neville will learn what he's doing wrong in Potions if it takes
threatening to test his potion on Trevor to do it. (Not the greatest
teaching methods, but I do think he desperately wants them both to
learn without his coddling or favoring them, which would be at odds
with both his natural instincts and the image he wants to present to
Draco and the other children of DEs. 

I've already discussed my in loco inimicis theory--in both
Occlumency and DADA, Snape presents himself as Harry's enemy in order
to force Harry to react (to repel the Legilimens spell or to cast a
nonverbal Protego). In essence, he is provoking Harry into practicing
on him the skills he'll need when he faces his real enemy, Voldemort.
It's the only way he can reach a boy who hates and distrusts him and
whom he in turn hates and distrusts, the only way he knows to force
him to learn what he needs to know to destroy their common enemy,
Voldemort. This confrontational style appears one last time in the
duel in which Snape easily and contemptuously deflects Harry's
attempts to attack him, using Legilimency on him as Voldemort would
and taunting him to close his mouth (nonverbal spells) and his mind
(Occlumency).

As for Snape hating his having caused this boy to be marked as
Voldemort's equal, he doesn't know that part of the Prophecy (unless
he's removed his own memory and explored it in the Pensieve, unknown
to Dumbledore), but his role in Harry's becoming the Prophecy Boy is
already explained by his being the eavesdropper without the need for
LV to know his worst memory or his feelings, if any, about Lily.

Carol, who thinks that "Snape's Worst Memory" is the narrator's
description, reflecting Harry's pov, and not necessarily accurate
(certainly, it's not accurate after HBP if Snape is DDM)