Snape as Harry's protector or not WAS Snape and moral courage LONG

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184743

Pippin:
<SNIP>
Why should Dumbledore make it obvious to Snape that he is hiding
something, when he can probably do what Snape does when he is dealing
with Voldie, and give him the guided tour? Let Snape sense only those
thoughts and memories that Dumbledore wants him to see, I mean.


> Alla:
> OH. I got it.  Do we know that Snape does that with Voldemort
though? Gives him guided tour, I mean, is that possible at all? <snip>

Carol responds:

Just one quick response here. I think the evidence that Snape's
Occlumency operates that way is pretty clear.

We know that Voldemort looks into Snape's eyes in "The Dark Lord
rising" and comes away satisfied that Snape is telling him the whole
truth. We know that Snape is "hoodwinking" him (to use his phrase in
"Spinner'se End" because Vodemort doesn't learn the one key piece of
evidence that Snape is hiding, the Polyjuiced Potters plan. and we
know that Voldie, the greatest Legilimens the world has ever known,
enters the minds of his victims as if they were a Pensieve (as he does
with Gregorovitch).

So I think given all that (plus additional evidence from "Spinner's
End" and the first Occlumency lesson that I don't have time to cite)
that Snape does indeed give Voldemort a guided tour. Voldie sees what
he thinks is a complete memory, but Snape, the superb Occlumens who
can use Occlumency without being detected, leaves one room (so to
speak) out of the tour. It's very different from Draco's clumsy and
easily detectable use of Occlumency on Snape.

If Snape couldn't give Voldemort a guided tour every time Voldemort
examines his mind (which is probably every time he reports
information), he'd have been dead long before.

We don't have quite as much evidence of Dumbledore's powers as an
Occlumens as we do of Snape's, but knowing DD, he's probably just as
skilled. He may even have been Snape's teacher. (I can't see LV
teaching him!)
  
Carol, still catching up on posts and expecting to fall behind again
beginning tomorrow